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Comment by ddoolin | Hacker News Reader

The algorithm just gives you more of what you asked for. :)

No, it gives you what's trending for the categories you're into. I like biking. What kind of biking content does get the most likes and is therefore suggested on Instagram? Woman in tight clothes with unzipped tops. I'm into skiing, what kind of content do I get? Girls skiing in bikinis. I'm following some coaches for a sport I participate in, what kind of content do I get? Girls in yoga pants doing exercises at the gym.

For every category, there will be someone doing a sexualized version of it. Those get lots of eyeballs and likes, and hence get boosted into suggestions for that category. And it's not like I get every post like that. But often enough that I no longer scroll in public for fear of what NSFW things will show up.

But this reminded me of another thing once popping up in my feed: my own private pictures.

I first got a bit shocked. Did I accidentally post these to Facebook?? But no, it was just a suggestion from Facebook, "share these photos". But I was on the bus, I didn't expect these photos to suddenly be on my screen for those around me to see (pictures of a medical condition). And it creeped me out that Facebook was looking through my phone's gallery when I'm not explicitly doing it to upload an image.

I ended up blocking file access for Facebook. Which now makes it impossible for me to post pictures. Which in turn of course means I barely post anymore. Great thinking, PMs.

I find it obnoxious that Facebook doesn't use the default system file picker (which doesn't require filesystem access permissions to use).

With other apps I can easily select photos even if they aren't locally available on my device. With Facebook I need to manually download the files from Google Photos, paste them into a local device folder, and only then will they actually show up in Facebook's weird, poorly-designed photo picker UI. Not exactly the best user experience.

Yeah, the same with Messenger. Want to send someone a photo from last year? Good luck scrolling through their clunky interface a thousand pictures back, vs just using the jump-to-month in my native gallery app.

Android problem that doesn’t exist on iOS because Apple keeps a leash on them. Walled garden is nice like that.

This kind of content used to never show up on my Instagram feed but one day I tapped a few too many profiles deep and now I have the same issue. Pure trash

This feels a bit like saying that the opioid epidemic is due to drug users buying more. Sure, all of them made a decision at some point to start using. But that doesn't remove the responsibility of those pushing the product to at least allow users to say "please stop" and then actually stop.

It’s always funny to make a tongue-in-cheek joke about this, but asking for fewer thirst traps is still a legitimate request from people who click them.

Imagine a gambling addict or an alcoholic asking to see fewer casino and booze ads and being told stop complaining because "the algorithm just shows you what you want"

Is this true? I'm under the impression that social media platforms can't tell the difference between looking at some content because you enjoyed it versus looking at some content because you don't like it and you're confused why it's being served to you.

I imagine after enough times clicking on content out of confusion, preference become clear

It doesn't matter because

> The algorithm just gives you more of what you asked for.

It doesn't matter whether you asked for more because you hate it or love it. The algorithm prioritizes identifying the content with which you will engage.

No. "What you asked for" is a bold faced lie. By your account it shows you what you engaged with, even though you literally didn't ask for it.

And even "engaged with" is bullshit. What the hell does "engage with" even mean? What you really should be saying is it gives you more of what you pause scrolling on. That is neither asking for something, nor "engaging".

That's BS. You haven’t seen their their algorithm and neither have I. Tech companies are far too quick to refer to their little opaque boxes as having supernatural powers to "show me what I want".