{"id":2447,"date":"2016-08-07T14:23:35","date_gmt":"2016-08-07T18:23:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/?p=2447"},"modified":"2016-08-07T15:03:36","modified_gmt":"2016-08-07T19:03:36","slug":"an-open-letter-to-facebook-i-have-friends-so-why-do-you-show-me-mostly-strangers-posts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/2016\/08\/an-open-letter-to-facebook-i-have-friends-so-why-do-you-show-me-mostly-strangers-posts\/","title":{"rendered":"An open letter to Facebook:  I have friends, so why do you show me mostly stranger&#8217;s posts?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Summary: \u00a0<\/strong>Right now, 52 percent of my Facebook News Feed consists of photos of people that I don&#8217;t know and they\u00a0don&#8217;t know me. \u00a0Does that make anyone else uncomfortable? \u00a0What&#8217;s the deal with Facebook&#8217;s algorithm?<\/p>\n<h1>Dear Facebook<\/h1>\n<p>What&#8217;s the deal? \u00a0Seriously! \u00a0Why do you insist on showing me all these posts from people that I&#8217;m not friends with? \u00a0What is the intent of your algorithm?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-2454 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/algorithm-400x302.jpg\" alt=\"algorithm\" width=\"400\" height=\"302\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/algorithm-400x302.jpg 400w, http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/algorithm.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I have 240 friends on Facebook right now which I believe is a very reasonable number. \u00a0Not so many that I miss important posts in all the noise. \u00a0And not so few that there&#8217;s little\u00a0content to show me.<\/p>\n<p>But when I scroll through my Facebook News Feed, sorted by Top Stories, it feels like most of the posts are from\u00a0folks who are <strong>NOT<\/strong> actually my Facebook friends. \u00a0It feels like most of my News Feed is taken up by stranger posts that a friend of mine has liked or has commented on.<\/p>\n<p>I understand the reasoning\u00a0to show me some occasional stuff outside of my direct friends list, in case that helps me make a connection with my friend&#8217;s friend. \u00a0But it feels like stranger posts are\u00a0all\u00a0my News Feed consists of these days.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-2456 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/stranger-400x346.jpg\" alt=\"stranger\" width=\"400\" height=\"346\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/stranger-400x346.jpg 400w, http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/stranger.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>So I got all scientific on you. \u00a0This 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:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>my friends acting towards their friends, but they are strangers to me<\/strong>\u00a0(writing on their walls, tagging them, liking their posts, commenting on their posts)<\/li>\n<li><strong>my friends acting alone<\/strong> (sharing something or posting text or photos or videos on their own timelines)<\/li>\n<li><strong>strangers acting towards my friends<\/strong>\u00a0(writing on their walls, tagging them, liking their posts, commenting on their posts)<\/li>\n<li><strong>my friends acting towards others of my friends<\/strong> (writing on their walls, tagging them, liking their posts, commenting on their posts)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Here are the results. \u00a0From my own News Feed. \u00a0And just as I suspected. \u00a0I&#8217;m being exposed to <strong>mostly<\/strong> stranger&#8217;s posts. \u00a052 out of 100 were posted by people that I am\u00a0<strong>NOT\u00a0<\/strong>friends with. \u00a0My friend liked their post, so Facebook thinks that I also need to see this person&#8217;s\u00a0post, even though we don&#8217;t know each other. \u00a0I&#8217;m seeing into the personal lives\u00a0of all these complete strangers, every single day. \u00a0Does that make anyone else uncomfortable?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-2449\" src=\"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Facebook-News-Feed-content.png\" alt=\"Facebook-News-Feed-content\" width=\"970\" height=\"519\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Facebook-News-Feed-content.png 970w, http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Facebook-News-Feed-content-400x214.png 400w, http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Facebook-News-Feed-content-768x411.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 970px) 100vw, 970px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">So now every time a friend of mine hits the Like button on some stranger&#8217;s photo or post, I have to see it in <strong>my<\/strong> News Feed? \u00a0And now I have to spend <strong>more than half<\/strong> of my time on Facebook just scrolling past a bunch of strangers graduation pictures or duck face selfies or political opinions or whatever?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Facebook, why would you do this? \u00a0What&#8217;s your angle? \u00a0What do you want me to do with\u00a0all these stranger&#8217;s posts and pictures of their town and of\u00a0their family and of\u00a0their car or whatever?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Are my Facebook posts being shown to a bunch of people who don&#8217;t know who I \u00a0am and who don&#8217;t care about my robots, or my space program, or about my computers, or whatever I&#8217;m posting about that day?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">What do <strong>you<\/strong> think about your Facebook News Feed right now? \u00a0It is what you expect? \u00a0Is it what you need? \u00a0Do you get fulfillment out of it? \u00a0Or does it frustrate you and waste your precious time? \u00a0Does it make you uncomfortable?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Please leave any comments or feedback below! \u00a0And thanks for reading my blog!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Kurt<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Summary: \u00a0Right now, 52 percent of my Facebook News Feed consists of photos of people that I don&#8217;t know and they\u00a0don&#8217;t know me. \u00a0Does that make anyone else uncomfortable? \u00a0What&#8217;s the deal with Facebook&#8217;s algorithm? Dear Facebook What&#8217;s the deal? \u00a0Seriously! \u00a0Why do you insist on showing me all these posts from people that I&#8217;m [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[109],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2447"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2447"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2468,"href":"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2447\/revisions\/2468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}