Friday, January 12, 2018

Changing Everything!

Facebook head Mark Zuckerman says he's directed the staff that oversees Facebook's newsfeed to change its algorithm so that users see more posts from their friends and family and fewer from news sources and ads disguised as posts.

I guess this will be OK. The next item I buy from a Facebook advertisement will be the first, and I'm one of the people who likes to see my friends' posts of kid pictures and such. I've signed up for several groups that also post updates on my feed, and of course if I didn't want to see them I could unfollow or leave the group. But I've mostly developed a tune-out switch for the kinds of stuff that I'm supposedly going to see less of.

Now, should my friends decide to share a news item to which they are subscribed, I will still see it. That's not such great news. As you might expect of people whose standards are low enough to friend me, some of these people have really lousy judgment when it comes to their news sources. Friends on both right and left post links to stuff from sites that wouldn't know a fact from their favorite ice cream but who know it's true because it shows how awful their preferred enemy is. Or is that non-preferred enemy? Not sure.

Anyway, if the algorithm changes mean that my newsfeed will not only be devoid of pretend ads and the latest PROOF! OBAMA/TRUMP/PELOSI/SCHUMER/WHOEVER secretly BATHES IN THE BLOOD OF AMERICAN KITTENS entries but also of reposts of said items from people who could show a little more discernment in their choices of friends as well as news? Well then it'll be welcome.

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