End of free speech - Or are they just so reliant on AI?

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Baldy

Veteran
Location
ALVA
It used to be good for keeping in touch with old friends from way back when and family. We're spread across the globe. Lately I get post after post of "follow" all of it total rubbish I'm not remotely interested in. Mean while post from family and friends no longer appear in my feed. I'm seriously thinking of deleting it.
 

wiggydiggy

Legendary Member
It used to be good for keeping in touch with old friends from way back when and family. We're spread across the globe. Lately I get post after post of "follow" all of it total rubbish I'm not remotely interested in. Mean while post from family and friends no longer appear in my feed. I'm seriously thinking of deleting it.

The feed was changed several years ago but until the change it just had updates from any friends and was useful, when Mark Zuckerberg decided he did want to make money from it the feed changed to lots of adverts, sponsored links and 'news'. Its gash.
 

Dadam

Über Member
Location
SW Leeds
I joined it in 2011. Back then most of your feed actually originated from those people you had chosen to "friend", in my case friends and family.

Over the last few years it's been more and more drivel. Articles and posts "chosen for you", i.e. chosen to push your hot buttons and get more "engagement", i.e stir up more and more polarised bad feeling to harvest your personal data and sell it to bad actors.
A while back I counted how many posts were from actual friends and family, and on that occasion got less than 5%. It's a cesspit. It's getting worse, especially since the Zuck decided fact checking was inconvenient as facts and truth often tended to fly in the face of certain factions' narratives.

I only stay on because of a few groups I'm on. Sadly forums like this for hobbies are dying out. Keeping up with F&F is easier on Whatsapp. (Yes I know, also owned by Zuck).
 
The shame with FB is its very useful for some groups, aircraft, cars, whatever...and family of course, but their general page is becoming a hotbed of rubbish at best, actually vile stuff at worst and you only have to click on one wrong page and you get deluged with more of it. Then you have to go through each of those as they come up and click 'not interested or report if too bad' Then the content seems to settle down again
I'd come off it if all the family did likewise, it just has soooo much rubbish in there, including AI clips which for some reason, lots of people believe and comment on as though it is.
Humanity really is doomed going by people's comments in there :sad:

It is really the worst thing about the WWW (not "the internet" as there is a LOT more to that!)

but things like FaceAche that take "things you are interested in"
and then just feed you more of it - and then more and them more

as a result people start to get a more and more polarised view of what "everyone thinks" because everything they see is just what they think

so if they think "people like that" should "do what they are supposed to do"
then you will see a load of people who agree with you and so your views become validated


in the old days - back when Moses were a lad - you went to the pub and talked to people and sooner or later someone would tell you that you are talking b****x
but now that person is not in your field of view


he says looking at the forum title and realising that this itself is a self selected group with specific views and interests!


(Edited to remove references which should be in "the Other Place"
 

captain nemo1701

Space cadet. Deck 42 Main Engineering.
Location
Bristol
Facebook is a place for Daily Mail readers to meet, swap tips, and eat dead puppies. It'll be a cold day in hell before I ever join.

Twitter used to be a place where the left could stick pins in effigies of Thatcher, Reagan, etc, and shout nasty names about anyone right of Thora Hird. Now it has become X its done a one-eighty but is otherwise exactly the same. Won't be signing up there either.

And the others, Poop Sky, Turd Social, just more polarised nonsense from like minded twits slapping each other's backs to congratulate them about the latest piece of bollards they've trotted out. No thank you.

Theres enough hate out on the road without going looking for it online.

Likewise, Meta have just appointed Robbie Starbuck the right winger who runs that US 'go woke go broke' campaign where he threatens firms with DEI policies that unless they drop them, he'll get his Faceplant minions to boycott them. He's no friend of the LGBTQ community either. I'd rather have all my toenails pulled out without anesthetic while watching repeats of 1980's Neighbours than join Faceache.
 

ktmbiker58

Well-Known Member
I recently joined Facebook (somewhat dubious about its benefits), however, it seems to be where most comments are going these days.
There was an article posted by East Anglia Daily Press, stating how terrible it was that a cyclist was in motion and using their mobile phone. I agree it's not a wise thing to do. I commented that many motorists use their mobile phone whilst driving and are much more dangerous. I didn't use any rude words, or call anyone idiots are anything similar. As it is I can't see the original to ascertain if anyone's hacked it or whatever. I clicked on the 'please review your decision' and they have come back to say it's because of spam and my profile is the reason. My profile picture is a Brompton bike in front of a church. I hope I don't get banned from here - If Facebook ban me I'll take the attitude "I don't want to belong to that club' (was it Oscar Wilde who said similar). What's the World coming to when non-inflamatory free speech is censored? This is especially poor IMHO, given the vitriolic messages some had directed towards cyclists, which prompted my reply in the first place.

I wouldn't take it personally, the FB algorithm probably doesn't know much about you if you haven't made many posts, it seems to be trigger happy at blocking comments from new accounts to stop bad actors using scripts for nafarious purposes. Once you build up your profile with friends and posts the bots will mostly leave you alone.
 
It’s worse than that, full of middle aged nationalist nutters

I think a lot of them are slightly more "experienced in life"** that the middle aged



** their version of life - other versions are available
 

Dogtrousers

Kilometre nibbler
It used to be good for keeping in touch with old friends from way back when and family. We're spread across the globe. Lately I get post after post of "follow" all of it total rubbish I'm not remotely interested in. Mean while post from family and friends no longer appear in my feed. I'm seriously thinking of deleting it.

Pretty much the same as my experience. I log on so infrequently that it's not even much good for staying in touch.
 
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