Summary:  Right now, 52 percent of my Facebook News Feed consists of photos of people that I don’t know and they don’t know me.  Does that make anyone else uncomfortable?  What’s the deal with Facebook’s algorithm?

Dear Facebook

What’s the deal?  Seriously!  Why do you insist on showing me all these posts from people that I’m not friends with?  What is the intent of your algorithm?

I have 240 friends on Facebook right now which I believe is a very reasonable number.  Not so many that I miss important posts in all the noise.  And not so few that there’s little content to show me.

But when I scroll through my Facebook News Feed, sorted by Top Stories, it feels like most of the posts are from folks who are NOT actually my Facebook friends.  It feels like most of my News Feed is taken up by stranger posts that a friend of mine has liked or has commented on.

I understand the reasoning to show me some occasional stuff outside of my direct friends list, in case that helps me make a connection with my friend’s friend.  But it feels like stranger posts are all my News Feed consists of these days.

So I got all scientific on you.  This afternoon, I scrolled through the first 100 posts on my News Feed and I put each post that I saw into one of the following four categories:

• my friends acting towards their friends, but they are strangers to me (writing on their walls, tagging them, liking their posts, commenting on their posts)
• my friends acting alone (sharing something or posting text or photos or videos on their own timelines)
• strangers acting towards my friends (writing on their walls, tagging them, liking their posts, commenting on their posts)
• my friends acting towards others of my friends (writing on their walls, tagging them, liking their posts, commenting on their posts)

Here are the results.  From my own News Feed.  And just as I suspected.  I’m being exposed to mostly stranger’s posts.  52 out of 100 were posted by people that I am NOT friends with.  My friend liked their post, so Facebook thinks that I also need to see this person’s post, even though we don’t know each other.  I’m seeing into the personal lives of all these complete strangers, every single day.  Does that make anyone else uncomfortable?

So now every time a friend of mine hits the Like button on some stranger’s photo or post, I have to see it in my News Feed?  And now I have to spend more than half of my time on Facebook just scrolling past a bunch of strangers graduation pictures or duck face selfies or political opinions or whatever?

Facebook, why would you do this?  What’s your angle?  What do you want me to do with all these stranger’s posts and pictures of their town and of their family and of their car or whatever?

Are my Facebook posts being shown to a bunch of people who don’t know who I  am and who don’t care about my robots, or my space program, or about my computers, or whatever I’m posting about that day?

What do you think about your Facebook News Feed right now?  It is what you expect?  Is it what you need?  Do you get fulfillment out of it?  Or does it frustrate you and waste your precious time?  Does it make you uncomfortable?

Please leave any comments or feedback below!  And thanks for reading my blog!

Kurt