I actually miss Facebook as it was

[Echobelly]

I genuinely found Facebook a positive for my life as I have disparate friend groups and it was a great way to keep all my news in front of them and to see what they were up to. Then 3 years ago it just became a meme and AI slop site, less than half of which was my friends' feeds (I've heard some people say there is a 'friend feed' option, but I've never seen it, only an option to prioritise a handful of people). I gave up and unfriended everyone except a few people for whom it's my main link to them and don't really look at it. Also Zuckerberg has sucked up to Trump and said it's OK for people to shit on less privileged groups they don't like on there in the name of 'discourse', so that's another reason it can fuck off now and I wouldn't go back even if I could see my friends' feeds.

Honestly I would pay a few quid a month to have a functioning actually social app similar to it, without ads, algorithm and slop, although obviously that doesn't seem to be a model anyone can make at scale.

When I tell people I've come off it they'll go 'Oh yeah, I was much happier too, less stupid arguments' etc, and actually that's not the case, as I just didn't friend anyone who was an arsehole, or argue with anyone on there.

On the mobile version (android) no choice for friends

I kept getting tutorials by a novelty make-up artist who can make anyone look like Nicholas Cage 😳 It gave me a bit of an identity crisis that this is what the algorithm thought I’d like the most, after carefully studying my entire online life.

I only use the app and I hate it now. I tried hard when random posts started appearing in my feed to report them as irrelevant, but gave up in the end. 95% of content I see are people or groups I dont follow and have never looked up. I rarely see a friends post. I dont post myself anymore as what's the point. Only reason I keep my account is to look up local businesses, some of which are only on social media with no actual website. And the annoying thing is, if a business posts about an event, I only see that post 5 days later so it's always too late!

I certainly couldn’t look at the “Home” feed now as it’s all adverts and suggestions but “Feeds” gives me exactly what I’ve followed and has the option to filter for just friends (I have a lot of groups as well). Using the app on an iPhone.

i did point out that the android version doesn't have that.

There's also a lot of scams on there. I've reported some, just for them to report back that the scames "don't breach our community standards."

I don't have "friends" on it anymore. I got rid of all that shite. But I do find it good for various groups I'm on such as travel tips for places I will be visiting, and medical groups for the two big things I have. I also use it to improve my French by joining groups in France and plugging away.

Apart from some know it all assholes on the medical groups I enjoy it a lot. Without the friends thing anymore obv. 😊

You are not wrong, OP. I'm constantly being shown posts from groups I'm not in, have never been in and have no interest in being in! Why would I care about the Hertfordshire Life group when I live in Yorkshire? I also get millions of Horses for Sale posts - when I buy my next horse it will most certainly not be off Facebook!

You can.pay now to remove ads.

I deleted my account but then realised a few local businesses use it to give information. So I set up an account with no personal data other than an email address I rarely use. I’ve been utterly horrified each time I’ve logged on at the vile content being promoted in my feed. It’s horrible.

If you click the menu tab - the three lines on the bottom tab (on iPhone it is anyway) - you can choose Feeds and then choose Friends.

However, even when i do this, there still aren’t very many posts from my friends because nobody posts on FB anymore.

Initially it was good for my mental health as it connected me with people after having a baby and I was terribly lonely. Then all the idyllic posts started having the opposite effect on me even though I was actually quite happy. But now I have deactivated my account due to all the ads and dross.

I saw that, but it's not just the ads that were the issue, it didn't say anything about not showing endless meme or 'recommended' pages, and it's been nearly 3 years now, so I don't think most of my friends use it now either. The time to offer this, and to make sure that offer included no algorithm led material either, was 3 years ago before the rot set in.