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19 comments

  • ZuckBot has already put out there that Meta is padding its DAU numbers with Fake Bot Accounts, so these numbers are meaningless.

    • Not to mention the sheer number of times they've already been caught faking numbers in the past. Great comment from That Yellow Bastard Site.

      Facebook faking viewership numbers is really an under-reported story. So many publishing companies had moderately successful business models. Then Facebook came along with their amazing viewership numbers. Everyone "pivoted to video", switched to targeting native Facebook views, and chasing those unbelievable viewership totals. The views ended up being well lower than reported which means the promising revenue never materialized like expected. By the time companies realized this, it was too late to pivot back to hosting their content on their own site because the behavior of their users had already been broken by Facebook. This destroyed countless publishers including CollegeHumor and the similar Funny or Die. It is amazing that Facebook only paid a $40m settlement for this fraud.

      Similar story from Adam Conover of CollegeHumor:

      My former employer CollegeHumor did this. In order to beat YouTube, Facebook faked incredible viewership numbers, so CH pivoted to FB. So did Funny or Die, many others. The result: A once-thriving online comedy industry was decimated. A $40m fine is laughable; shut Facebook down.

      Anyone who buys the increased user numbers less than a month after they promoted fake AI generated profiles is a fool.

  • I left for the final time in 2014, after the job market required me to rejoin just to get an interview. You shouldn't have to sell data to a company to get a job. That we have normalized this is worrisome.

  • Looks like the number of bots has increased. No same person would ever create an account on there, not since at least the 2010s.

  • To be honest, this always happens. So what? Most people want their corporate social media. My parents will never stop using Facebook no matter how bad it gets. I think focusing on metrics like what most people are doing is just a race to the bottom. If we keep building what we want to exist in the world and stop focusing on which platform does the best numbers, I think we will find its quality that counts, not quantity.

  • I logged out on the 12th I think. I did log back in briefly to update my business’ auto reply to give out my linktree.

  • "The majority secretly agrees with me, only a minority of idiots disagree" is a bad assumption no matter which "side" of an issue you're on. I'm always glad to see options become available but we shouldn't expect everyone to want them.

19 comments