[mbo]

My mother is an international flight attendant in her 60s.

I recently caught a glimpse of her Facebook and I was shocked to discover a version of the website that seemed to be the platonic ideal of exactly what all the Facebook PMs intended. Her feed was filled with the photos of her friends and coworkers international trips and holidays, posts in groups for planning activities in her most frequented cities. But I discovered that my mum was also a frequent "poster" of the photos of her various trips around the world, and the comments sections were filled with with some beautiful messages from her many many friends and family.

From this I learned that there is a subset of the population that Facebook works perfectly for and meaningfully improves their real-world social relationships. And perhaps Facebook has been hyper-optimized for that kind of use case through relentless A/B testing. But I fear my mum is quite privileged to have this kind of experience.

[whyenot]

As a middle aged (gen x) woman, my facebook feed is pretty good. It's filled with posts from friends and interest groups that I am a part of. The reason I no longer use FB has nothing to do with the feed, it's because Mark Zuckerberg is an awful person, and I refuse to use his product. The cognitive dissonance is great here, because I still use WhatsApp; it's the best way to stay in contact with my relatives in Europe, and I still use IG, albeit mostly for work, and sparingly.

[dboreham]

I'm still a FB user even though most friends and relatives have disengaged due to toxicity. But what I've noticed consistently is that any group on FB that has more than 1000 members will end up surfacing so much toxic sentiment that I have to unsubstantiated. I'm talking about innocuous fields such as the local road conditions. That one became full of rants about out of state drivers, drivers who don't understand English, people posting license plates of bad drivers, etc. This has led me to a theory that humans just can't behave nicely beyond some threshold group size.

[DeathArrow]

My Facebook feed is great, my X feed is great. I don't use Facebook and X because I like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk but because I genuinely read interesting things and I interact with people I like.

That being said, I don't spend too much time on social networks because I have lots of other things to do.

[curious_af]

International flight attendant. So the algorithms for people that travel internationally a lot are drastically different from the people who remain stationary. If Facebook wanted to prevent themselves from negative publicity, they might have a different experience for the people who have political power (international travel might be the best proxy for that)

What you're referring to may also be part of their XCheck program which came to light back in 2021

[Aurornis]

> So the algorithms for people that travel internationally a lot are drastically different from the people who remain stationary.

I can confirm the same experience as the parent commenter for my family who still use Facebook even though most of them don't travel internationally.

> If Facebook wanted to prevent themselves from negative publicity, they might have a different experience for the people who have political power (international travel might be the best proxy for that)

I think the much simpler explanation is more likely: People who use Facebook for engaging with friends and family content will see more friends and family content. I don't think this is Facebook playing 4D chess trying to hide content from politicians by detecting who is traveling internationally. I mean, if Facebook did want to have a separate algorithm for politicians, don't you think they could come up with something better than triggering on international travel?

[bko]

I think you're overthinking it. She probably just has a lot of real people connections and drives the algo to meaningful interactions. When a ghost logs in, they don't know what to show so default to "general" spam which is just AI generated woman.

[duskwuff]

I have a feeling it might be less "avoid negative publicity"; more "give a premium experience to influencers" (for a broad definition of that term).

A user - like mbo's mother - who posts a lot of content which generates a lot of reposts and other positive interactions is basically a gold mine for Facebook. It's in their interest to treat that user with kid gloves to get them to keep posting, even if it means foregoing some revenue opportunities.

[underlipton]

I've been convinced for some time that access to some resource component that determines the quality of search/AI results is divvied up likewise. Why waste resources on users who have no audience or influence? If they're frustrated, who cares? Instead, identify the people who people already listen to, and make sure their experience with the platform is optimal. Even if the service is horrible for the vast majority of users, the gatekeepers and tastemakers will insist that they're just imagining things.

[0x457]

Could it be due to someone actually using facebook so algorithm works in their favor. When I worked in REDACTED when you not frequent user you'd get generic "what is popular for everyone" feed because empty-feed = bad-feed.

[nindalf]

The XCheck program has nothing to do with anything you’re thinking of. You read some old misinformation and didn’t read the post debunking the misinformation.

Source: me. https://nindalf.com/posts/xcheck/

[duxup]

I logged out of facebook years ago only to find out an old friend / former coworker had died. Everyone knew, because of facebook, but not me :(

It’s certainly the social hub for some groups.

[npodbielski]

People with those kind of arguments always get from response that if you were not trying to keep in touch with this friend personally then it was not truly a friend. Facebook friends does not equal real life friend.

[krn1p4n1c]

My feed is like this too. I rarely use FB now, but I’ve aggressively pruned and blocked anything that becomes political or negative.

[fullstop]

I unfollowed everyone except for a few family members. It really wants to give you the infinite scroll and started showing me some really bizarre stuff. So much AI slop, and random content.

For about a week it kept showing me nursing mothers, no matter how many times I said "I don't want to see this" and blocking. I have no problem with women nursing, but these were done in a way to be sexually provocative.

After that it started showing me AI houses and kitchens, with kitchen taps but no sink basin.

I just gave up at that point.

[wolvoleo]

Facebook was this to me. Because I lived in many countries. Just seeing what my friends in other countries were experiencing <3

But they blocked the old timeline where I could just see the updates from everyone I follow and nothing else. And replaced it with this feed with stupid influencer crap. Now I had to weed through all the shit to see what the people I care about were doing. It wasn't worth it for me so I left soon after, like a decade ago.

Maybe they've rolled some of the crap back but it's too little too late for me.

[creddit]

Yeah I just logged in to see if it was really this bad an all I got were:

(1) extremely, impressively relevant ads. (2) posts from people I know that were mostly nice except for my uncle who seemed to be posting nonsense.

[harrall]

People say the same about Instagram but my feed is like all about making clothes, welding, construction stuff, funny memes, snowboarding, etc. It’s all good stuff.

I just don’t interact with political content on social media — not because I’m apolitical but I don’t want to hear random people’s takes on matters.

[drnick1]

The privacy cost of Facebook is too high. Even if you have "nothing to hide" today, sooner or later you will post something you wish you had not posted, or someone else will do it for you. Once data about you is out there, it is impossible to remove, and the only recourse is to wait for that information to become irrelevant or outdated (if ever). For example, some employers have been known to spy on their employees through Facebook. Others have been harmed when searching for jobs because of things they posted on FB or other antisocial media, often long ago.

Facebook should not have multiple high quality photos of 1/2 of the planet, their children, pets, friends and family, in addition to their real-time location obtained through the spyware companion app. Not even governments used to have this kind of insight into people's lives not so long ago, and it is certainly very alarming that a spyware/adtech firm now does.

[randomNumber7]

> Facebook should not have multiple high quality photos of 1/2 of the planet, their children, pets, friends and family, in addition to their real-time location obtained through the spyware companion app.

If adults decide to give them all this information aren't they the ones that should be blamed?

[hackernewds]

Maybe you are too young to have noticed, but this is how Facebook used to be for every one. Until some a/b testing likely led to short term engagement boosts for news content and that's all you could see - especially during the 2016 news cycle with (allegedly Russian) political ads. Then people stopped posting, and others stopped posting, feedback loop and here we are.

[mgraczyk]

This is lie, I was there and this is not at all what happened

[firesteelrain]

If it wasn’t for groups, events, and marketplace, I wouldn’t use FB.

Marketplace has supplanted Craigslist near me.

Events - no good replacement. Meetup isn’t as ubiquitous.

Groups - nothing as good except maybe groups.io. But, that doesn’t have the same common folk. It’s still more niche.

It could be that middle America is catching up where big city America has moved on. And maybe that’s the demographic that FB is serving now.

[wvenable]

My Facebook feed (I visit just for marketplace) is also not quite like the author's feed. I don't have a lot of AI content or thirst traps. I wonder if he's got some sort of the default young male algorithm experience.

I wouldn't say my Facebook is good -- I don't interact with it enough for it to be anything.

[pavlov]

My Facebook is honestly nice, it’s the most relaxing social media for me.

The promoted posts are books and artists and occasional gym content. Ads are relevant or at least not annoying (SuitSupply seems to think I’m their ideal customer, and I don’t mind looking at their handsome models in this season’s knitwear). The people I know post mostly about meaningful or harmless stuff.

But it’s probably like this because I joined over ten years after everyone else did. I didn’t activate my Facebook account until 2018 when I got a job at FB and it was mandatory. Then I found out that it was actually a good way to curate a set of people from my youth that I genuinely wanted to reconnect with.

That’s probably what made the difference compared to many whose FB social graphs were built up early and never pruned.

[jcgrillo]

Wow they make you use facebook at facebook? That's twisted. That would be like.. idk.. Phillip Morris making you smoke a pack a day.

[actionfromafar]

I laughed out loud. "I found that I loved Big Brother from my youth." Genuinely no offense meant, it was just funny.

[ksec]

I am glad something great about Facebook is being voted on top on HN. Along with another day on post about OpenAI adopting Ads as revenue solution to problem.

It shows the world is healing.

[Aurornis]

This is how my parents' Facebook feeds look, too. And my wife's. And my friends who still use it.

I log in a couple times per year and see the same thing. It's nice to catch up with the friends who still use it.

One thing I've noticed over the years on HN is that many of the people talking confidently about Facebook also start their posts with "I'm glad I deleted my Facebook account 8 years ago, but..." and then go on to describe what they imagine Facebook is like for everyone else, as pieced together through the type of sensational headlines that hit the Hacker News front page every day.

There's another failure mode where someone tries to use Facebook but doesn't have any active friends on the site. They might scroll past photos from friends and family to click on ragebait links or engage with someone debating politics because they can't resist an internet argument. The algorithm takes note that this is what they engage with and gives them more of it, while showing less of the content they're scrolling past. Then they wonder why their feeds are full of topics that make them angry.

There's even an explicit feature to tell the algorithm what you want to see less of: You click the three dots and click "Hide post". They even have useful tools to unfollow people without unfriending them, which is highly useful for those people can't politely disconnect from but whose content you don't want to see. Using these tools even a little bit goes a long way to cleaning up your feed.

Meanwhile, people like my parents and extended family treat Facebook like a friendly gathering where everyone knows discussions of politics and religion are off the table. They click "Like" on things they want to see more of. They leave nice comments under photos of their friends and family. Their feeds adapt and give them what they want.

[nephihaha]

I did delete a previous Facebook account, but got forced back into it due to work. I don't really use it for friends much now. It is much better as a result although I still see it trying to pull me one direction or another. I would happily delete the entire lot because I don't find it functional.

"There's even an explicit feature to tell the algorithm what you want to see less of: You click the three dots and click "Hide post". They even have useful tools to unfollow people without unfriending them, which is highly useful for those people can't politely disconnect from but whose content you don't want to see. Using these tools even a little bit goes a long way to cleaning up your feed."

I've really never liked that feature. It is what creates echo chambers, because you just get infinite agreemtn. For some reason, Faecebook only tends to show me one individual's posts over others. We're not unfriendly but not good mates. On the other hand thanks to the features you seem to be talking about, I get to hear about bereavements, birthdays, engagements etc days or weeks after they happened which is no use to me.

[shufflerofrocks]

I'm a 30 year old and I have a similar experience. Facebook has almost always been a pleasant experience for me - not just updates from friends but also the new stuff that comes in the feed, which is why I kept getting confused about the reports of fb being a hell hole, until I understood the rabidity & variability of their algorithm.

FB Groups are one of the best corners of the internet imo.

[vanjajaja1]

a common complaint about instagram is that you can no longer see your friends, just creators. i assume creators don't have this problem though, since they're having fun seeing all their creator friends

[nephihaha]

I have a Facebook friend similar to your mother. A solicitor (so makes a lot of money), off travelling to beautiful places much of the time.

However, there is an element of one upmanship about social media. You see pictures of nice holidays abroad, nice cars and happy families... And then you find out some of the same folk are about to divorce or go bankrupt.

The algo keeps showing me one person's feed but not others. I don't mind said person, but we are not close. Facebook tells me about birthdays, bereavements etc often two or three weeks after they happen which is no good.

[suzzer99]

I have my Facebook feed curated enough that it shows me reels I like (landslides, dance-offs, kids or animals doing cute things - nothing salacious). Of course, AI crap filters in, but a majority are still good.

Even the sponsored posts are very often interesting summaries of historical events or scientific wonders. They're AI most of the time, which goes on and on. So I read the first part and then go to wikipedia if I'm more interested.

I'm also in a bunch of private groups that are spam-free. Some travel-related groups have turned out to be invaluable resources.

So it does work if you train it on what you like.

[jasondigitized]

Was she using the 'Friends' tab? Anything else is complete trash.

[bdangubic]

This is regular feed. I have another friend that is like OP's Mom, basically posts 4-10x per day. her main feed is basically just her and her friend's stuff, comments etc etc (few ads here and there of course but basically her feed looks like OG Facebook)

[tgma]

Could it be that the problem is users’ own interest in being outraged? A reflection of their mental state and anxiety that they then project to Facebook as if that’s the root cause.

[shevy-java]

Right. But who fits into that niche? I in general prefer privacy so I don't share fotos of whenever I take a du.. I mean do something semi-interesting to a grand selection of three or four other people out there (or more; but these are already reallife associations). Remote "relationships" rarely work in my experience, excluding a few that are important. But I don't see how that is any business of CIAbook to keep track of.

[DeathArrow]

I live in an European country where Facebook is used often and I can say I have my wall mostly filled with posts from people that interest me and that I interact with.

[rconti]

I always really enjoyed Facebook -- much more so than any other social media network. It was all friends, friends' content, and groups I was interested in and cared about. Sure it had ads, and a bit of suggested stuff, but mostly it was interesting content, no ragebait, no politics.

But as those friends use it less and less, I use it less and less. And the less I use it, the more "suggested" crap I get. If I don't use it for a week, the site is absolute garbage.

[pants2]

To think I used to log in to Facebook every day, scroll friends' posts until it said "You're caught up!" then leave.

That's almost unimaginable now, but I deeply wish I could return to that experience. Unfortunately as the suggested content got turned up, friends stopped posting, so even with all the browser extensions in the world I can't get that same experience back.

[nradov]

My Facebook feed is also like that (although with more underwater pictures of fish). It seems fine. I don't think I'm particularly privileged. I honestly don't understand the hate that FB gets here on HN. Maybe some users are just following the wrong accounts?

[magicalist]

> I honestly don't understand the hate that FB gets here on HN. Maybe some users are just following the wrong accounts?

Sounds like you do understand the hate but you don't understand how their feeds ended up different than yours?

[keyle]

And yet, every 3-4 posts, Facebook will start interjecting posts that are outrageous, meant to create response. If she interacts with any of those, e.g. even open it wide, or stay on it a long time, BAM, more of those posts next visits.

And the cycle continues and grinds your account down to a complete hellish nightmare where you hate your city, your local councils etc. It's all a rigged platform for creating divide and hate. It drives clicks, it drives ads, it drives agendas.

[SpicyLemonZest]

I don't think that's true. I just scrolled my feed really quick, and I had to get 23 posts down before I got an even mildly controversial post. The post wasn't even anything mean, it was a screenshot of an analysis showing that the richest Americans and the Americans who donate the most money don't overlap as much as you might think.

[dingaling]

Nope, I've just opened FB in a tab. Top posts:

- Chris Hadfield using a fire extinguisher to show how rockets work

- A friend's trip to a gig

- Video of a restored TWA flight engineer training simulator

- Mountain weather for my region tomorrow

- A rare colour photo of a 1930s biplane

[dawnerd]

I only use it for cruise groups and it’s been useful but once you scroll the main feed it’s baaad. Slop after slop. And what isn’t slop is rage bait short form content or bad takes or stolen videos from the vine days it feels.

[pyreko]

I have this with Twitter surprisingly.

I only use it for animal pictures, art, and to follow artists. I usually just use the Following page, but my FYP is always just... animal pictures and art, exactly what I want. No weird right wing shit, no weird crypto shit, no drama or ragebait shit, etc... somehow.

I know some day it'll break though.

[Aurornis]

Same here. The trick is to unfollow people who start posting things you don't want to see in your feed any more. It sounds so simple, but many people treat their following list as an append-only log.

I've followed accounts for hobbies that later spiral off into the deep end of Twitter's topics of the day, which is always my sign to unfollow them.

Some people cannot resist clicking on things that make them angry, though. These websites continue serving up more of what you click on.

[numpad0]

Same. It feels like the real trick is to get platforms to think you're some kind of important person that could hurt the platform if served too much ragebaits.

And it also feels like they're compelled to maximize ragebaits for some reason - maybe the Web2 is running out of "advertiser friendly" contents.

[suzzer99]

For twitter I have a sports list that I stick to 99% of the time. A little politics filters through, but I've found that to be just the right amount.

When major events happen, I switch over to my full feed, where I follow a bunch of political posters, and go into a blind rage in minutes.

[xeonmc]

    > my FYP is always just... animal pictures and art, exactly what I want.

On Bluesky your feed will also have animal pictures and art, just not the kind you wanted.

[raincole]

I have an account to follow artists on X. Surprisingly, it never pushes even one single blatant AI artist to my feed (not saying I'm an expert to recognize AI-generate artworks, but I've done digital painting as a side gig and.) There might be some paintover or more subtle ones that eluded my radar, but I've never seen the typical AI styles on my timeline.

However, if you check posts remotely related to the US politics the reply section is out of control.

I honestly believe out of Reddit, Facebook, Bsky and X, X is the one with the most reasonable timeline algorithm[0]. Reddit and Facebook are unusable except for very specific reasons (asking questions in certain apps' subs/groups). Most people I know irl moved to instagram though.

[0]: Bsky is the worst, but interestingly if you use a third-party feed like 'For You' it's on par with X, just less traffic.

[AlexandrB]

> all the Facebook PMs intended

That's being awfully generous. I think Facebook PMs intend your feed to be filled with valuable commercial offers that can be monetized by Meta.

[veunes]

Your mum's experience is probably what FB is best at: high-trust network, lots of original photos, lots of comments from real friends

[cyanydeez]

The skeptical observer would suggest because her demograph votes, serving ads which benefit Facebook shareholders is good for business.

[moduspol]

They should offer that privilege to the rest of us for a few bucks a month. I'd probably pay.

[Aurornis]

You don't need to pay anything. That's just how Facebook works when you have active friends on it and you engage with their content.

I do find it interesting that tech people are so baffled when other people enjoy Facebook and derive value from it. I think we see so many exaggerated headlines about algorithms and feeds that people who don't use the site have a very different idea of what people who do actually use the site are seeing.

[cameldrv]

The problem is that your friends probably don't post much to facebook, and so they'd show you that, and you'd get to the end and find something else to do, so they have to bulk it up. There is a "friends" feed that's buried under a couple of menus that does this though.

[motbus3]

Makes sense to me. Seems to be using as it was supposed to be.

[Sharlin]

My FB experience is still fine after all these years. I can't find anything in my feed that isn't either a post a) to a group I'm in, b) by a page I follow, or c) by a friend. These days, a) and b) make up the majority of posts – many of the groups have no equivalent elsewhere and are a major reason why I still use FB. Even the reels/shorts/whatever that FB suggests are mostly nice and relevant – cats, trains, music. No slop, no thirst traps, no politics beyond what I choose to follow, not even ads because those are blocked.

Honestly, I've been wondering what other relevant social media there even is for someone like me, an early 40s millennial. Twitter I refuse to use, and nobody's on Bluesky. Instagram is… fine, I guess, and more lively and "feel-good" in some sense, and also used by the younger folk, but there's less "engagement" beyond liking something and scrolling on. On Facebook comments and actual conversation are in a much bigger role, at least for me. Reddit is great, assuming you curate your subreddits, but I don't have friends there.

[nephihaha]

I think you are very lucky. I get constant political messaging (not from one side of the room either) which is very unsubtle and biased. I get a lot of slop suggested.

I have never used Instagram and don't plan too. Twitter has always been a disaster and a mob mentality, and now it barely shows me stuff I want to look at.

[RoyTyrell]

My FB is generally like that. However I have noticed I see more more delayed posts from friends, and it's starting to recycle posts from friends I've seen already. I'll see a friend post pics of a vacation they took but I won't see that post for 3-5 days, and in the mean time I'll see some other old posts from them that were from 1-3 weeks ago come up multiple times.

Occasionally I do get blasted with AI slop and random accounts for a few days. When that happens I keep selecting to stop showing me that because I'm not interested.

I join groups for my interests. I never interact with random groups that pop up. I'm pretty diligent about scrolling past ads and I report a ton of them that are AI bs or selling lies (like "tonics" that cure cancer).

[harel]

That's almost me. I've always used Facebook as a tool to keep in touch with friends around the world. My friend list is 95% people I know in real life. A small fraction of them still posts. I also get a lot of slop in between. The filler posts. I am waiting for a Facebook resurgence or a Friendster comeback.

[scotty79]

At one point I subscribed to groups on Satisfactory, Factorio and RimWorld and while I don't play much anymore it's always nice to see posts on my feed made by people engaged with these games.

When algorithm doesn't have a handle on you it puts you at the bottom of the barrel that's filled with slop.

I think the problem is Meta doesn't moderate algorithm enough so a lot of users have terrible experience becausd they don't moderate their feeds themselves.

Most people are not self-aware enough to decide that maybe political rants is not the healthiest content to consume. And even if they do, tools for moderation are not easily accessible enough. There should be a huge "Yeah, I hated that." button on each post.

[BorisMelnik]

came here to say this also...also on mobile there is a feed that only shows your friends, no "algo." my parents are both on FB and pretty much only interact with their freinds. it is quit beautiful.

[newsclues]

You keep the content creators happy.

[SecretDreams]

Facebook used to be like this when it was only for college students. That was the last time Facebook was good.

[derefr]

Interesting.

So the presumption, then, would be that Facebook only turns on the slop-content hose to "fill the void" on many people's dashboards from a lack of organic content from people they follow? I.e. that if you were personal friends with enough other frequently-posting Facebook users, the slop-content would disappear?

[kmeisthax]

I would love to know what kind of ascetic mental training you have to do to get your Facebook feed to just send you actual people you know and not... well, the slop trough.

[troupo]

I don't use Facebook much, and my feed is filled with algorithmic bullshit and almost no posts from friends, family, or groups I'm a part of.

[KPGv2]

For the longest time, that was my feed, well after most Millennials had moved on. It was spectacular.

But I finally decided I didn't want to doom scroll so much, and when I changed phones, I declined to install the app on my new one, and I logged out on my laptop.

So I almost never am on anymore, and it's always complete trash. Zuck's Trump turn helped the inertia, and now with the revelations that he was trying to party with Epstein how can I even log in anymore?

I think I'm going to reach out to the people who matter and get their email addresses, then hang my FB shoes up for good, twenty-one years after I joined.