A little FB experiment

For the last few weeks I have been paying careful attention to my Facebook news feed and doing an experiment to track how closely the bots are adjusting what they present to me. You will not be surprised if I tell you that the algorithms are very much in use on every one of us.

Personally, I do not want to be manipulated or brain-washed, especially when it comes to politics and elections. Therefore, I have decided to be a (mostly) non-reactive user of Facebook in as much as politics is concerned. I will not "Like," "Love" or share any post that concerns politics or the upcoming elections. It is nothing personal. I am just going to play a different game, and hopefully not their game.

The Experiment

My experiment consisted of two phases. First, I focused solely on posts of animals and landscapes, liking and loving as many of these posts as I could. Facebook served me more of those posts, tons and tons of them. In phase two I switches to focusing on political posts, liking and responding and loving as many of them. Quickly, Facebook abandoned most of the previous posts (the birds and landscapes quickly disappeared) giving room for more and more political posts. It took less than 24 hours for their programs to adjust to my new interactions. Phase three, now in progress, is to stop reacting and begin acting. I will try to use FB for nothing but building personal relationships, things such as saying happy birthday and keeping up with everybody's adventures.

Let's Be Careful

Please be careful when using FB. The poisoning of our minds is actively underway. There are active efforts to widen the gaps between us. We can either let FB and other actors weaken us as a nation, or we can find ways to cooperate and find common ground to make our nation truly greater than it has ever been.