I still check facebook somehow (I hate it).

Scrolling the timeline, I noticed that it’s 90% ads or promoted posts. This is next level…

Is this only me? Or has FB been like this these days? (PLEASE don’t spam “quit FB already” messages.)

    •  TehPers   ( @TehPers@beehaw.org ) 
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      63 months ago

      I was “forced” to make an account by my mom at some point, so I did. I set the profile picture to something completely random and promptly logged out. The only time I’ve logged in since then was to accept my wife’s friend request (or whatever they call them) after we’d been married for over a year, since apparently her friends were confused why we weren’t labelled as “in a relationship” or whatever.

      Look, we’re married. I don’t need Facebook to tell you that. >_>

  • I still use FB for Buy Nothing and other local groups. The best way to avoid the insane ads is to go to Menu > Feeds then select exactly what you want to see. There’s still ads but it’s a fraction of the default main page.

  •  frog 🐸   ( @frog@beehaw.org ) 
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    73 months ago

    I’m not on FB, but I have recently signed up for Instagram, similarly Meta-owned (due to the recurring problem that a lot of people in my life use it, and networking is distressingly essential these days), and just… why is so much of it ads and promos?

    • I did the same a while ago. I signed up for Instagram because a few friends were on it, but never use it. I signed in a few weeks ago to catch up, and it showed me three or four posts, said that I was caught up, and then just showed me ads and sponsored posts.

      •  frog 🐸   ( @frog@beehaw.org ) 
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        23 months ago

        I am actually noting that on my desktop, I’m not getting any ads or sponsored posts, just stuff from those I follow, and other people with similar content (so many frogs and sighthounds). I doubt it’s because Instagram doesn’t force ads on the desktop site. My adblocker is just doing a very, very good job.

  • Like many others, I keep FB around to see updates from family/older friends, etc.

    What I’ve noticed is that every couple months they decide to update their feed algorithms, and my feed reserts to the garbage feed.

    For ads: I’ve found that clicking the post options and REPORTING the post is the only way to filter this garbage. (I usually choose spam or “false news”, but that’s just an indicator of how the algorithm views my engagement).

    For promo posts: I snooze the user for 30 days, and often the campaign doesn’t run long enough (or I filter enough to push me out of the demographic) so I don’t see these again.

    Overall, it takes about 15-30 minutes every couple weeks or so, and has been generally useful to find similar methodologies across platforms

  • I was on FB before most people knew what it was. Trust me…I’m old :P…I deleted my original account many years ago.

    Many years later, when I realized that certain family/friends would NOT get rid of it, I started a new account that I locked down.

    I only use it to stay in touch with the aforementioned people.

    I find, if you use it in this way, then there are no problems with ads or other bullshit.

  • It’s been a while since I’ve actually logged on, but I still have fbpurity installed on my browser from back in the day, I remember it doing a decent job at getting rid of the ads uBlock Origin can’t tell apart from posts. I’ve not looked in to it still being up to date or functional, so double check, and if it’s alive, give it a try.

  • It’s definitely like this. I don’t entirely mind it for myself, because it reminds me to log off before I can get into a doomscroll where I’m assailed by my family member’s awful opinions. I only use FB for marketplace/buy nothing groups, and the barrage of shitty ads/promo posts helps me log off as soon as I’ve found what I need (or have given up on finding what I need).