Facebook feed changes and you
who you interact with, who they interact with, what you post on, how other people you interact with comment, like, or share, etc. Basically it’s a meme feedback loop. Facebook’s algorithm determines what you will “enjoy” (their phrase) and then feeds it to you. Since you are limited to posts on that feed, that’s what you spread around. Your News Feed changes minute by minute due to this algorithm which is why it’s not chronological (which really confused me).
Another problem: The new design limits your feed to 250 posts and it limits your friend tracking to 250 friends. Not a problem for me since I don’t have that many friends. People who do, however, need to edit their Facebook settings to see all their friends’ feeds.
They blame us for the change: Facebook claims that these changes were prompted by user feedback and the point is to reduce information overload. For instance, after the last change, everyone bitched about losing birthdays and they have been returned to prominence “above the fold.”
The upshot: Live Feed is cluttered with everything and News Feed is de-cluttered to the point of annoyance.
The money-making truth:
1. More personalization for more profit: Not only are birthdays back, but so are ads. All this customization serves us up on a platter to advertisers looking for target markets.
2. Annoying harassment: To promote “user engagement,” Facebook nags you through a “suggestions box” to nudge your friends into increased activity. Thus you get spam in the upper right hand corner telling you to “reconnect” with friends, “poke” them, help them fill out their incomplete info, suggest friends (that was there before; it’s just more prominent now). Yes, this increases the network, which is why we’re there, but Facebook’s motive is to grow the consumer population.
3. Fanning: Facebook told “brands” that advertising (aka “fanning”) increase “organically” in the News Feed. I never thought about fanning as
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HA! I have to laugh at the statement, “They blame us for the change: Facebook claims that these changes were prompted by user feedback and the point is to reduce information overload.” What has happened is the COMPLETE OPPOSITE! Now we have TOO MUCH INFORMATION and most of it is the kind that most users DON’T WANT TO SEE and that is “Friend added friend” and “friend plays game and how many things he has” is the most USELESS things to see on FB now! If they (Facebook) did this to REDUCE information overlaod, THEY BLEW BIG TIME AND 99% of users I have talked too HATE IT HUST AS MUCH. See the Facebook group “Change Facebook Back To Normal!!” It has over 1.76 MILLION on there AND NOT ONE OF THEM LIKE THE NEW SYSTEM WHATSOEVER. Also digging a bit deeper and reading Facebooks own Privacy Policy we can see that Facebook is COMPLETELY VIOLATING it’s own privacy policy, Where
in your privacy settings does it say every single friend will be
notified on what friends you added in their news feed? It doesn’t! In
fact, the added friend setting (in privacy settings) says it applies to
YOUR wall as Recent Activity. This Facebook change violated their
privacy setting/rule. Not nice Facebook!
Yep!