Except it's not their fault. At least, not entirely. Every single fucking centralized social platform tweaks its content algorithm to drive engagement, and they found that the best way was to piss you off. They shove it in your face until you can't help but say something to fight the unending flow of utter bullshit.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Block them or move to another platform. I block everyone on Facebook who feels the need to make negative comments, regardless of whether I expect to encounter them again. Really cleans up the place.

[–] SatansMaggotyCumFart 31 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Deleting my Facebook account cleaned it up better for me.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 days ago

Fair enough xD

[–] Clinicallydepressedpoochie 5 points 6 days ago (2 children)

That reminds me. My autistic brother in law deleted his Facebook and asked my wife if she would delete hers. She mods a small community she like being a part of so I can't blame her for not but I got permission to trash mine. Cya Facebook.

[–] BeardedBlaze 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

You ok?

[–] Clinicallydepressedpoochie 3 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Noooo, save me. owo

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

You needed permission to delete your Facebook?

[–] Clinicallydepressedpoochie 3 points 6 days ago

Sorry, I am really submissive. That's my deal.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago

I have to keep my LinkedIn for business reasons but recently I noticed a big uptick in fascist-adjacent posting. At first it depressed me big time but then I started blocking and a couple weeks and dozen blocks later it was over. Turns out a small number of people can really give the impression of a crowd and fuck with the whole experience.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 6 days ago (1 children)

That's true, though the simple solution is to not be on such platforms. You do not have to let them "shove it in your face until you can’t help it".

[–] Ashiette 12 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Yet are we not on Lemmy, flooded with posts detailling every little thing that Musk and Trump do?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

Sort of true, but the algorithm that Reddit-like platforms use is transparent and simple (it's just based on likes and dislikes, and I think you can even look up the source for the sorting modes) and hence doesn't directly try to feed you content that'd enrage you. I can just not read the posts about Musk and Trump, since I find most takes on the former bad and don't care much about the latter. Meanwhile, on platforms like Twitter or Tiktok you are directly fed content out of some recommendation ML model trained on user engagement.

(There's also subtler differences. For example, on Reddit/Lemmy/etc, if you hate a post you can dislike it, which will generally make it show up less to people. But on, say, Tumblr, not only are there no dislikes, but if you are really hate a post you can only respond to it by reposting it, therefore spreading it further among your followers! That's an absolutely devious platform-design move that could have been invented directly by Satan himself.)

[–] Eatspancakes84 4 points 6 days ago

Agreed. On most social media websites the sorting algorithm is equivalent to sorting Lemmy/Reddit on controversial. Still I do think there are active parties on Reddit pushing rage bait, and it’s a problem that Hot instead of Best is the standard sorting algorithm on Reddit.

[–] shneancy 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

all hail keyword filter blockers! nowadays i only see trumpet/muskat in posts that don't mention their names in the title, and tbf i don't mind staying a little informed on their latest pro-dystopia moves, but now it's not as much a firehose of bullshit to my face every day all day, but an occasional squirt gun hit

[–] Ashiette 3 points 5 days ago

I have the same filters on. It does not lessen the fact that lemmy is obsessed with those two juggaloos.

I believe that, their plan has always been to saturate the news so that people talked about them, always. So when time comes to vote, you go for the candidate you think you know best, a.k.a the one you didn't stop hearing about.

That, and the fact that people are saturated with your shenanigans, to the point that you can do anything stupid without people caring.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago

Yeah, the landscape has changed a lot. People can also share on other platforms, sometimes live, showing their trolling. Poe's law is also a thing. I first got online in the BBS days and have been around basically every since. I quit mainstream SNS years ago, but it even finds its way here.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

This happens on decentralized social media, too. Fedi dwellers are all so convinced that the trolls wouldn't have happened without intervention and man, is that not true.

Don't get me wrong, the corpos used that dynamic for profit, but they didn't invent it. Having been there before the algorithm, old forums, IRC and other protosocial spaces had very plump trolls, and so do federated, decentralized spaces when they reach critical mass.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

The trolls definitely exist here, too, for sure. But my point was that centralized social media algorithmically pushes it on you. Facebook, for example, goes out of its way to find ragebait to show you, whereas here, the trolls have to post somewhere you're intentionally subscribed.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago

No arugment there. I'm not questioning that corpos make the issue deliberately worse as an engagement engine. That's a fact.

But a lot of people jump from there to assuming those patterns will just vanish without algorithmic intervention, and that's just not true, which can lead to a lot of disappointment when people move to other alternatives.