OK, I admit to using the dratted thing. There are a few useful pages like Gardening in France, Buying and Selling locally and our village pages, as well as some specific groups that have been quite useful over the years. Recently, perhaps because I've unsubscribed from a few obsolete groups, 'unfollowed' a couple of others and masked any and all publicity, whenever I look at it I'm bombarded with what FB evidently thinks will be of interest. Well not only is it not of interest but it's driving me up the wall! Especially the American and 'celebrity' content. I have plunged into the greasy waters of the preferences/settings bit, but quickly started drowning in the tangled webs of their preferences, which didn't actually offer me any options to do what I wanted to do. Is anyone on here an adept at manipulating the manipulators and could give me some tips about how to limit the content to things I actually would appreciate seeing? Pretty please?
I just ignore stuff I'm not interested in, I dont allow it to take over, I notice now I get some suggestions asking if I want to see more or none of certain kinds of stuff, I just click on none. I only join groups I'm interested in and only allow family and friends to see my personal stuff. Must say I dont find it a problem.
Sorry, can't help as I don't do social media. Mrs Shiney does but has limited hers to private groups somehow. She does get emails telling her that someone has added something to one of her groups but don't think she gets anything else. As she is not all that good with computers I would guess that she won't know how it was done . Probably had someone do it for her.
I dislike Facebook but a few family and friends use it and I go on to support them, plus the local pages are kind of useful apart from the 12 year olds posting 'funny' rubbish. Last night as I was scrolling down I made the mistake of pausing to watch a Freddie Star video, it must check what you like by how quickly you scroll past because every other post after that was another video of him. What really started to annoy me is people, who have obviously stolen these clips, have added their 'copyright' and/or a tiny clip of themselves laughing in a corner. When you find out how to do it please let me know @noisette47 - I suspect Facebook will make it as difficult as possible if not impossible.
I'm with you there, John! I think because I'd limited the content below a level that 'they' deem acceptable, 'they' insert new content and then, as you say, adjust it to correspond with what they log as being of interest. Those of us who live outside of America should at least have an option to block American content Ah well...their loss, not mine. It will give me the nudge I needed to pursue more useful pastimes
I’ve never had anything to do with it, but could you maybe delete the account and start up a new one? Sorry if that is a stupid idea.
I'm struggling to see the problem, if you buy a magazine it usually has loads of stuff you are not interested in, so you dont read it. Just do the same, and yes, it is tailored to your viewing, so will show you stuff you show more interest in, it learns, just like adds get tailored to those you google or view. Look up DIY and you start getting lots of ads about DIY materials, its how the internet works.
I'll scroll through Facebook when I'm bored or just not motivated to do anything else. I rarely post anything and even that can only be viewed by family and friends. It is useful if you need to set up a free forum, private or otherwise and members have a central communication hub. I also check into market place when I need something that I don't care if it is new or not, just within my budget. I've gotten loads of things through Marketplace. I see a lot of funny memes too on facebook as well. Always something to give me a smile. I use messenger to chat with grandchildren. I know they use snapchat or whatever but messenger is free and they are all comfortable using it. I don't have texting on my cellphone and my landline does not accept those either. All that said, other than watching how to videos, I'm only on facebook about 20 minutes a day. If that. Yes, if you start selecting things you enjoy, then the content you are presented will ore and more reflect your choices. And really, come on, this is Free. Yes, they harvest your choices but's not costing you anything and can be useful.
Not a stupid idea at all! Quite a good one? As long as I can fill it with things I want so they don't fill it with things I don't Right from the start, there were 'suggestions' for people and pages. FGS! Can't people make up their own minds what they want to see and who they want contact with?
Yours might but I use an Adblocker and I don't buy magazines any more for precisely that reason! I'm even going to give up my subscription to the local newspaper now that it's 80% adverts. Let's face it, if you have to skip 80 or even 90% of the content of something because it's of no interest or even aggravating, then why look at it in the first place?
It's brainwashing is what it is! Just because it's free, that makes it acceptable? Sorry, Lori...I'm on a short fuse at the moment JWK made the point that just because you watch something once it doesn't mean that you then want to watch more. If all this stuff is AI generated then it just highlights the fact that computers can't take into account the individualistic nature of the human brain.
I don't think that it was always this insistent? Not to the extremes we're getting now? Or perhaps I'm just getting old, crotchety and awkward (Be careful how you reply to that ).
So what the heck is wrong with that. Nobody is forcing you or anyone else to use Facebook. I quite like being presented with things that interest me. I see a lot of great sewing methods that are fun to try and I am glad that I got "brainwashed" into watching those videos. I don't have a camera on my monitor so none of my video data is transmitted. But I really think your poor choice of words suggests that anyone that regularly looks at Facebook is addlepated and easily led. AI is only a sophisticated tool. That's it. It's nothing personal, just bytes. Even your grocery store keeps track of consumer data albeit on a completely different plain. They aren't going to keep ordering widgets if their data shows no one is buying them and again it has nothing to do with you, personally. You can simply turn it off if it bothers you.
You're right, it wasn't always this insistent, and it wasn't always SO much crap. However, that's the way it is now, and a new account would be just the same. There's not much you can do, but a way to reduce it, temporarily at least, is to click on the three dots to the top right of each individual unwanted 'suggested' post, and select either 'Not interested' or 'I don't want to see this'. The former will reduce suggestions of that kind of content, the latter will also hide it (there are follow up options to hide it, block content from that source etc). It's time consuming and irritating to do as it's each individual post, but it does dial down the crap somewhat. If it's sponsored content (ie: advertising) the process and result is slightly different, but I suspect the recent tsunami of unwanted stuff you have experienced is mainly 'suggested posts'. They will keep trying and creep back up, but this method does help, a bit. PS if you're getting lots of reels as well, click on the options for that and you can switch them off in one go, which is always a relief.
