Both of the above I posted yesterday on Facebook and took screenshots of each around 10 hours after the original postings. One of the posts is utterly banal -- I found a spider in my sink -- the other post is the diametric opposite; it is about the bizarre situation we find ourselves in, a Universe that appears to be contrived.
One of the posts attracts a fair few "likes" and comments, the other no comments and just one "like". And yes, predictably enough, it is the banal post that attracted all the comments and virtually all the "likes".
There seems to be a pretty close correlation between how trivial and banal my facebook posts are and the number of "likes" and comments they attract. Posts that I don't put any thought into at all but just post on the spur of the moment, such as 'I've just had a drink or 'I've just found a spider', or whatever, seem to invariably attract the most attention. Contrariwise, my more profound, thought provoking and interesting posts, attract zero comments and even zero "likes", at least most of the time.
I don't know why this is. Perhaps with my more thoughtful posts people don't know what the heck I'm talking about? But, surely, regardless of whether they find my thoughtful posts boring or not, people aren't really interested in the trivial banal stuff? If that is indeed so, then the way Facebook organises our newsfeed is a concern.
I read the following article. It says:
Facebook’s solution was to create a formula that measured how much “meaningful” interaction a post sparked, then organize the News Feed to encourage as much of that as possible. Under an internal point system used to measure its success, a “like” was worth one point; a reaction, reshare without text or reply to an invite was worth five points; and a significant comment, message, reshare or RSVP, 30 points. Additional multipliers were added depending on whether the interaction was between members of a group, friends or strangers.
This then means the banal, trivial, posts are promoted on peoples newsfeeds so that they see the trivial, banal stuff much more frequently than any thought provoking posts. And my experience seems to bear this out. Sometimes over the course of a few days I see the very same posts from people about some completely trivial matter. Contrariwise, my long and thoughtful posts I never see in my newsfeed. I assume this is because they do not attract any comments or likes, so the facebook algorithm doesn't promote them. So most people won't even ever get to see them (but I post some of my more entertaining and thoughtful posts in this blog. Then there's also my other blog on philosophical issues).
So the situation is that the Facebook algorithm promotes the more banal posts and hides the more thought provoking and interesting posts. Surely they must be aware that this happens? There's even a popular meme illustrating this! See below.
So is this a deliberate policy on facebooks part to promote the banal stuff? Is it advantageous to them? Or are they just utterly incompetent?
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