alt Hacker News> You don't feel like discussion on Facebook is subject to gatekeeping?
No, not really. I grew up in the TV era. Whatever algorithmic tricks FB is playing, they're nothing compared to broadcast news.
I also don't think the algorithmic tricks are particularly insidious. Mostly they give people more of what they ask for. Yeah, this allows QAnoners to build themselves a little echo chamber. But this is nothing new; walk into your local Kingdom Hall and see if they want to be friends with an infidel.
If you want to fix this, stop unfriending people who don't think like you. Challenge the echo chambers.
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The algorithmic tricks give people more of what they engage with, which is not really the same thing as giving them what they ask for. The problem is that this puts "this is neat, I like this" on an equal footing with "WHAT THE !@#$!@#$ IS THIS?!"
If I scroll through Facebook or X/Twitter, it's miles of ragebait. There's good stuff in there too, but why the hell is it showing me posts from Angry Conservative Mom and Being Liberal and other stuff like that? I don't want to see it, but either I engage before I can stop myself, or they at least think I will. Or I manage the willpower to stay off those platforms. Lots of people don't, and end up scrolling through an infinite stream of content designed and targeted to enrage them.
They're just propaganda firehoses. TV was too, but at least it had to be propaganda with extremely broad appeal. They couldn't select the propaganda best suited to getting engagement from you, personally, and then send it directly to you.
It's not about the algorithm, it's about what you can or can't say. Facebook censors you and won't allow you to say certain things.