[bredren]

The difference is (apart from original formula Four Loko) there is no mystery of what goes into alcoholic beverages.

Wheras the specifics of what Facebook chooses to show you is either opaque or incalculable for people who visit their website.

This includes catastrophic mistakes in the algorithm like the massive groups pushing Q anon early in.

When you buy Bud Light, there isn’t some constantly shifting emotionally persuasive unlicensed content available to offer just the right amount of drip to give a site visitor a drip just before their average session length is wrapping.

I personally think alcohol is often destructive like rot and sloppy tool to play with one’s consciousness.

However, it is at lease consistent and well understood. Facebook is neither, and can much more easily be linked with havoc in pursuit of ad spend.

[Cipater]

>apart from original formula Four Loko

Death in a can.

Drinking two of those bad boys in an hour was like getting into a time machine. You'd wake up in an unfamiliar place with a trail of depravity and destruction in your wake like Hansel and Gretel on a bender.

[throwawaylinux]

I don't really think knowing those things would have much if any affect on users or the platform's impact to society or the ability to regulate these platforms.

What are you going to do, tell them they can't show you more content similar to things you or your friends or people with similar interests spend a lot of time on?

> This includes catastrophic mistakes in the algorithm like the massive groups pushing Q anon early in.

Was this really a mistake? Or just something that caused a lot of outrage and discussion and views and clicks so therefore got amplified and spread by design?

[Nextgrid]

> This includes catastrophic mistakes in the algorithm like the massive groups pushing Q anon early in.

Is it “catastrophic mistakes” or is the algorithm working as intended to maximize engagement?

From Facebook’s point of view I’m not sure it’s a mistake - these Q people have “engaged” plenty and the conspiracy is still a wonderful generator of engagement, whether from the Q people’s side pushing endless conspiracies, from people trying to reason with then or from those merely laughing at them.