(no subject)

[olivermoss]

I have no idea what the hell is going on with FB these days, but my feed is spammed with suggested reels. 80% of the reels are one of the following: a woman literally in the middle of giving birth or a newborn being lifted to the camera by the doctor for a moment between being birthed and cleaned up. The rest are mostly heavily made up skinny 20 year old girls complaining about their boyfriends. What the hell even is all this? And, of course, clicking 'show me less' does nothing. Fortunately, site blocking for the weekend is effective.

I'd complain on twitter but I've also blocked that for the weekend.

Comments

[finch]

Mine's reels of cake decorating, but I stg that I've tried to block them like eight different ways with no luck.

[olivermoss]

I'd be more chill if it was cake decorating rather than the moment of birth. I wish there was a way to turn it off. I swear if you click *see less* then Facebook is going 'oooh, interaction! Run more!'

[casimirian]

I have a video on a driver receiving instant karma via wreck, a man purchasing an obsolete ATM to find no money in it after saying how rich he figures he'll be for this ingenious idea (not surprised), and then a rust restoration video where they take rust off of metal objects.

[olivermoss]

You are getting the sort of posts that tend to make the frontpage of reddit, and I am getting the moment of birth. I want them to stop.

[casimirian]

Maybe a personal email petitioning Zuck to stop would suffice. (-:

[mistressofmuses]

Ugh, the skinny girls with heavy makeup and relationship complaints is all I ever see on the reels it pushes. Though I clicked on one - by mistake - of a dog, and now I get 90% pit bull videos being suggested. Which is much better than *shudder* birth videos, yuck.

[olivermoss]

It's like... it's pretty intense content. If it was any other medical thing they'd likely consider it too explicit for the platform.

I guess heavy make-up is the thing with the kids or whatever. Ugh, I'm old.

[mistressofmuses]

Birth stuff can very easily cross into outright squick territory for me, in a way other medical stuff often doesn't. But you're right - other graphic medical stuff tends to be banned from platforms, or is at least not prioritized by the algorithm, OR comes with more robust warnings.

I guess it is. I like flashy, dramatic, artistic makeup looks... but that's usually not what any of this stuff features, either. But ugh, I too am old, and just... can't make myself care about makeup at all. My ass is too lazy for that.

[olivermoss]

Yeah, it feels like childbirth gets a pass for being ... something we are supposed to do. It's creepy how it's treated the same as cute puppy videos.

[mistressofmuses]

It is creepy! "The miracle of birth" doesn't seem all that miraculous to me. Some people think it is, and that's cool for them, but I wish they'd keep it private! *Shudder*

[megan_moonlight]

Wow, that is rough 😳 I honestly had no idea FB suggests things like that.

I do have an account on FB, but I use it only once every two or three months, so I usually only see memes and things my friends post.

[olivermoss]

They've been pushing 'reels' a lot recently to compete with TikTok and they are annoying. Yeah, that content is intense and I DNW to see literal 4 second olds.