Maybe most of it is empty calories, but at some point you're full of them and your body is trying to operate on a stomach full of gummy bears, Cheetos, or - if you're engaging with Mr. Top Ten Dan Bongino - off-brand rat poison.
I can only go by what my right-wing HS classmates post, which are shared diatribes aimed at inciting outrage in whoever reads it (from the right, "how dare they" outrage, from the left "this is completely misleading.") Their posts 1) NEVER have external links and 2) Are text but in graphical form, so it can't be searched. I wonder if even Facebook can search graphical text.
But of course Facebook will choose some measurement that will look favorable. My current campaign as a tiny voice is to look at things from the meta-perspective of systems rather than blaming people or ideologies. Zuckerberg and Sandberg have minuscule control over the huge Facebook system at this point. But they are still impelled to act in the best interests of their system, which means positive public relations (you can always talk). The system perspective would ask whether there are external systems whose natural proclivities could be leveraged to push Facebook in the direction of less polarizing and misleading content. Ideologies might also be seen as sociological systems rather than some kind of sum of individual opinions.
(I realize that my meta-perspective of leveraging mega-systems against each other might end up as a reductio-ad-absurdum depending on whether humans have any control over gigantic collective organizations at all.)
If I were FB & I knew that content of a particular political persuasion (say) generated the highest engagement I'd make damn sure my algorithm saw to it that the most anodyne content reached most eyeballs.
Then I'd publish reports like, er, the one you discuss here.
It says right at the top "the top 20 domains account for 1.9% of the traffic". If youtube alone does not produce more than 1.9% of the traffic, then the list is close to worthless. What this is actually highlighting is bots gaming the ad market. Why businesses continue to pay for this type of traffic is the real mystery.
Maybe most of it is empty calories, but at some point you're full of them and your body is trying to operate on a stomach full of gummy bears, Cheetos, or - if you're engaging with Mr. Top Ten Dan Bongino - off-brand rat poison.
I can only go by what my right-wing HS classmates post, which are shared diatribes aimed at inciting outrage in whoever reads it (from the right, "how dare they" outrage, from the left "this is completely misleading.") Their posts 1) NEVER have external links and 2) Are text but in graphical form, so it can't be searched. I wonder if even Facebook can search graphical text.
But of course Facebook will choose some measurement that will look favorable. My current campaign as a tiny voice is to look at things from the meta-perspective of systems rather than blaming people or ideologies. Zuckerberg and Sandberg have minuscule control over the huge Facebook system at this point. But they are still impelled to act in the best interests of their system, which means positive public relations (you can always talk). The system perspective would ask whether there are external systems whose natural proclivities could be leveraged to push Facebook in the direction of less polarizing and misleading content. Ideologies might also be seen as sociological systems rather than some kind of sum of individual opinions.
(I realize that my meta-perspective of leveraging mega-systems against each other might end up as a reductio-ad-absurdum depending on whether humans have any control over gigantic collective organizations at all.)
As you said--in 20 different enthralling ways, Charlie--it's Facebook's cake, and they can slice it as they like.
Personally? I don't believe one syllable of their so-called "report."
If I were FB & I knew that content of a particular political persuasion (say) generated the highest engagement I'd make damn sure my algorithm saw to it that the most anodyne content reached most eyeballs.
Then I'd publish reports like, er, the one you discuss here.
It says right at the top "the top 20 domains account for 1.9% of the traffic". If youtube alone does not produce more than 1.9% of the traffic, then the list is close to worthless. What this is actually highlighting is bots gaming the ad market. Why businesses continue to pay for this type of traffic is the real mystery.