> how are people ending up with such "terrible" stuff on their news feed?
Because their FB friends post it, or the groups they are in post it, and they interact with it (even if to say "stop posting this crap" to their family members).
I used to see it a lot, then I unfollowed (but stayed "friends") with the family members who posted that crap or marked the content "don't show me this" and now I rarely see it.
I had a friend from high school who posted too much political stuff (nothing outrageous, I am just very apathetic) so I unfollowed him because it's not what I want to see. It's like unsubscribing from a channel because they're boring.
I suppose that commenting or arguing with him would have the algorithm look at the words used, see that there is more interaction than normal, and promote posts from strangers that also contain those words? That's certainly how I would have designed the news feed algorithm.
So is a problem then that the algorithm can't distinguish between good interactions and bad interactions? (If it were me and I could parse comments with emotional intent to determine what are bad interactions, then I would try to learn from those bad interactions and minimize them)
If so then the duct tape fix is to just unfollow rather than let the algorithm think you're interested in that type of content. The proper fix would be to minimize bad interactions, but I guess that's where that whistleblower person is going (but that will minimize time spent on FB, minimizing revenue dun dun dun)
It's not rocket science, every user who uses YouTube and hears "comment on this video for the algorithm" knows that commenting = interaction that is perceived by the algorithm as a sign to get this seen by more people. So obviously commenting on stuff you hate will just get it seen by more people & get more stuff recommended.
It's like if I hate comedy clips and I keep clicking on each clip in order to downvote it. Of course I'll get recommended more clips.
Because their FB friends post it, or the groups they are in post it, and they interact with it (even if to say "stop posting this crap" to their family members).
I used to see it a lot, then I unfollowed (but stayed "friends") with the family members who posted that crap or marked the content "don't show me this" and now I rarely see it.