The problem with Facebook, beyond just ads, is that its algorithm pushes so many posts from groups that I'm not in and don't want to see. I want an option to only see posts from people I'm friends with and groups that I'm in.
If you're on the website (not app):
https://www.facebook.com/?filter=all&sk=h_chr
If you just want to see friends and not groups:
https://www.facebook.com/?filter=friends&sk=h_chr
(I am "Meta Verified", but they still locked my account over my name even though I sent them my ID. They have been "reviewing" my ID for the past two months. If anyone can help, my email is in my HN profile. Thank you.)
I discovered FB purity [1] recently, which does cut down on the algorithm's spam in your feed. But it turns out people have already moved on.
£2/month would have been a tempting proposition 7-8 years ago. But £4/month in 2025 makes no sense. It is only offered to make the regulators happy.
i have no friends and have never posted or liked anything, so my feed is almost exclusively algorithmically-pushed content. and there are a couple of thoughts about it:
- even though i haven't explicitly told you anything about myself except for looking at a couple local business, it's amazing how much it has been able to fine-tuning the feed to me. it has figured out my politics (not typical in my area), my favorite sports team (not local to my area), and my taste in standup comedy. all from watching me passively scroll.
- that being said, even though they've clearly learned some things about me, >90% of the feed is absolute clickbait shite. reposted reddit AITA threads meant to get rage-induced engagement, lots of cartoons/memes where the punchline is cropped out of the bottom of the image so you need to click to see it, lots of videos that implore you 'watch til the end!' so they can get over whatever view-time threshold is needed.
- for some reason, there are lots of people that are more than willing to actually engage with and comment on these threads. i know that i'm a bit of an outlier on the social media spectrum, but I cannot wrap my head around the logic that would lead to me seeing some engagement-farm meme roundup and then wanting to add in a comment like "LOL, so true! Very funny!". this isn't your friend where you want to tell them you liked their joke. why are you talking to the spam robot?!
You don’t want to see those, oh but you need to! /s