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Comment by KptMarchewa | Hacker News Reader

>Everyone's News Feed is unique, which means you're more likely to see content you want to watch, groups you want to join, creators you want to follow, and products and services you want to buy.

This is so bullshit. It means that I'm more likely to see content Facebook wants me to see, that maximizes some of their metrics. There's nothing for me there.

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Yes, Facebook restricting Pages’ organic reach only to require the Page owners to invest heavily in advertising to make up for the difference was a real death knell for the concept of the digital public square on there.

I've seen ads on Facebook where a prominent show host has a beaten up face, full with bruises, and the tagline "you wouldn't believe what happened to him". More than twice, two different personalities. I'm pretty sure these ads were made without the consent of the displayed persons, or their management.

If Facebook wants to show me this kind of ads, it tells me all what Facebook is about. They don't have control about the ads they show, nor do they care about what ads they show.

And no, I am not a violent person, am not interested contact sports, so this is not a personalized ad, and no context exists where these ads could be helpful or meaningful.

I really do despise Facebook.

It's a big reason I bailed on FB years ago. Friends would post and yet FB's algorithm decided I was not interested in it. And vice versa.

I know it's easy, algorithmically, to simply show me all posts from my friends since the last time I logged in. And that's actually all I expected of FB.

It’s possible for those two initiatives to be aligned.

Highly unlikely, that’s just a lie marketeers tell themselves so they can sleep at night.

for the "products and services you want to buy", metric is maximum revenue for facebook. There is no chance these two initiatives can be aligned, as long as there is "bid" part in the equation. If you have 0.01% interest in my product but I have deep pockets, you will see my ad all the time.

That’s not how businesses work. They don’t burn money on useless ads, just to annoy you.

But that means products with more margin (which will profit from me more) can replace products which I would like most.

There are already on instagram products selling for 10x their market price with 40% discount (limited time offer)

Basically annoying me is side effect, not their purpose

You can say that about almost anything.

I've tried to hide / report things in the feed but it keeps feeding me the same BS I don't want. So yeah, they show what they want us to see.

(NOT a FB supporter) At least one can block/unfollow certain people/pages. I assume that would finally leave them out of your sight. Yes you would have to block-list 99% of their junk so you can only be shown what you really care for. It's a never ending battle against their machine.

In a similar note (show/block/hide) I despise that Netflix is (not) doing, that does NOT create the "I don't want to see this ever again" option, and it keeps pushing the same stuff I have already watched (either within or outside Netflix) or the stuff I will never watch.

When I can follow exactly two organizations and nothing else and not be able to see them in my timeline, the site isn’t worth my time or attention.

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