Fb’s new ‘OG Associates’ feed feels so damned sleazy

It’s 2025. We’re barreling towards fascism, pushed by a flood of disinformation that hardly propelled our present president excessive. And now Fb desires to return to the best way issues have been, with a revamped Associates feed that exhibits nothing however the individuals you care about.

It’s bullshit.

“Bringing the Magic of Associates Again to Fb” is how Fb calls it, in a saccharine “Dwell Snigger Love” motif that individuals who usually are not all proper plaster their kitchen with in an effort to try to persuade the world and themselves that every part’s OK.

“Bringing the Magic of Associates Again to Fb” is a solution to carry again the “OG” Fb experiences, Fb says. “OG” stands for “Authentic Gangster,” which appears significantly telling on condition that Fb acted too late to stop disinformation from swaying the 2020 election and the way Fb’s algorithm already divides the nation into liberal and conservative bubbles.

Should you don’t consider that Fb is already a hive of algorithmically, AI-generated content material designed to rile you up, misinform you, and in the end trigger you and whoever you work together with to disintegrate right into a seething hate cauldron of steaming id, I don’t know what to inform you.

Positive, now is the time to eliminate all of the programmatically generated content material, and simply see content material from your mates. Hurray! Now that the cow’s out of the barn, we will clear up all of the manure and return to the best way issues have been.

The plain, clear reply can be to rent extra content material moderators. Pay them, and pay them effectively. Make a company dedication to filtering out disinformation and hate speech. Embrace variety. Police the location. Do they do this stuff? Perhaps? Do they do them effectively? After all not.

Sure, I’ve to make use of Fb for my job. I hate it. I hate seeing individuals I went to highschool with get uglier — from the within, I imply. I really feel the identical approach about Fb as I do about Uber, which principally got here into being by principally making an attempt to purchase its approach into legitimacy, and succeeding. I tolerate Threads, one other Meta product, however not less than Theads emerged as a response to Twitter and its (fill within the clean with no matter perjorative you need) proprietor. Fb’s proprietor isn’t a lot better.

“The magic of buddies has fallen away,” Fb writes in its weblog publish explaining its choice. Nicely in fact it has, you muppets. And also you made it occur.