They could have made the algorithm so it showed users brand new different material, or opposing material, or more details, or related material from friends instead of corporations, or from people geographically nearby, or chronological, or let users find their own material and/or build their own feeds.
Instead of any of that they show them similar material, like you said, effectively putting everyone in echo chambers.
The top comment mentions people hiding posts from pages they don't follow - alternatively, that's called showing brand new content you haven't seen before.
Opposing material suggests a binary, sure that makes some sense in a US centric political spectrum, but what's the opposing viewpoint to my friends photo from hiking last weekend?
Geographically nearby could mean my neighbor 5 doors down who I don't know anything about and am not friends with. Do you think, if she were a privacy-concerned individual like many people on HN are, she'd be happy to know I saw her post about her new flowers?
It's less narrative control and more human condition - if anything I'm glad they tried this experiment. Chronological feeds are how you end up with news teams spamming posts every three minutes, and you having to hit the hide button every time.
These were people who had already been sorted into echo chambers. Turning off the algorithm sent data to them they had already learned to hide. I'd be interested to see how this same experiment fared with completely new user. Maybe we'll run across a new tribe in the Amazon or something so we can try this out.
They do this anyway.
Or you just stop following the spammy ones
People don't want Facebook to be a chore.
Brand new, yes, facebook is biased to new stuff. Its just there is a high incentive to repost old shit, because spammers know its effective.
Opposing material? no, that requires comprehensive understanding of the context of the share, the content of the material and the target audience's overton window.
> let users find their own material and/or build their own feeds.
virtually nobody does this, or indeed wants to do it. What's more its very rare that anyone is any good at it (hence why people don't subscribe to news wire services)
also, the research emphatically underscores this. People hunt more, and are less engaged. its more effort.