I deleted Facebook maybe two years ago. One of the last things I saw was a very obviously AI generated image of six or seven soldiers that had lost the same leg and all had it replaced with a prosthetic at exactly the same point, with some caption about “let’s get some likes for our wounded warriors!” Followed by dozens of comments in support, I assume all were bots.
this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2026
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What I barely understand is why businesses keep fueling this ad inferno. If it’s mostly bots farming engagement, isn’t that going to limit the effectiveness of advertising? Won’t that eventually show up in their returns on the advertising’? Do they really want their business associated with scantily clad 14 year old feeds, or are they all totally blind to that.
I get part of it… social media is the internet now, for most people. So if you want reach, where else are ya gonna go? Cable? Newspapers? Local news? They killed everything else. Google’s even killing YouTube sponsors now, auto skipping sponsor segments in the app.
So long Facebook, see you never, until one day I inexplicably need to use your platform to get updates from my kid's school.
Screw any school or PTA that distributes information by Facebook. That should be outlawed.
If only there was a way to send the same communication to a group of people at once, regardless of what platform they use.
Alas, that sort of technology seems impossible. Even in Star Trek they don’t have such a thing.
So long Facebook, see you never, until one day I inexplicably need to use your platform to get updates from my kid's school.
This makes me so fucking angry.
I can't stand how many companies and organizations only have a presence on Facebook. When I reach out to them to ask if there is another way to stay connected I usually get a big NOPE.
Literally the only reason my family interacts with Facebook. It's infuriating.
We need a dumb browser.
This browser doesn’t work for most shit, making it the best browser available for most shit you actually need to do.
That’s a browser I can get behind.
Oops. I basically duplicated your reply. You are spot on the mark.
Also, this is not that far from Instagram. And even with real women Insta always felt slimy to me.
And… weird. I don’t get the appeal.
The Facebook feed is an advanced algorithm that knows a shit ton about what to feed you to keep you engaged. It's not just the cookies from sites you visit. They track what thumbnails get you to stop scrolling. They track the way a human eye moves and how far your thumb glides across the screen.
Point is, if it's all scantily clad thirst traps, thats what gets your attention. If you see one, and you stop to take a screenshot for an article you're writing about how it's all thirst traps, then every third item will be another thirst trap.
Facebook doesn't care if you want to see that content. Their goal is to keep your eyes on Facebook. If it makes you mad enough to comment, that's engagement.
I didn't read the whole article, so maybe the author addresses this, but what you see on Facebook is a funhouse reflection of your own interests.
They hadn’t used Facebook in years, so this is the default algorithm state — rage bait and bate-bait.
When I was still using Instagram reels, I was always amazed how quickly the algorithm figured me out. If I hesitated for even a second on a reel, it would amend my next ones immediately. I assume the real trick is comparing it to the average time spent on a reel, everyone spends longer on a wall of text reel, but when I stop on a Linux reel for an extra second, I'm immediately in the 1% for engagement.
I read something years ago about how your phone keyboard tracks your recommended words, it knows if you're more likely to type apple or Apple, or if you type soup more than average, and any app that gets that data and compares it to the baseline has an instant, in depth profile on you.
This is exactly why using something like FUTO Keyboard is essential, nowadays.
I'll have to try that. Can you comment at all on the quality of the autocorrect and ability to learn your vocabulary? I don't want to connect my keyboard to a server farm but I certainly do want it to learn to help me type more efficiently on this tiny keyboard.
Well, if you enable the model fine-tuning, it should be fine. I do not commit a lot of mistakes, and I usually correct manually, though.
This is why I love the idea of Cromite and other “antifingerprinting” efforts, not simply blocking but spoofing and plausibly randomizing as many metrics as they can.
I wish there was some way to distribute that to the masses. Like maybe a crazy hardware zero day, and it’s only used to stealth load anti fingerprinting on as many devices as it can.
Exactly, if I look at my facebook feed, besides posts from people and groups I actually follow, the "suggested" posts are all stuff that matches my interests. gaming, music, movies.
I just did the same thing - logged on to my facebook account after many years, and I'm not having the same experience at all. Old friends, neighbors, and relatives posting disappointing amounts of AI slop, some local news it suggests I follow (something about a hairdresser getting fined for refusing service), one particular former neighbor posting an endless barrage of AI-generated religious slop... and that's about it. It wasn't interesting a decade ago, and it only got less interesting since.
I am so upset that FB killed Craigslist, that is basically the only reason I use it regularly anymore. My feed has basically been taken over by right wing influencer bots otherwise.
I tried logging in to use the Marketplace to sell some shit. For whatever reason I couldn't access it. My account is verified, location is set, and some marketplace settings pages said my account is in good standing. Sent a request to support weeks ago and heard nothing.
So I just throw shit away now. Like I WANT to use your platform, but you're not letting me. Bye.
You can find a buy nothing group. I don’t use Facebook but that’s what family members do.
What's weird is that facebook only fills my feed with slop when I open in on my phone.
On my desktop browser, my feed only contains things I have subscribed to.
I logged out from my phone. It's just unusable.
Hm.
I just logged into my fb account and got zero shit like that. Just posts from a distant cousin, a few local people I follow and my local news.
I make it a point to hide/block all the extraneous shit that the feed offers - and have sone so for years - so maybe that's the difference?
Weird.
Who needs Fakebook when there is moltbook
Which has more bots?
Yes
Why are you asking? Are you looking for like-minded people?
Beep boop
JFC this is what we're destroying the environment for?
Yep!
. . . Well that and the oil industry.
I sat in a brief on this, and while it definitely was hyped up a bit and strategically poked by humans to get some responses, the overall takeaway is that I'm fucking terrified of what's to come with AI... and I work in AI research...
I never imagined how stupid the average AI user would be.
Like, just the amount of trust, sycophancy, and blind faith they put in these things is terrifying. OpenClaw is the worst though. Imagine just throwing money into the money furnace for … this??
Assume you have to vote for the next US president: There are just a few candidates left:
- ☐ Grok
- ☐ Claude
- ☐ Gemini
- ☐ ChatGPT
- ☐ Trump
What would you choose..I'd be happy if AI would be the only thing to worry about...
Assuming Trump was legally able to run, and if it's only those 5 choices, I would probably go with the company that's the least evil. I don't know which one that is for now. Definitely not Grok or Trump.
to be honest, i think most LLMs would do better in politics than actutal politicians. The problem I have with it is that I don't write the prompts...
There are addons for Firefox and other browsers too to clean out all the unwanted junk on Facebook. When I go on Facebook now it shows almost exclusively stuff that people I know have posted and groups that I follow. SocialFocus is one of them. Try it, it makes a huge difference.
there was chrome (and firefox probably?) extension that went through your all fb liked pages and unsubscribed from them so that when it's done timeline is gone entirely. fb went after its dev, removed that extension and banned him forever because it kept people off fb https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-bans-unfollow-everything-developer-delete-news-feed-2021-10 doing this all manually still worked back then, not sure about today
Facebook's letter took him by surprise, he said, adding that Unfollow Everything had only 2,500 weekly active users and 10,000 downloads.
"It was definitely growing, but it wasn't huge," he said.
"Apart from that I just very much saw it as something that improves the Facebook experience for Facebook users," he added, saying he got "amazing feedback" from people saying they "were using Facebook in a way that was much healthier for them."
slightly healthier relationship with attention devouring parasite in your pocket? not on zucc's watch, ALL contents of your skull are to be sourced from and licensed to meta platforms inc exclusively
My lizard brain is making me want to check out Facebook now. The irony!
But your neocortex brain can make you resist!
Of course facebook is, and has been, done for a long time. I think this says more about your interests than anything else. Mine doesn't have a bunch of AI women, it's a bunch of random shit and ads last time I checked.
I mainly use it for neighborhood HOA groups and similar clubs, pickup soccer, etc.