“D̶o̶n̶'̶t be evil” or what Facebook is hiding from us
In January 2018, Mark Zuckerberg announced changes in the algorithm, which were supposed to reduce the amount of news in personal tapes. Covering this event, he wrote about the importance of human well-being and family content. But what results do the data tell us a year later?
NiemanLab recently published material that shows an abundance of resonant articles on Facebook on topics such as abortion, religion and weapons. Moreover, outrage is the most popular reaction of users. Here is an example of the two most common publications for 2019.
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Admittedly, the problem is not only in Facebook algorithms. There are studies claiming that anger is the most viral emotion on social networks. Neither compassion, nor disgust, nor even joy. It is anger.
You, probably, noticed that in comments to something criticism is more often visible, but not a praise. This does not always mean that most of the commented content did not like. Just the negative looks brighter for the human brain, on that and more common.
Having learned about these studies, I told about them in my Groks channel . I will cite a fragment from that record of 03/18/2018: “Social networks are becoming some kind of catalyst for hatred. That’s why Zuckerberg says about well-being, that’s why famous people of the valley protect their children from their products. ”
But I was mistaken in Mark's intentions or mistaken in the possibilities of Facebook.
The graph above depicts the interaction of Facebook users with publications containing a link to news sites. Zuckerberg promised a reduction in the share of news publications, but the number of charges with them in 2019 was more than in 2018 by 50%. And even more than in 2017, although the inauguration of the new president was taking place at that time.
From the point of view of statistics, one does not contradict the other. The number of news can actually decrease, because the graph shows the activity of users, and not the frequency of publications. But from an analytics point of view, do you really think that involvement could have increased so much with reduced impressions in the tape?
Above is a list of news sites with the most involvement on Facebook. Fox News has nearly 150 million interactions in less than three months. And now look at the ranking of Facebook pages among the publications by the number of outraged reactions.
The difference between interactions with the page and existing links is obvious - the page is maintained by social network managers, and the number of links is due to the site’s citation. However, I was very interested in the absolute leader in two categories - Fox News. I wanted to watch his progress in dynamics.
Before continuing my story, I want to say a word about the following:
Since 2016, the number of interactions with Rupert Murdoch's brainchild has increased 12 times, CNN - 14 times, BBC - nine times, NYT - eight times, Huffington Post - eight times, NBC - seven times, and the former champion BuzzFeed dissolved in non-existence. What caused such a strong concentration of attention around this narrow list of news publications?
It can be assumed that their impressive growth in 2017 is associated with the results of the US presidential elections. Then how to explain the results of the beginning of 2019? Can increased user activity?
But it is important to understand that behind each list there are millions more sites for each year. And the total amount of user attention is limited and distributed to the global list .
Fewer people in fewer minutes began to produce many times more likes, reposts and comments? Absurd!
There is definitely a shift. And by displacement, I mean not only the distribution of attention on tape recordings. At the very beginning of the article there was a thesis that negative dominates on Facebook. Look, the negative runs through all the data to which I refer. What if there is a shift of the global emotional component towards the negative?
I understand that I look like one of those scatty people who, with a foil on their head and conspiratorial nonsense inside, are trying to talk about the big one. But let's use the opposite method. If the main person on Facebook talks about the possibility of improving the welfare of users in his social network, then he can worsen it.
The media business is first and foremost a business that lies in the economy of attention. What attracts attention? Emotions. And what is the brightest emotion? Anger. And the more negative, the more fiatnogo can be obtained from the attention and its derivatives.
Think of "My Family", "Windows" or "House 2". After all, these are very successful commercial projects. What about modern political talk shows? Not in favor of popular belief about the hierarchy of their managers, they have incredibly high ratings. It's all business, like Facebook. And we are satisfied consumers who love to surround themselves with negative and cultivate it, without thinking about psychological health.
Many thanks to all for your attention. If you are interested in such arguments that do not fit into the format of a full-fledged article, then subscribe to my channel Groks .
NiemanLab recently published material that shows an abundance of resonant articles on Facebook on topics such as abortion, religion and weapons. Moreover, outrage is the most popular reaction of users. Here is an example of the two most common publications for 2019.
')
Admittedly, the problem is not only in Facebook algorithms. There are studies claiming that anger is the most viral emotion on social networks. Neither compassion, nor disgust, nor even joy. It is anger.
You, probably, noticed that in comments to something criticism is more often visible, but not a praise. This does not always mean that most of the commented content did not like. Just the negative looks brighter for the human brain, on that and more common.
Having learned about these studies, I told about them in my Groks channel . I will cite a fragment from that record of 03/18/2018: “Social networks are becoming some kind of catalyst for hatred. That’s why Zuckerberg says about well-being, that’s why famous people of the valley protect their children from their products. ”
But I was mistaken in Mark's intentions or mistaken in the possibilities of Facebook.
The graph above depicts the interaction of Facebook users with publications containing a link to news sites. Zuckerberg promised a reduction in the share of news publications, but the number of charges with them in 2019 was more than in 2018 by 50%. And even more than in 2017, although the inauguration of the new president was taking place at that time.
From the point of view of statistics, one does not contradict the other. The number of news can actually decrease, because the graph shows the activity of users, and not the frequency of publications. But from an analytics point of view, do you really think that involvement could have increased so much with reduced impressions in the tape?
Above is a list of news sites with the most involvement on Facebook. Fox News has nearly 150 million interactions in less than three months. And now look at the ranking of Facebook pages among the publications by the number of outraged reactions.
The difference between interactions with the page and existing links is obvious - the page is maintained by social network managers, and the number of links is due to the site’s citation. However, I was very interested in the absolute leader in two categories - Fox News. I wanted to watch his progress in dynamics.
Data for January 2016
Data for January 2017
Data for January 2018
Data for January 2019
Before continuing my story, I want to say a word about the following:
- The main growth of MAU Facebook from 1.5 billion users in 2015 to 2 billion in 2017 was due to Africa and Asia.
- The Facebook audience in the US has been declining in recent years. Also hanging users in the social network.
- Fox News, CNN, NBC and all other sites are English-speaking. And Fox News, for example, was blocked for a long time for many countries, the share of its traffic from the United States exceeds 90%, according to SimilarWeb.
Since 2016, the number of interactions with Rupert Murdoch's brainchild has increased 12 times, CNN - 14 times, BBC - nine times, NYT - eight times, Huffington Post - eight times, NBC - seven times, and the former champion BuzzFeed dissolved in non-existence. What caused such a strong concentration of attention around this narrow list of news publications?
It can be assumed that their impressive growth in 2017 is associated with the results of the US presidential elections. Then how to explain the results of the beginning of 2019? Can increased user activity?
But it is important to understand that behind each list there are millions more sites for each year. And the total amount of user attention is limited and distributed to the global list .
If in one place departed, in the other must arrive. And vice versa.On average, the top has grown tenfold, but it is obvious that the total number of interactions could not grow as much. Moreover, we know that the number of US users and their time on Facebook is decreasing .
Fewer people in fewer minutes began to produce many times more likes, reposts and comments? Absurd!
There is definitely a shift. And by displacement, I mean not only the distribution of attention on tape recordings. At the very beginning of the article there was a thesis that negative dominates on Facebook. Look, the negative runs through all the data to which I refer. What if there is a shift of the global emotional component towards the negative?
I understand that I look like one of those scatty people who, with a foil on their head and conspiratorial nonsense inside, are trying to talk about the big one. But let's use the opposite method. If the main person on Facebook talks about the possibility of improving the welfare of users in his social network, then he can worsen it.
The media business is first and foremost a business that lies in the economy of attention. What attracts attention? Emotions. And what is the brightest emotion? Anger. And the more negative, the more fiatnogo can be obtained from the attention and its derivatives.
Think of "My Family", "Windows" or "House 2". After all, these are very successful commercial projects. What about modern political talk shows? Not in favor of popular belief about the hierarchy of their managers, they have incredibly high ratings. It's all business, like Facebook. And we are satisfied consumers who love to surround themselves with negative and cultivate it, without thinking about psychological health.
Many thanks to all for your attention. If you are interested in such arguments that do not fit into the format of a full-fledged article, then subscribe to my channel Groks .
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/458634/
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