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.
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.