Strangeness on Facebook

Everyone knows that what we see on Facebook, as well as their other services like Instagram and Threads, is driven by algorithms. Their goal is to keep us using Facebook as long as possible so that we’ll see more ads, and the best way to do that is to show us more of what they know we interact with of click on. But what if there’s more to it than that? What if they’re engaging in some sort of deliberate “de-emphasis”?

I noticed in recent weeks that I wasn’t getting notifications when the New Zealand Labour Party posted something, including a Live Feed. Instead, I’d get a Notification about something they’re supposedly posted “5 minutes ago”) or whatever. When I follow the Notification, I find out that it was actually posted six or seven days earlier. Here’s an example, first a Notification I saw yesterday morning (October 30):

And here’s what it sent me to, a Reel that had actually been posted on October 23—not an hour earlier, but a week earlier:

I also realised yesterday that I hadn’t seen any Facebook Posts from Kamala Harris in a long time. I went to the Page to make sure I was following it (I was), clicked “Like” on a post, and then a little while later a post from the page was in my feed. That has never happened with any Labour Party post, even though I often leave a “Reaction”.

I don’t think this is any sort of censorship of centre-left politics, and as far as I know the same thing could be happening with any other politically-focused Page. I also vaguely recall reading that Facebook made a decision to de-emphasise, or whatever they called it, political posts for the US elections. For all I know, this could be nothing more than them trying to keep politics out of people’s feeds, not necessarily completely, but just a bit slower.

Whatever the truth is, it’s annoying as hell. I’ve followed the Labour Party Page for at least a decade, yet I no longer see their posts in my feed nor do I get timely Notifications of posts as I used to. The fact that clicking “Like” on a post from the Kamala Harris Page made another post show up in my Feed, when doing the same on Labour Party posts never does is odd, though.

I’ve noticed something odd in Instagram, too: I’ve Liked and followed numerous political folks in recent months, and yet I seldom see their posts when I launch the Instagram App. Threads isn’t quite as much of a mystery, though, because I use it so little that the algorithms probably don’t have anything to work with.

I think that Facebook should respect our choices in what we want to see in our Feeds, or, at least, they should give us timely Notifications so we can choose to look at the post. Facebook deciding for us is a bit condescending and even infantilises uses to some extent. They already feed me lost of posts I never asked for and don’t follow, but not posts from people and Pages I do follow.

Pretty much every Facebook User I know has complained at some point about how Facebook often fails to show us things from people we actually know and/or have been FB “Friends” with for many years, and instead it shows us posts from the same handful of people over and over. There’s simply no way for Users to change this situation. Seems to me Facebook would have better luck in getting ads in front of eyes if it gave us more of what we want rather than what Facebook decides for us.

Just let us have more say in what we see. I don't think that's an unreasonable thing to ask.

Update – November 2, 2024: Yesterday evening, I noticed I was getting Notifications of posts on the Kamala Harris Page again, and today there were several more, as well as posts showing up in my newsfeed, too. However, I still don't get timely Notifications about Labour Party posts, nor do I see anything in my newsfeed. That particular strangeness is still going on.