Like I know this isn't a shock to anyone. But it's a super surprise to me. So since 2011 I was really busy with various educational or work stuff, and never had time to log in. When I did log in to post something random for family to see, I had that Fluffbusters extension that cuts out the extra shit that Meta adds to your feed.

So recently I was forced to use the FB app to do some IRL stuff related to Palestine. Holy shit the unfiltered site is garbage. You have to scroll through 10 or so unrelated pages to see your friends' posts. And the sheer volume of paid Israeli stuff is mind blowing, despite me trying to tell the algorithm that I don't like it. And despite me being friends with and liking shitloads of ML stuff, I keep getting Unilad level "let's save a bunch of puppies" content. Like I get why people who use traditional social media become liberals or worse, I even found myself becoming a bit more lib looking at it.

  • axont [she/her, comrade/them]
    hexbear
    39
    14 days ago

    Everything on Facebook is like a chain email from 2002. I'm also mystified by how well generic AI images do over there. The average Facebook user doesn't seem aware of what an AI generated image is or that they're possible. It's a complete brain frying website.

    • Dessa [she/her]
      hexbear
      22
      14 days ago

      Many of the commenters on those are also bots. But yeah, even people I know are not bots fall for em there

    • WeedReference420 [he/him, they/them]
      hexbear
      21
      14 days ago

      I liked that picture of Jesus cradling an extra pair of legs that were jutting out of his chest that had like 150k likes lmao

      • axont [she/her, comrade/them]
        hexbear
        13
        edit-2
        14 days ago

        My aunt on Facebook shares an AI Jesus several times a day. Each more horrifying than the last and yet she seems unaware of what they are. I wanna sit with her and ask if she truly believes a three handed child made a 20 foot tall Jesus out of sand. Or that a bus labeled "Shgoopl Baus" full of melty faced people all held up various incorrect versions of the American flag.

        She simply doesn't see it. They look like real pictures to her

  • Greenleaf [he/him]
    hexbear
    31
    edit-2
    14 days ago

    I have a friend who’s my age (early 40s) who just last week repeated the “cat litter boxes in school bathrooms are required now” myth. I asked where he saw that and of course it was Facebook…

  • CriticalResist8 [he/him]
    hexbear
    31
    edit-2
    14 days ago

    Facebook is a dinosaur. They've enabled monetization now and there's tons of pages automatically posting AI Content (with AI descriptions) hour after hour, with bot replies too. It's so bad. Definitely not the place to just talk to your IRL friends like it used to be. I also have to run ads for my job and TikTok has the best ROI, while Facebook charged me like 1$ per click lol, there's no way anybody is paying that much for a click. TikTok's was like 15 cents.

    If you've seen the AI Jesus with cabin crew photos they're from facebook. I'm starting to think some AI (chatGPT) told someone that this was a winning combination to post on Facebook and that's why they started making those pictures specifically. Cause I don't know what Jesus has to do with flight attendants lol.

    • ClimateChangeAnxiety [he/him, they/them]
      hexbear
      14
      edit-2
      14 days ago

      you've seen the AI Jesus with cabin crew photos they're from facebook. I'm starting to think some AI (chatGPT) told someone that this was a winning combination to post on Facebook and that's why they started making those pictures specifically. Cause I don't know what Jesus has to do with flight attendants lol.

      I assumed the AIs were looking at which of their posts do better and doing more of those, and ones with Jesus and apparently airline crews were some of the most successful early on so it just keeps repeating and getting worse

    • Speaker [e/em/eir]
      hexbear
      9
      14 days ago

      Facebook's CPC is especially hilarious because their cross-site tracking basically does not work on the most marketable mobile devices, which is why they work so hard to keep you in the app at all times.

      • CriticalResist8 [he/him]
        hexbear
        4
        14 days ago

        They also refused our products catalog on our page without giving us a reason, and we can't appeal it anymore, but we can run ads on their website of course lol

  • Philosoraptor [he/him, comrade/them]
    hexbear
    30
    14 days ago

    It's absolutely unusable. Early Facebook's niche was actually really good and cool too: a service built around developing and maintaining the sort of relatively weak IRL social connections that would usually just decay. Like, something to keep up with and stay connected to your high school friends or college roommates or friendly acquaintance you met at the gym was actually really neat. A lot of people got a ton of value over that, and I think it did genuinely improve the world in some ways early on. But that shit isn't profitable, so it couldn't last.

    • Cherufe [he/him]
      hexbear
      27
      14 days ago

      Like 80% of what I post here came from facebook

      • nothx [he/him]
        hexbear
        19
        edit-2
        14 days ago

        Encrypted chats or a private fediverse service with carefully correlated list of federated instances.

        I really don’t understand the incessant need to have constant connectivity to a large social media platform. Keep to yourself and the group of friends you actually care about, all the extra assholes you tangentially knew from school aren’t worth pretending to keep in touch with.

        • came_apart_at_Kmart [he/him, comrade/them]
          hexbear
          19
          14 days ago

          preach.

          also, I like passively cultivating an air of mystery around myself. "whatever happened to [my name]? does he still watch a lot of TV?"

          they can assume, but they'll never know for sure.

          • nothx [he/him]
            hexbear
            10
            14 days ago

            Yes! Being an enigma is very fun, no one expects me to say I don’t use any mainstream social media.

      • someone [comrade/them, they/them]
        hexbear
        14
        14 days ago

        Unironically, Tiktok. If you're careful to make extensive use of the like button you can train the algorithm to be scary-accurate in just a few active hours of using it. And there's a lot of socialist and anticolonialist content on there.

  • Xx_Aru_xX [she/her]
    hexbear
    23
    14 days ago

    Don't get me started on the reels, half the stuff there falls under SA

  • Skeleton_Erisma [they/them, any]
    hexbear
    18
    edit-2
    14 days ago

    I closed my Facebook account many moons ago as part of an old job's requirement that we couldn't use social media.

    I recently got harangued into reopening one because the museum I volunteer at needs someone to manage their Facebook group

    I hate it, lots...

  • Voidance [none/use name]
    hexbear
    18
    14 days ago

    I get this too and I think it’s because when you don’t use it regularly the algorithm just goes insane. I get just constant weird videos and pages that I’ve never interacted with, my ‘feed’ is unusable

  • nothx [he/him]
    hexbear
    18
    14 days ago

    All of the social media platforms are really bad. It’s all right wing propaganda and mass shooter apologia.

  • sir_this_is_a_wendys [he/him]
    hexbear
    17
    14 days ago

    I deleted my account for years. I made a new one for a couple reasons and I agree. Sometimes your feed is exclusively stuff you don't follow and aren't even interested in. I get a bunch of Taylor Swift stuff in mine despite not liking anything remotely similar.

    • Wolfman86 [none/use name]
      hexbear
      4
      14 days ago

      Yeah, I see loads of stuff I don’t want like fitness people that post bait, mostly anti vegan/veggie, or pages that have no point …stuff like “Johns Page” or “John Smith”, that constantly post early 2000s chain mail content. Its infuriating. I’m on FB cause there’s a small handful of people I’d like to remain up to date with. I don’t need the other crap.

      • sir_this_is_a_wendys [he/him]
        hexbear
        6
        14 days ago

        I have a band and you have to have a personal account to even set up a band page. Plus it's the only way to keep track of some community events. It should 100% be considered a public utility.

        • Wolfman86 [none/use name]
          hexbear
          4
          14 days ago

          It should 100% be considered a public utility.

          Never thought about it like that, but it’s very true, especially with how deeply ingrained in our lives it is.

  • Rojo27 [he/him]
    hexbear
    17
    14 days ago

    I recently cut down on my time on facebook when I got logged out of it and didn't bother resetting my password. But even when I was using it it was such a fucking cesspool. I had made an effort to block out content from pages I didn't like, but I would still get a ton of right wing posts.

  • Beaver [he/him]
    hexbear
    14
    14 days ago

    The algo for the front page feed got cranked up to Maximum Monetization, and it's just a bizarre hodgepodge of content nowadays. There was actually a sort of golden age many years ago when a lot of my friends and family posted pictures and updates about their lives, and so scrolling my feed was a way to keep up with them.

    I still use Facebook a lot for scheduling local public events, as I've found there's a reasonable level of discoverability for local stuff. The groups feature works okay for small groups, but that's getting swallowed by discord. Social media is a shitshow.

  • Dessa [she/her]
    hexbear
    12
    14 days ago

    It's dogshit. I only use it for checking in on my favorite food truck these days

  • stigsbandit34z [they/them]
    hexbear
    12
    14 days ago

    I just recently logged in after like 5 years probably and I’m getting all kinds of unsettling AI shit I didn’t even follow. Did my account get hacked?

    • CyberSyndicalist [none/use name]
      hexbear
      9
      14 days ago

      Marketers buy accounts and pages with largish followings and then repurpose them to push garbage. They often delete the old content and change the name etc so it's unrecognizable as to what it was when you followed it originally.