, 9 tweets, 2 min read Read on Twitter
This is a perfect example of why I don't like Facebook's algorithm. It drives the wrong type of engagement. In this case, you see a person post something that is clearly not true. So thousands of people comment on it, telling the poster that it is incorrect...
This drives up engagement, causing it to be seen by more people, who comment, share and engage with it, and suddenly it has 528,000+ comments, 3,600+ shares, and 39,000+ likes. This is the problem with social media, and in particular with Facebook. It rewards the wrong behavior.
Most of the problems we have today with social media are related to this behavior. For instance, what we see with fake news, with low-quality viral posts, with how publishers 'pivot to crappy videos', etc. But the problem is also with people as a whole.
We 'humans' tend to favor this type of engagement because it's something we can do without really thinking, and Facebook has turned this into a business model. Or what I call low-intent micro-moments.
This is also why Facebook is such a terrible platform for news. While many publishers would like to put their content on Facebook because it drives more traffic, we end up getting the wrong type of behavior. We get readers who aren't really thinking and are merely reacting.
We see this very clearly in what type of news content that drives the most engagement on Facebook. It's content similar to the example above. News stories that people aren't really focusing on, but that they can very quickly react to.
I don't have a solution to this other than to recommend that publishers look for another way to publish. Do something that makes people want to think about the news that you bring. Change the focus to make people excited about something with a higher intent.
Oh... and BTW: If you think the answer to this is 'Apple News', it's not. Apple News is actually the same problem, just at the opposite end of the scale. What Apple News is doing is to give people a random box of content that people can then flip through.
It's a higher form of engagement, but the focus is still just as random, and people aren't really thinking about any specific article. You are just 'flipping between pages' ... like how you with TV you are just flipping channels to watch. It's the same problem as with Facebook.
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