Comment by internetter | Hacker News Reader

Comment by internetter | Hacker News Reader

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> But this is Meta/IG we’re talking about, I’m sure they’ll get their near-freaky level of algorithmic content targeting precision in there soon enough

I keep hearing this. "Oh! The Algorithm gets me so well! It's so freaky!" about TikTok, IG, everything really... But let me tell you how my IG feed goes:

I get 3 posts at the top, posted by my friends. I like all of them – even if I didn't like it. I'm just pleading to the algorithm to show me more from the people I care about. I then scroll for another 30 seconds through endless muck of golden retrievers, frat boys, etc. I'm hoping to see another post from my friends, but it just doesn't come. I leave the app for another week, until my friend shows me a post she made 2 weeks ago that was never shown to me.

The algorithm makes social media a painful experience I avoid. I've enjoyed Mastodon, Snapchat, and BeReal MAGNITUDES more... Platforms without one, platforms where I'm actually "social".

exactly. the instagram algorithm is horrendous. until this thread I'd never heard a single person praise it. suspicious? I don't know

for example, a while ago a friend sent me 3 or 4 relationship memes. I didn't like the posts, I may, at most, have reacted to one or two in chat, but since then my suggested posts have been 20-30% relationship memes. no matter how many times I say "I am not interested in content like this" or after blocking about 30 of the most common relationship meme hashtags, I still get the same 20-30% of posts, just now they have no or unusual tags. and then more recently, seemingly appropros of nothing this time - bodybuilding/fitness memes! it's the opposite of freakily good

I primarily use Instagram to follow artists, but yeah, my experience is about the same as what you listed. Before I took a hiatus from it, I just started going directly to my friend's pages to see if they shared anything new, and directly to the artists' pages to see if they were selling prints. Better than being forced to look at ads for essential oils vape pens.

Same here. These days I only use Instagram to post art made and rendered during my commutes and consume similarly fashioned content. I haven't reached the point in "making prints available" nor have the desire to at this point in time.

I’ve stopped using the algorithm on IG. Instead I use the “Following” feed (tap the Instagram logo in the top left on the home pane) which is a reverse chronological feed of only the people I follow.

Yeah. That's better, agreed. I've been muting lots of accounts I want to follow, just to get the feed down to a clean friends only feed. It's better, but I guess my big point is that algorithms suck, at least from a user's perspective (I'm sure 90% junk mixed with 10% content to keep users engaged does wonders for profits)

Twitter unambiguously separates out the feed of people you're following and the algorithmic feed ("For you") in separate tabs (plus you can pin separate lists as tabs). It also opens up the feed you last used when you open a new session. Plus, the algorithm for the "For you" feed is open source[0]

0. https://github.com/twitter/the-algorithm

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