The Curious Case of the Facebook Algorithm

social-media-1233873_960_720I have been on Facebook for more than a decade and have 3000 plus friends but the last few years the News Feed Algorithm has been showing me the same 25-30 friends, blanking the other 3K. I noticed sub-conciously and stopped looking at the feed for months, but would just post my articles since I am a journalist. So I decided to do an experiment. Every day I would snooze 5 of those friends for a month. Would the algorithm replace them with 5 others. It didn’t and I was down to just 5 friends after some days. I logged in all day and was shown a static feed of those 5 friends. So I snoozed those 5 and waited next day for nothing.

But no, dozens of new friends popped up who I hadn’t seen in the feed for years. So I kept up my experiment and started snoozing 5 friends a day. After a few months, I was probably seeing the posts a 100+ friends, but still not the other 3K plus. Why does Facebook do this? Why does it thrust a useless algorithm down my throat? Why can’t I see all 3K friends in real time? Because then my feed would be totally different even if I checked 10 times a day instead of becoming static if I log in 2-3 times a day. I guess it also worked the other way around as some people messaged me asking: Why weren’t you on Facebook for all these years? Also in the last few years I got practically zero friend requests. Maybe 1 a month at best. And now I am getting dozens of friend requests a day. What is the logic of that?

Silicon Valley Social Media claims to have a domain of billions of pages, billions of videos, billions of articles posted by billions of people, but it will never show you that ocean. It will take a glass from that ocean and tell you that you are allowed to see that only and nothing else.

March 2017 Status Updates

UK triggers Brexit.
EU chief vows to break up USA.
Two break-ups don’t make one unification.
(People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones)

Random alternate reality universe…
PMs…
1947-60: Netaji.
1960-75: Shastri.
1975-85: Vajpayee
1985-95: Rao.
1995-2000: Advani
2000-10: Scindia.

(March 30)

Does anyone remember that 6 years back the nation came to a standstill, an old man fasted, a new party was born over Lokpal?
Where’s the Lokpal?

(March 29)

How do you counter Eve-teasing?
By Romeo bashing.
#MixedMetaphors Adam & Eve + Romeo & Juliet.

Priyanka’s daughter will be saviour: Poojary.
Sonia couldn’t be PM.
Pappu can’t be PM.
Pappini won’t be PM.
Can’t dare to think beyond dynasty.

(March 24)

Schrodinger on steroids.
If you go by the TV news channels, Uttar Pradesh currently has one dozen “next” Chief Ministers.

(March 18)

Assange is a bigger name than Jack.
Yet Jack refuses to give Assange a verified Twitter account.
Tells you what’s wrong with the Left-Liberal ecosystem.

(March 17)

It is the right moment for the Right.
But things are still far off for the Far Right.
#GeertWilders #DutchElections

(March 16)

Till 1945-Colonialism.
1945-91: Big 2.
1991-2000s: Pax Americana.
2010s: US, China, Russia, India, Turkey, Iran etc all being assertive as EU collpases.

(March 13)

Till 1980s it was the BBC.
1990s was the decade of CNN.
In the 2010s its WikiLeaks all the way.
#Vault7

The “Internet of Things” simply means that every device in your home can become a snooping device and be used against you.
#Vault7

Team India’s Women’s Day gift.
They finished the match on March 7 to keep March 8 free from cricketing distractions.
#IndVsAus

(March 8)

On any day, in any match, for any reason, from any position of strength, no matter what the mahurat, India can lose 5 wickets for 10 runs.

Imran has 1 World Cup.
Darren Sammy has 2.
Sammy graces PSL, so Imran calls him phateechar.
And you ask what’s wrong with Pak cricket.

(March 7)

If you want to be really politically correct, then you also need other names for woMAN and feMALE and maybe even huMANkind.
(March 6)

Incredible India.
Three straight matches of 600+ scores. (World record).
Followed by…
Three straight innings of 200- scores. (Business as usual)

Ashes to ashes ashes and dust to dust,
If O’Keefe don’t get you Lyons must.
#IndVsAus

Return of the Nair.
India last two Test innings: 212 for 20.
Karun last Test inning: 303 for 0.

Communist Contradiction.
The Global Bourgeoisie are trying to lead a Proletarian Revolution.

Casualties of war.
1947: 1500.
1965: 3000.
1971: 3800.
1000s more in Kargil, Siachen and terror attacks.
Par Pakistan ne ek ko bhi na maara.

(March 4)

American politics has transformed into a 1980s Bollywood movie.
Foreign hand in everything.
The man in power must be stopped with violence.
Bad script.

Sasikala-Stalin drama.
Kejri-Pappu nautanki.
Lalu-Nitish ka bhai bhai Jungle Raj…
No matter how badly Modi does, his rivals will do worse.

(March 3)

Uber led to the English word super.
As in: Uber was a super taxi service.
The literal translation of uber is “over” or “above”.
As in: Uber drivers are asking benefits “over” and “above” what they are getting now.

(March 2)

These versions by Sunil Rajguru

The grand A to Z of almost everything that I can think off under the sun…

India’s grand global A to Z of scandals
May 4, 2016, Sify.com

A to Z of Sonia Gandhi’s controversies
April 27, 2016, DailyO.in

The A to Z of Shah Rukh Khan controversies
December 18, 2015, Sunilrajguru.com

A to Z of people hit by IPL
July 15, 2015, Sify.com

The A to Z of the Janata Pariwar
January 1, 2015, Sify.com

A to Z of Pakistani terror
December 19, 2014, Sify.com

A to Z of political extinctions in 2014
December 12, 2014, Sify.com

The A to Z of the Telangana journey
June 2, 2014, Sify.com

The A to Z of AAP dramas and controversies
May 24, 2014, Sify.com

The A to Z of the Aam Aadmi (Party)…
March 1, 2014, Sunilrajguru.com

A-Z of political newsmakers

12 November, 2013, Sify.com

The A to Z of IPL6
20 May, 2013, Sify.com

The A to Z of Sreesanth
16 May, 2013, Sify.com

The A to Z of Congress confrontations
3 December, 2012, Sify.com

The A to Z of Amitabh Bachchan
05 October, 2012, Sify.com

The A to Z of Anna Hazare
25 March, 2012, Sify.com

The A to Z of tainted politicians
19 December, 2011, Sify.com

The A to Z of Violent Protests in India
November 29, 2011, Sify.com

The A to Z of Chak de India…
November 25, 2011, Sunilrajguru.com

The A to Z of Controversial Cricketers

November 4, 2011, Sify.com

The A to Z of Facebook
October 29, 2011,Sunilrajguru.com

The A to Z of Indian Sporting Controversies
July 31, 2011, Sify.com

The A to Z of Scam India
July 6, 2011, Sify.com

The A to Z of International Terrorism
May 20, 2011, Sify.com

The A to Z of the Anti-corruption Lokpal Bill Drama
June 16, 2011, Sify.com

The A to Z of the 2G Telecom Scam
January 3, 2011, Sify.com

The A to Z of IPL
March 30, 2010, Sunilrajguru.com

The A to Z of IPL Controversies

April 23, 2010, Sify.com

The A to Z of Copenhagen
December 22, 2009, Sunilrajguru.com

The extremely friendly world of Facebook …

1. Welcome to Facebook. Connect with the world…
People You May Know…
(Oh ya? How do you know?)

2. X and you have 34 mutual friends.
Y and you have 112 mutual friends.
Z and you have 201 mutual friends.
(OK, OK, I get it.)

3. Add Friend
Add Friend
Add Friend

(Not so subtle are you Facebook?)

4. So and so has added a, b, c and x, y and z as friends.
Sunil, More Friends Are Waiting
Mrs xyz found 6 friends by searching her email contacts. Give it a try!
Your friends use the friend finder. Have you tried it yet?

Finally…
OK baba you win, I’ll start sending friend requests to the people you suggested.

Next day…
You have been blocked for sending too many friend requests.
You should not send Friend requests to people you don’t know.
If you keep this up, we will delete your Facebook account!

© Sunil Rajguru

Social networking and riots…

Weapons of mass destruction…
An Afghani girl with a schoolbook.
A Kashmiri girl with a guitar.
An Indian citizen with a Facebook/Twitter account.

Once they used to blame the Foreign Hand for everything.
Now they blame the FBTwitter handle.

Please spell Internet.
Politician: Interiot.

These versions by Sunil Rajguru

When Facebook became Twitter and Twitter became Facebook…

Twitter: Let me introduce the Twitter News stream.
Facebook: Good idea. Let me also do something like that.

Facebook: The Like button is a smashing success.
Twitter: OK you can Favourite something too.

Twitter: You just can’t beat my ReTweet concept.
Facebook: OK let me introduce Share.

Facebook: You can post photos, now that’s exclusive to me.
Twitter: OK, you can post photos too.

Facebook: Well I have groups.
Twitter: OK, I have lists.

Twitter: My Followers concept is unique.
Facebook: Or so you think!

Twitter: My hashtags are unique.
Facebook: Or so you think!

So is it TweetBook or FBWitter?

And will the two merge one of these days?

These versions by Sunil Rajguru