Did you see my Facebook Post?

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As I was finishing up Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick’s book, “The Art of Social Media," something stood out to me. Kawasaki opened my eyes to an unknown truth about Facebook, one of my beloved social media platforms. I thought I might have noticed something sketchy before, but now I know for sure there is. To be honest, now that I know this, I am a little upset. After I explain what I am talking about, maybe you will be too.


Here is a recent experience of mine to help shed light on the situation:
The other day, I was at my boyfriend’s house and he showed me this neat video of someone we both knew. I told him to share the video so I could share it too. After he did so, I immediately refreshed Facebook and it did not appear. I refreshed it again and got the same result. Then, I scrolled down my newsfeed, and I still could not see it! I eventually had to go to my boyfriend’s profile to find the video.



Why was it so difficult to find the video? Where did it go? Does this mean not all of my posts are seen either? If we follow someone, are we not supposed to see everything they post or share? That is the reason people follow each other, right? According to Guy Kawasaki, this happens thanks to the lovely concept called “EdgeRank.” I guess this is where Facebook chooses which posts you see so you do not see too many. Uh, what? Kawasaki says, “I believe that people who voluntarily follow you should see everything you share,” and I completely agree. I follow someone because I want to see all of their posts, not some of them. If they post something I do not care to see, I will scroll over it.



There are so many ways this is frustrating to me. First, why does Facebook feel the need to choose what people get to see? If people have newsfeeds that are packed with posts, they should probably re-evaluate who they are following. If people do have this problem, Facebook should make it an optional setting. There have been many times my boyfriend will ask if I have seen his post and I have not. It irritates me to think I did not see it because Facebook decided to not show it to me. He is my boyfriend for crying out loud! Facebook knows this, so they should figure I am going to want to see all of his posts.



It will take me some time to heal from this devastating blow, and I am not sure if my relationship with Facebook will ever be the same. It shocks me that Facebook thinks this action is a necessity for its users. Maybe there is or will be a way around this. If there is, please let me know. Thank you, Guy Kawasaki, for giving me clarity.

Comments

  1. UnknownFebruary 5, 2018 at 7:39 PM

    Crystal,

    I completely agree with you. This is such an infuriating aspect of Facebook! Why would anyone believe this to be the best way to organize posts? Why is it such a problem that we see posts listed by the time they are shared? It makes me annoyed to see something a friend posted three days ago before seeing a post that had been shared a few hours ago. The whole point of Facebook is to help us stay in touch with each other while distances apart. How can this be achieved if the timeline of appearing posts be so unorganized? Hopefully this feature is changed soon, or at least I will continue to hope that it will be. Thanks for sharing.

    Cheyenne

    ReplyDelete

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