this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2026
379 points (97.3% liked)

Technology

81661 readers
4507 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] NatakuNox@lemmy.world 16 points 12 hours ago

Most socia media traffic is just bots commenting on Ai slop. And those "real" posts have their humans thinking thousands of people actually give a shit about their selfies. Completely cooked society.

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 17 points 16 hours ago

What mine shows me is mostly racism and xenophobia. I mean, they know I'm white. Figured they might as well just shoot their shot.

Meanwhile it's utterly terrible at the one thing it's supposed to do. I'm got a few old friends and family members on there. Not super close or anything, but the kind of people you'd be vaguely interested in seeing if they had cancer or had babies or anything. Didn't show me those events at all.

Like, what is even the point of it other than a US far-right psy-op?

[–] trk@aussie.zone 7 points 14 hours ago (4 children)

My Facebook feed looks nothing like that, nor most of the (exaggerated?) complaints in the replies.

Mine is full of content from people I know, local community groups, and pages I follow.

If I scroll long enough to run out of actual local/ subscribed content it will start feeding me other stuff, but it's usually at least somewhat relevant. If it's not I just hit the X to say not interested and usually take the opportunity to get off the damn thing for a while.

Facebook does a lot of stupid crap but these sort of lazy observations smack of some nerd pandering to the cool kids about how lame their parents are to get some acceptance or something equality as cringe.

[–] faythofdragons@slrpnk.net 1 points 6 hours ago

I strongly suspect that this sort of thing is done as a gradual rollout to gauge response. You may have just been lucky enough to avoid being sorted into a test group.

[–] yermaw@sh.itjust.works 3 points 12 hours ago

My wife opens Facebook on my phone a lot because shes nosy. Last time I opened my phone and it was already open. I scrolled for about 2 minutes waiting to see if anything would interest me, nothing did. Eventually it came up with a real person's name and I realised I wasnt on reddit.

Took it fucking ages to do the one thing I would want it to do.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 1 points 11 hours ago

I don't go on to look at my feed so it stays on my condo group and I can see if someone is trying to contact me

[–] sunbeam60@feddit.uk 1 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (1 children)

I’ve stayed away from Facebook since forever. It was a principle for me, for a long time.

Then I realised that, at least here where I live, whether I like it or not, if I need to engage with something local (local game group, neighbour discussion, updates from the council etc.) Facebook is actually the better place to do it, because it solves a discovery problem that WhatsApp hasn’t really (and where a lot of local stuff also congregates).

I still deeply dislike it and stay away from it. But on the odd occasion I need/offer something from/to the local area, it’s the only game in town.

Town being south ~~of~~ in the UK.

[–] Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 13 hours ago

Town being south of the UK.

Like underwater in the channel? Or even worse, in France?

[–] Somecall_metim@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 points 17 hours ago

YouTube ass title.

Anytime any article or video says that, what ever the subject is get by just fine.

It's like that journalist law, the one where the answer is always "no" if the headline has a question in it.

[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 12 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

Summary: a opinion piece (with a clickbait title) about how Zuckbook is only a AI wasteland anymore.

[–] TigerAce@lemmy.dbzer0.com 22 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

Guy opens dumpster, is amazed by the amount of trash in there, writes an article about it.

Wow, really low hanging fruits here.

[–] Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 2 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Idk I thought it was an interesting article. I haven't logged in since like 08, so I had no idea what it is like now.

[–] TigerAce@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 11 hours ago

Everyone should not know what's going on on Facebook. Or Instagram, tiktok, etc.

[–] murvel@feddit.nu 7 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

And some rando fucking lemmy/reddit user complains about it.

It's the cycle of life.

[–] 4grams@awful.systems 2 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

I haven’t been on facebook in like 10 years, but sounds like it’s exactly as I picture it.

[–] artyom@piefed.social 227 points 1 day ago (20 children)

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.

[–] phx@lemmy.world 1 points 9 hours ago

Second to worst for that is the excessive use of Google stuff, including Chromebooks replacing PC labs, and a bunch of G-software

[–] NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zip 11 points 20 hours ago

My kid refused. The school district was notified that they needed to do something else, or we would sue. They changed.

[–] exaybachae@startrek.website 7 points 20 hours ago

That's what email is for.

In fact, if I unblock them, I still get emails from an elementary school in the Seattle area because 20 years ago I dated somebody with a kid that went there and I subscribed to their event email.

Yes, I tried to unsubscribe for many years.

[–] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 7 points 22 hours ago (5 children)

I missed out on a lot of communication for my kids' extracurriculars because they were only on Facebook and I don't use it. It's infuriating, but less infuriating than the other platforms that a couple of the groups used to attempt to communicate schedules and requirements.

It's ridiculous that this sort of thing isn't a solved problem. Schools need to communicate with parents in an effective way, yet none of the platforms I've used work well. I've been in tech for decades and I still have trouble with their shitty UI.

[–] antonim@lemmy.world 2 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

OTOH you may have missed the communication even if you were on Facebook. These days your feed is just 1/3 the groups you're in and pages you've liked, 1/3 is the "recommended for you" random garbage, and 1/3 is ads. I've missed many notifications for events that interested me, they'd pop up a few days after the event actually took place.

[–] stray@pawb.social 2 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Is there a reason an emailing group isn't a good solution?

[–] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 1 points 12 hours ago

They tried that but as spam filters got more prevalent people would miss things.

Then you have the threads where some replies to all and then everyone else replies to all telling them not to reply all.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] partofthevoice@lemmy.zip 54 points 1 day ago (6 children)

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.

load more comments (6 replies)
load more comments (15 replies)
[–] Renat@szmer.info 5 points 18 hours ago

Finally. Facebook and X created AGI. Artificial Gooner Intelligence.

[–] Ramblingman@lemmy.world 0 points 10 hours ago

I use it for marketplace. It's like a little buying and selling community in my area. I figure it's good for the environment and I make a little cash so I guess Mark Zuckerberg can spy on me all he wants. Weirdo.

[–] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 80 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (9 children)

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.

[–] murvel@feddit.nu 2 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

If that's your take and thats their goal: he doesn't seem very engaged with the content does he?

So clearly in that case it's a failure.

[–] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 1 points 12 hours ago

On the contrary, I'd say it's a smashing success. First, the author was deeply engaged with Facebook to write the article. Second, everyone who saw this article and discussed the findings was engaged with Facebook even if they didn't have the app open. You and I are engaged with Facebook right now. And third, many many more people logged into their Facebook to test the findings either out of curiosity, to disprove the theory, or because they are horny goblins thirsting for smut.

load more comments (8 replies)
[–] VinegarChunks@lemmus.org 39 points 1 day ago

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.

[–] RunningInRVA@lemmy.world 65 points 1 day ago (1 children)

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.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Vorticity@lemmy.world 6 points 21 hours ago

I haven't really looked at Facebook in a long time but also haven't deleted my account because I do use Facebook marketplace sometimes.

I just logged in and looked. I actually saw no AI generated content except the few examples that were posted by people I know. I'm sure other's experiences are different, but the algorithm isn't feeding me slop for some reason.

[–] Darleys_Brew@lemmy.ml 2 points 17 hours ago

Currently banned for “unusual activity”, after arguing with a few right wingers.

I only still have it to maintain contact with a small handful of people.

Given why it was started, is anyone surprised by any of this?

[–] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 24 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

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.

[–] BreadstickNinja@lemmy.world 7 points 23 hours ago

Are big businesses still advertising on Facebook? I'd heard that they were running ads for full-on scams, presumably because few real people are left on the platform and it's no longer attractive to most advertisers.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›