Have you people considered like, not using it? I, for one, enjoy Facebook and am happy it exists even if some aspects are not to my liking.
Their aggressive insinuation into the fabric of most websites ensures that there are very few places I can go without Mark Zuckerberg personally stalking me, along with a legion of inhuman advertisers.
Facebook and its sites can't stay down long enough; if they were offline forever, it wouldn't be enough. Even if this doesn't affect their advertising services, any hit to the FB ecosystem is a societal good.
Also, the word "divisive" gives me shivers. It's better to be divided than to be united in a fallacy. And in many cases getting divided is our only hope of ever arriving at the truth.
There will always be false content on social media, but I don't think that means facebook gets a pass for actively encouraging it.
It is systematic, algorithmic preferential amplification of disinformation (at the expense of real information) based on 'engagement' vs truth value, moral compass, or societal value.
And it is allowing orgs like Cambridge Analytica to harvest vast amounts of PII and use that to specifically tune and target the dezinformatsiya.
If you think of Fb as some kind of passive carrier you are horribly outdated - it hasn't done that in decades. FB curates and manages every word of data coming across it's servers at a scale and effectiveness that no actual news organization has evrer conceived of, let alone implemented. And yet they hide behind the "we're only a carrier" fallacy.
It's like the fat epidemic - sure, you can blame each bite of what to eat on the individual, but the rapidity of the overall trend makes in undeniable that the entire food supply has been skewed, limiting the choices such that only those who work diligently to avoid all the usual choices typically remain healthy.
well not just mary-sue down the road disinforming but that of nation level actors doing so to spread discord to the detriment of their enemies. facebook amplified the velocity and reach of this disinformation.
I haven't really changed my default settings and all I see are posts from my friends, the same ads over and over again, and posts from my groups (recipes, potlucks, language practice meetups, going to museums, rooms for rent, questions from expats).
There's absolutely nothing that could "radicalize" me. If you add garbage to your RSS feed reader I wouldn't blame the software, I would blame the person.
Because their FB friends post it, or the groups they are in post it, and they interact with it (even if to say "stop posting this crap" to their family members).
I used to see it a lot, then I unfollowed (but stayed "friends") with the family members who posted that crap or marked the content "don't show me this" and now I rarely see it.
I suppose that commenting or arguing with him would have the algorithm look at the words used, see that there is more interaction than normal, and promote posts from strangers that also contain those words? That's certainly how I would have designed the news feed algorithm.
So is a problem then that the algorithm can't distinguish between good interactions and bad interactions? (If it were me and I could parse comments with emotional intent to determine what are bad interactions, then I would try to learn from those bad interactions and minimize them)
If so then the duct tape fix is to just unfollow rather than let the algorithm think you're interested in that type of content. The proper fix would be to minimize bad interactions, but I guess that's where that whistleblower person is going (but that will minimize time spent on FB, minimizing revenue dun dun dun)
It's not rocket science, every user who uses YouTube and hears "comment on this video for the algorithm" knows that commenting = interaction that is perceived by the algorithm as a sign to get this seen by more people. So obviously commenting on stuff you hate will just get it seen by more people & get more stuff recommended.
It's like if I hate comedy clips and I keep clicking on each clip in order to downvote it. Of course I'll get recommended more clips.
But until having something like that, you're just guessing.
As for the reason for the hate, well, we have to deal with the radicalized people here in meatspace. It's a negative externality that we are subject to even if we aren't the target of the advertising.
After ignoring "region to the West of me" local news, I've had to delete about 40 other regions spanning farther outwards. FB keep pushing more data for you to interact with which in itself is not exactly healthy.
And it's easy to say ignore it, the simple fact it's in front of me, in the part of the screen where I'm reading new information is the problem.
It's not radicalising, it's just an absolute time and life suck. If it weren't for COVID and lockdown I'm sure my local cause would prefer not to use Facebook.