It's interesting and very annoying. I use FB basically to follow a couple groups that I've followed for like 15 years and a couple family members. Most of what it shows me seems to be related to interests I have or anything I slow down for even 5 seconds to process. Like "slow down when scrolling to see if I really am seeing the insane thing I think" and it'll show me more. Sometime I report stuff. Like a real (I think) thirst trap holding up a sexual innuendo/come on with the writing reversed. But they never actually take action on anything I report no matter how fake, false, or innaproproate it is. I also routinely block everything it ever shows me with AI (photorealistic AI images of history with a chapter of writing seem common).

It's all a big joke of spam and scam.

...but engaging even slightly in a few specific topics or interests seems to make the worst of it go away for more of those topics.

I still use Groups and Marketplace but my home feed is blocked thanks to News Feed Eradicator. Check it out if you haven't heard of it. It's a browser extension that can block the home feed (and more) for a number of social sites.

Great post, it's not just you, my feed is exactly the same. Short FCBK stocks.

What I don't understand is how FB and Insta are just full of spam (from spammers, not Meta AI) now. It used to be that FB was the absolute best at getting rid of spam and now they appear to be overcome by it?

> They were basically all thirst traps of young women, mostly AI-generated, with generic captions.

I never seriously used Facebook; only once when a reallife buddy wanted means to communicate and I did not have a smartphone. But it was already really awful back then.

Now that AI spams down and eliminates real human beings, I guess many of these anti-social websites will die. Or at the least be in serious decline from where they can not easily escape anymore. Because which real human being wants all that AI slop?

You guys are lucky most of mine are scam ads and ragebait

> And I don't just mean that nobody uses it anymore. Like, I knew everyone under 50 had moved on

It will probably surprise a lot of people to learn that this isn't true.

A higher percentage of 30-49 year olds report using Facebook than in 50+ age groups

The bias toward younger generations is even higher when you include Instagram

One source https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/social-media...

I think many in the Hacker News bubble stopped using it and assume everyone else did, too. It's not too surprising when you read articles like this that paint a completely different picture of the platform than what your friends and family are actually seeing when they use it, as evidenced by the multitude of reports in this comment section from people whose family and friends are still getting value out of the site.

It's a complete mystery to me how Facebook operates. Like, they need money to keep the lights on, right? Where is the money coming from if no humans are using the platform?

I use Facebook for marketplace and when I logged in the first post I saw was the half time score for a football game that happened 3 weeks ago.

They are not sending their best.

The author seems to think his personal defunct and bloated feed is representative of what other users are experiencing... Come on!