<story><title>Facebook&apos;s timeline just shows random things for some users</title><text>(attempted to submit as URL, query stripped)&lt;p&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;twitter.com&amp;#x2F;search?q=facebook+until%3A2022-08-25+since%3A2022-08-24&lt;p&gt;Edit:&lt;p&gt;Reddit users complaining of this: https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;old.reddit.com&amp;#x2F;r&amp;#x2F;facebook&amp;#x2F;comments&amp;#x2F;wwbfm5&amp;#x2F;news_feed_showing_people_writing_to_other_people&amp;#x2F;&lt;p&gt;Downdetector &lt;i&gt;(a third-party service that asks users if they&amp;#x27;re down)&lt;/i&gt;: https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;downdetector.com&amp;#x2F;status&amp;#x2F;facebook&amp;#x2F;&lt;p&gt;Business-oriented status page (all green): https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;metastatus.com&amp;#x2F;</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>kypro</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t understand why people &amp;#x2F; Meta believes all social networking needs to compete or does compete?&lt;p&gt;TikTok and Facebook in my mind have very different use cases. It may be true that if people spend more time on TikTok they&amp;#x27;ll spend less on Facebook, but that doesn&amp;#x27;t mean these are comparable services. TikTok seems to be more of an video entertainment app and less a social app - more like YouTube with social features imo. Facebook is primarily a service to network with friends, family and businesses - TikTok doesn&amp;#x27;t really work well for this.&lt;p&gt;Admittedly I haven&amp;#x27;t used Facebook for 10+ years now so I have no idea how the Reels integration works, but it seems shoving short-form videos down users necks is probably a bad idea. Surely this isn&amp;#x27;t what the average Facebook user goes to Facebook for?&lt;p&gt;It would be like Netflix deciding YouTube was a competitor because &amp;quot;videos&amp;quot; and then adding a load of user uploaded videos to their video library.</text></item><item><author>wyclif</author><text>The TikTokification of Facebook is giving Meta brainworms.&lt;p&gt;The entire model of Facebook, until recently, was the social graph. It seems now that they&amp;#x27;re terrified of getting their lunch eaten, they are trying to combine algorithmic selection of what random users like the most but have no relationship to the user (Reels) with the social graph, but it&amp;#x27;s not a good fit and doesn&amp;#x27;t gel.</text></item><item><author>newscracker</author><text>Speaking only of the Facebook site&amp;#x2F;app below. FB Messenger is not included.&lt;p&gt;For a long while, Facebook hasn’t been a platform to connect people or to connect people meaningfully. It’s either useless and random stuff while your close ones’ posts don’t appear on your timeline and vice versa, or sensational posts that cause anger, anxiety, worry, and despair.&lt;p&gt;The “algorithm” tuned itself quite well to induce and increase addiction. It’s focused. It’s intelligent. It’s purposeful. None of those aspects may help you become happier or more satisfied or more connected.&lt;p&gt;I don’t think the “algorithm” can be corrected or made better either. It’s too big, too influential, too profitable and likely too complex (due to ML). Short of getting rid of it completely and going back to a chronological feed only from people and pages you follow, nothing can be humanly done about this decline.&lt;p&gt;Find another platform and focus on smaller groups if you need or value connectedness or relevant&amp;#x2F;useful content.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jwond</author><text>&amp;gt; I don&amp;#x27;t understand why people &amp;#x2F; Meta believes all social networking needs to compete or does compete?&lt;p&gt;They are competing with each other over people’s time and attention. The more time someone spends on Facebook the more ads Facebook can show them, and the more data Facebook can collect. The more time someone spends on TikTok the less time they have to spend on Facebook.</text></comment>
<story><title>Facebook&apos;s timeline just shows random things for some users</title><text>(attempted to submit as URL, query stripped)&lt;p&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;twitter.com&amp;#x2F;search?q=facebook+until%3A2022-08-25+since%3A2022-08-24&lt;p&gt;Edit:&lt;p&gt;Reddit users complaining of this: https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;old.reddit.com&amp;#x2F;r&amp;#x2F;facebook&amp;#x2F;comments&amp;#x2F;wwbfm5&amp;#x2F;news_feed_showing_people_writing_to_other_people&amp;#x2F;&lt;p&gt;Downdetector &lt;i&gt;(a third-party service that asks users if they&amp;#x27;re down)&lt;/i&gt;: https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;downdetector.com&amp;#x2F;status&amp;#x2F;facebook&amp;#x2F;&lt;p&gt;Business-oriented status page (all green): https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;metastatus.com&amp;#x2F;</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>kypro</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t understand why people &amp;#x2F; Meta believes all social networking needs to compete or does compete?&lt;p&gt;TikTok and Facebook in my mind have very different use cases. It may be true that if people spend more time on TikTok they&amp;#x27;ll spend less on Facebook, but that doesn&amp;#x27;t mean these are comparable services. TikTok seems to be more of an video entertainment app and less a social app - more like YouTube with social features imo. Facebook is primarily a service to network with friends, family and businesses - TikTok doesn&amp;#x27;t really work well for this.&lt;p&gt;Admittedly I haven&amp;#x27;t used Facebook for 10+ years now so I have no idea how the Reels integration works, but it seems shoving short-form videos down users necks is probably a bad idea. Surely this isn&amp;#x27;t what the average Facebook user goes to Facebook for?&lt;p&gt;It would be like Netflix deciding YouTube was a competitor because &amp;quot;videos&amp;quot; and then adding a load of user uploaded videos to their video library.</text></item><item><author>wyclif</author><text>The TikTokification of Facebook is giving Meta brainworms.&lt;p&gt;The entire model of Facebook, until recently, was the social graph. It seems now that they&amp;#x27;re terrified of getting their lunch eaten, they are trying to combine algorithmic selection of what random users like the most but have no relationship to the user (Reels) with the social graph, but it&amp;#x27;s not a good fit and doesn&amp;#x27;t gel.</text></item><item><author>newscracker</author><text>Speaking only of the Facebook site&amp;#x2F;app below. FB Messenger is not included.&lt;p&gt;For a long while, Facebook hasn’t been a platform to connect people or to connect people meaningfully. It’s either useless and random stuff while your close ones’ posts don’t appear on your timeline and vice versa, or sensational posts that cause anger, anxiety, worry, and despair.&lt;p&gt;The “algorithm” tuned itself quite well to induce and increase addiction. It’s focused. It’s intelligent. It’s purposeful. None of those aspects may help you become happier or more satisfied or more connected.&lt;p&gt;I don’t think the “algorithm” can be corrected or made better either. It’s too big, too influential, too profitable and likely too complex (due to ML). Short of getting rid of it completely and going back to a chronological feed only from people and pages you follow, nothing can be humanly done about this decline.&lt;p&gt;Find another platform and focus on smaller groups if you need or value connectedness or relevant&amp;#x2F;useful content.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>wwilim</author><text>The average Facebook user goes to Facebook because they have nothing else to occupy themselves with for 15 seconds, and Reels are the perfect functionality for this</text></comment>