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Aurornis 3 hours ago

This is how my parents' Facebook feeds look, too. And my wife's. And my friends who still use it.

I log in a couple times per year and see the same thing. It's nice to catch up with the friends who still use it.

One thing I've noticed over the years on HN is that many of the people talking confidently about Facebook also start their posts with "I'm glad I deleted my Facebook account 8 years ago, but..." and then go on to describe what they imagine Facebook is like for everyone else, as pieced together through the type of sensational headlines that hit the Hacker News front page every day.

There's another failure mode where someone tries to use Facebook but doesn't have any active friends on the site. They might scroll past photos from friends and family to click on ragebait links or engage with someone debating politics because they can't resist an internet argument. The algorithm takes note that this is what they engage with and gives them more of it, while showing less of the content they're scrolling past. Then they wonder why their feeds are full of topics that make them angry.

There's even an explicit feature to tell the algorithm what you want to see less of: You click the three dots and click "Hide post". They even have useful tools to unfollow people without unfriending them, which is highly useful for those people can't politely disconnect from but whose content you don't want to see. Using these tools even a little bit goes a long way to cleaning up your feed.

Meanwhile, people like my parents and extended family treat Facebook like a friendly gathering where everyone knows discussions of politics and religion are off the table. They click "Like" on things they want to see more of. They leave nice comments under photos of their friends and family. Their feeds adapt and give them what they want.