Cast by icetoad.eth
Show the cast this replies toYou wrote this? It makes a lot of good points and poses good questions. I think Farcaster has seemed like a big breath of fresh air to me the past 4 years due to how different the algorithm functions thanks for different incentives for the platform. I've been locked out of my Facebook account for 5 or 6 weeks now and feel like that has given me perspective to say a few things about my own experiences. Facebook has put into place some very aggressive AI moderation lately and there is literally no human reviewing any of it until someone is banned indefinitely. This is an interesting development considering they are otherwise trying to maximize how long people on are the site/app. Many of the people I've been talking to about this experience via Reddit are long time users of Facebook. Often 10, 15 even 20 years, so in that regard I am not sure why they are going this direction other than the fact that it allows them to trim labor costs to some extent.
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That said, FB has really gotten worse ever since it started to pivot away from a feed based only on friends, family, and a few other pages that people would follow. Perhaps a few bands or local companies that someone liked. Since I was responding to this by being more engaged with the memes and political groups it was feeing me, then it obviously continued by feeding me more of that. I was spending too much time talking to people about political topics, especially as the recent election season progressed. I don't really like short form video and that never was an issue with time management for me. I prefer content that is at least 10-15 mins, so most of the video I watch is from YT. During the last 5 or 6 weeks I tried to stay connected with most of my friends through Instagram instead of FB. This worked to a limited degree I guess. IG really isn't good for conversation like FB is. So many short videos and mini powerpoint presentation things, so that only felt worth spending a small amount of time on.
I wouldn't say it really changed my mood by being off Facebook. It more so changed how and who I stay in touch with. I ended up spending time elsewhere on the web to get my fill of politics and memes. I wish Facebook reverted back the feed and algo of earlier years. It boomed because people could connected with people they already knew, but perhaps had a harder time having casual interactions with due to whatever factor. It also allowed people to share media more easily with IRL contacts in a nice way. The algo now just maximizes how long you stay on there. It has gotten good in doing so in a way that is probably like that of Tiktok. Again, I don't like much short video in my life so I don't use Tiktok. We will see if they decide to give me my account back in the near future or not. If not, I will miss those easily facilitated casual connections with people I know. I will miss the marketplace that has replaced Craigslist in the last few years. I will miss a few of the groups. I won't miss the rest.
