I finally caved and got back onto Facebook after nearly 10 years off.

The first night I went in, added all of the people in my local BNI chapter and everyone I knew from my gym. My goal was to focus exclusively on local community building and staying in touch with people I’d probably see again soon.

I closed out of the app for the night, came back the next morning, and my timeline was 20% women in a jungle setting taking off their clothing. We counted, it was 1 in 5 posts.

Unless they already had a shadow profile for me, this seems to be some sort of default for my demographic (gender and age). I can’t imagine “small business and gym” would yield this outcome.

It has taken almost a month to eliminate actual soft pornography from my timeline by reporting it. But still my timeline is full of sexually suggestive and offensive material.

In fact, my timeline is only about 33% my local community. Everything else is a hodgepodge of random garbage content getting jammed into my feed. From DIY pro-tips that’ll get you killed to sexually suggestive memes.

I wish I could turn off recommended content.

It’s confirmed my reason for being reluctant to rejoin Meta for the last 10 years. I’ve almost caved and purchased the Oculus, but I’m back in the “nope, no Meta” camp. Facebook is a downright awful experience, both technically, socially, and mentally.

I assume their algorithm for me points my interest in technology and memes to 4chan reposts; my interest in the gym and weightlifting to nearly naked women; and I have no clue why it wants me to watch people die.

This is all speculation from me trying to follow the data points I assume they know about me. But I don't want to see those posts -- I always use the not interested button, don't interact, and my other traffic on Instagram really shouldn't point me this way.

All this said, I don't use Instagram as much anymore, and have been entertaining deleting my account. I haven't yet because I advertise and communicate on Instagram quite a bit.