When did FB become so toxic?

[SparklingJoyous]

I had Facebook in the early stages (when I was 16 yrs old) and at the start I enjoyed using it. I stopped using it as I left university as I was feeling the pressure of trying to 'keep up' with others in life generally and it was exhausting. Plus who really has 600+ friends who you want to snoop on your life?

I joined again recently to look at groups so I can see what's going on in my local area to do/see while I'm on maternity leave. And I have been so shocked.

The groups are fine - but the reel of suggested posts is so damaging. I don't want to see these but it seems unavoidable - there's no setting I can find to turn them off. I am constantly getting charities showing videos of animals severely injured and babies distressed in war zones, it is incredibly upsetting and once I've seen something I can't just switch off mentally. But I can't donate to every charity! There's misogynistic videos and I've seen some questionable parenting techniques (borderline abuse) which I've tried to report multiple times but facebook keeps coming back with 'we don't see anything wrong with this - if it is offending you, you can choose not to see it'. So much for child safeguarding and protection?

It is just so sad to see it's decline, and I have to ask as someone who has just been so shocked to see all of this - are we all becoming desensitised to images such as these? I know it has been all in the news about the dangers of social media, and I'm well aware of them. I suppose I just didn't realise how toxic a place it was.

That’s very weird. I’m in a lot of Facebook health groups and never see anything like that at all. Occasionally it will suggest some reels (mine are mostly about 2000s trends!) and I don’t watch them and just click the hide button to the top right of them.

Just come off Facebook! Who needs it?

Stop donating to the causes you see on FB. Stop clicking on it all. Stop interacting with it all. Don't even let your mouse hover on it or click "read more" just drop the rope. Train the algorithm to show you something else by seeking out other things and interacting with those instead. It gives you what you interact with.

But FWIW FB has always been toxic in the wrong corners. The early groups, flame wars and trolling were shocking with no content oversight at all circa 2005/6 when it started to get popular.

You're feeding the algorithm. I don't use Facebook anymore it is just full of adverts for me.

I keep forgetting. That's probably what I'm doing wrong. Because I click on these adverts / videos I get more? Suppose that's how it works. But I find it really sad that these videos exist in the first place.

Yes when you click on them Facebook sees it as an "interaction". Its goal is to get you to interact as much as possible, so it shows you more of what you interact with.