back to article Facebook wants MORE EXPLICIT SHARING

Facebook is asking developers who use its platform to indulge in a lot more explicit sharing. The House of Zuck isn't asking devs to code with their pants off. Instead, The Social NetworkTM wants developers to stop their apps spaffing news of every microscopic event into its users' new feeds. Explaining the change, Facebooker …

COMMENTS

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  1. Mr C

    "hide all future posts from this source"

    best FB invention ever.

    Too bad most people don't know where to find it

    1. Pete 2 Silver badge

      Re: "hide all future posts from this source"

      I guess that's what FB has come up against.

      That so many people are hiding or unsubscribing that most of these feeds of trivia end up in /dev/null anyway (although the people posting this drivel: either explicitly or through the apps they use won't have a clue that nobody is reading any of it).

    2. g e

      Re: "hide all future posts from this source"

      Never even knew it existed. I thought/hoped that's what 'Unfollow' did..

      1. Grikath

        Re: "hide all future posts from this source"

        Oh , it does exist.. It's actually easier than running through the hoops the game developers create to reach privacy settings. It's only two clicks on the first annoying spam "update-o-mercial' on your wall.

        Which is why FB is probably clamping down on the game developers, since most people who actually actively use FB for Useful Stuff ( amazing, but it can be used sort-of-productively..) have a blocked list worth half a rainforest if it was ever printed out.

  2. Richard Jones 1
    Happy

    So does this mean that people will no longer get a cornflake by cornflake commentary about what others had for breakfast? How will the world survive, or is the answer 'rather better'?

    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
      Devil

      But the 153rd cornflake of the morning is the best one. AND PEOPLE NEED TO KNOW THIS!1!!!1!!111!!

  3. WonkoTheSane
    Trollface

    Said it before, I'll say it again...

    No Faceplant, no problem!

    1. Elmer Phud
      WTF?

      Re: Said it before, I'll say it again...

      "Said it before, I'll say it again...

      No Faceplant, no problem!"

      So, stop acting just like Facebook by telling us every five efffing minutes!

      If that's your life you may need Facebook.

  4. Richard 12 Silver badge

    Now if they can only make it usable

    And by that I mean chronological.

    I, like most semi-sane people, only use Facebook to keep up with people I actually know.

    Having the posts in such a random order means I often miss important things, like "X just died, funeral next Wed" under the deluge of old posts that leap to the top for no reason whatsoever.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Now if they can only make it usable

      Having the posts in such a random order means I often miss important things, like "X just died, funeral next Wed" under the deluge of old posts that leap to the top for no reason whatsoever.

      best one I had was one guy featured top of my 'news' feed saying he had an offer of employment. Nice one I thought good on him, so I clicked like. Scrolled down through a few stories and lo and behold there was a post from the same guy saying they'd since cancelled the offer of employment. After checking that had been posted 48 hours after his top 'news' story, which was no longer relevant...

      Safe to say I'm starting to use twitter more, because chronological order just makes a lot lot more sense

    2. Mike Taylor

      Re: Now if they can only make it usable

      News feed - drop down triangle - choose recent stories. Although the fuckerbergs to like to change it back for you from time to time.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Now if they can only make it usable

        News feed - drop down triangle - choose recent stories. Although the fuckerbergs to like to change it back for you from time to time.

        I do change it, but as you say it likes to change it back, but in my case it seems to be every day that it changes it back and as for mobile well the app defaults back to top stories every time you go in and you have to dig out most recent to load that feed then once you view something that is it back to top stories....

        They are making some bad decisions recently. The segregating of the messaging part to a separate app being a prime example. Now that it has stopped me checking messages from within the standard app and the standard app makes it harder to view most recent I've just installed messenger uninstalled the standard app and just view my feed on my PC instead.

        I can't imagine many people will do the same, but if they did I'm sure facebook would take notice and act

        1. paulc

          Re: Now if they can only make it usable

          just view my feed in a browser on my mobile... far easier, plus no FB app sucking up cycles and power all the time either...

        2. stucs201

          Re: Now if they can only make it usable

          Unfortunately even when it stays set to most recent it isn't chronological.

          If friend A comments on a post from friend B then the post from friend B (sometimes) gets sorted based on when the last comment was made and the story changed to 'A commented on this', rather than the original post directly (which may or may not appear again further down).

          Whereas I think what most users want by chronological is sorted based on the time of the first event that made it appear. I.e. the original post if its from one of their friends, with timestamps of comments only being used if the story wasn't listed at all until a friend commented on it.

      2. Terry 6 Silver badge

        Re: Now if they can only make it usable

        Yeah, I've been annoyed by that one, too. If I didn't want it to be chronological I wouldn't have set it like that- so FB apparently randomly changing it back is just bloody stupid.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @Mike Taylor - recent stories doesn't work the way you think/hope it does

        I used to use it, but found I was missing a lot of updates that I could only see using Facebook's default settings. Facebook filters your updates for you to reduce the volume, and apparently the filtering algorithm is more aggressive when you select recent stories.

        For some people that may be fine as they want to see less - probably especially those with 1000+ friends - but when I compared the two I found I was missing stuff I would prefer not to miss, so I'm forced to use their annoying presentation. I'm sure I miss stuff anyway, because I don't always scroll down far enough to be certain I didn't miss something new, but at least I'm missing stuff due to my laziness rather than because Facebook decided I didn't need to see it.

        IMHO, they've clearly gone out of their way to make recent items as non-useful as possible so as few people as possible will want to use it. I presume because when you have to scroll down through a lot stuff you've already seen, they have more room to insert ads.

        If someone invented an alternate Facebook client that was able to scrape the web page to get your feed, reorder it into recent items, block all the ads/sponsored content and so on, I'd happily pay for it. I'm sure Facebook would do whatever they could to hamstring such an app since it would destroy their business model, but so long as they make it possible to access via the web, I don't see how they could do anything more than play a cat and mouse game requiring weekly updates of the app. I wouldn't feel a bit guilty about cutting out their advertising, considering how they've gone out of their way to make Facebook harder to use to make more money off me.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: @Mike Taylor - recent stories doesn't work the way you think/hope it does

          They have - it's called Social Fixer - allows you to customise Facebook view, filter out stuff you don't want - reorder the page etc.

    3. Terry 6 Silver badge

      Re: Now if they can only make it usable

      I upvoted, but there's a rider. FB just isn't the right place to distribute important or sensitive information. Some things need to be personal ( like funerals).

  5. LarsG

    Information Overload

    After a while your sub-conscience just ignores it, a bit like ads on the web.

  6. Jim 59

    Sharing Absurdities

    Used an android app to scan a computer label to PDF yesterday. App immediately wanted to "share" that. Sigh...

    Can anyone come up with a more ridiculous example ?

    1. A K Stiles
      WTF?

      Re: Sharing Absurdities

      How about any time you buy something on Amazon - "Share this and tell your friends you've just bought 'Betty's Bumper Busty Babes XXVII", "Share this and tell your friends you've just bought a tub of handcream"...

      1. Elmer Phud
        Facepalm

        Re: Sharing Absurdities

        You actually read or pay attention to those things?

        Why?

        Do you read all the adverts on every bus that passes you?

        1. Jim 59

          Re: Sharing Absurdities

          @Elmer Phud - the scan app does not pass by on a bus, it asks you whether you want to share or not, every time you scan, and you must answer yes or no.

          You know, for all the times you want to share a mundane product label, a time sheet or a receipt with all your aunties and uncles.

      2. Skyraker

        Re: Sharing Absurdities

        Handcream?

        It could be so much worse.

        1. 's water music

          Re: Sharing Absurdities

          Handcream? It could be so much worse.

          What, you mean like Item not in stock or do you just mean that any day without a jazz mag and jar of cream would be worse?

        2. Ben Bonsall

          Re: Sharing Absurdities

          "Handcream? It could be so much worse."

          ie. superglue?

  7. Yugguy

    STATUS: Scratching my nuts.

    STATUS: Sniffing my fingers

    STATUS: Being slapped by the missus.

    Does anyone else really need to know this???

  8. Tim 11

    haha - facebook

    hmm I remember facebook ... from 2010. is it still going?

  9. JDX Gold badge

    About time

    I still find it amusing Amazon asks me to share all my purchases on FB. Cheeky sods.

  10. Suburban Inmate
    Boffin

    Simple Really

    If you want to use a useable fb and keep a few $$$ out of zuck's grubby claws then you need an ad blocker, FB Purity and turn off platform apps.

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