Algorithm-based social media “recommendations” has normalized us putting up with blatant SPAM

Imagine if gmail or outlook were to place emails by ‘creators and brands you might like’ in your inbox!?

Following the process of enshittification, the algorithm on many social media platforms is becoming an excuse to push blatant amounts of SPAM to users. It starts as a feature that is genuinely useful, but becomes a tool to show you ads, content from paying users or to keep you hooked with rage-bait content as social media platforms seek to extract more value out of its users.

Algorithm-based social media has its benefits, but looking forward it is becoming increasingly necessary that such an algorithm runs client-side and is owned by the user.

cc: @showerthoughts

  • Kagami@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    You are right, I realised this when I completely moved to the Fediverse. The non-existence of the ads is a breath of fresh air.

    • TeaHands@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Somehow I’m not even surprised by this. A little disappointed, perhaps, but definitely not surprised.

      • SokathHisEyesOpen@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        A lot disappointed. I remember a time when Google followed a Don’t Be Evil motto, and most people couldn’t even figure out how they made money. They were constantly pushing out cool new products, and generally seemed to be making the world a better place. Oh, and their search results were top notch. Now Google is just one disappointment after the other.

  • GracchiBros@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I don’t use much social media and have things set up to block most ads. So maybe I just don’t get how bad it is out there. But in my experience with Youtube I’ve thought it generally does a decent job at recommending me videos based on what I’ve watched and who I’m subbed to. For example, if I stumble across some documentary about an aircraft accident, I’m not upset when it starts recommending me other similar videos from that channel or videos from other channels and their similar documentaries. I’ve found good videos I’d never have seen that way.

    It can get frustrating if you accidentally end up watching a video about something you normally don’t want to see, but the newer recommendations seem to fade away after a few days of not watching them. And I can certainly see how such a system can be gamed in nefarious ways. I never liked when I saw Reddit sub recommendations, but I mostly thought that was because their system didn’t recommend me things I had any interest in.

    • masterofn001@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      I dare you to accidentally click on a Joe rogan created or related video and watch your feed descend into conspiracy, nationalism, pseudoscience, and other insane recommendations.

      I use libretube now.

    • driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br
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      1 year ago

      The difference is that youtube have a subscribed tab where your subscriptions are displayed on chronological order. You don’t have “reccomend” videos polluting the subscription tab.

  • croobat@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Yeah dude, back in Twitter like 60% of my feed was people I don’t know talking about famous people I don’t know, what’s up with that?

    • danhab99@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      God that made it so hard to use Twitter. I just wanted to follow people I know but it was so difficult to sift through all the other noise they kept adding. I thought I could do the third party app to help out with that, but Twitter basically dropped third party apps years ago.