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Facebook Social Networks The Internet

Facebook Removes 'Likes' From Public Pages (nypost.com) 40

Facebook has dropped the "likes" tally from public pages used by artists, public officials and brands as part of a new redesign. The New York Post reports: Those pages will now only show follower count, which Facebook says is intended to make things simpler. "Unlike Likes, Followers of a Page represent the people who can receive updates from Pages, which helps give public figures a stronger indication of their fan base," the company said in a blog post. Facebook has also redesigned pages to have their own dedicated News Feeds, where they will be able to "discover and join conversations, follow trends, interact with peers and engage with fans."
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Facebook Removes 'Likes' From Public Pages

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  • Re-arranging deck chairs

    • You say that as if it wasn't a big thing. And it isn't, for ordinary people. But plenty of Facebookers are literallty addicted to "liking". They're gonna throw a fit.

      When Microsoft remove the Start button - something equally unimportant - people went ape.

      Prepare for a shitstorm of "Where's the like button?" posts for years to come, and endless (and pointless) discussions on how FB has lost its ways, and how dare they take away that absolutely essential feature, and yada yada.

      • by guygo ( 894298 )

        the ship is sinking... think how they'll feel when it goes under. Tsk tsk. Perhaps they should get a real life.

      • by dohzer ( 867770 )

        Until they add a dislike button, who cares where the like button goes.

      • Saying the Start button is unimportant is like saying the index of the encyclopedia serves no purpose.
        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          by NFN_NLN ( 633283 )

          > Saying the Start button is unimportant is like saying the index of the encyclopedia serves no purpose.

          It is unimportant. You can just search for what you want on a digital encyclopedia.

      • When Microsoft replaced the familiar start button with an unintuitive hover gesture along the edge of the screen to reveal the charms menu - people went ape.

        Nothing improves a user interface quite like adding in a small but perceptible delay to accomplish routine tasks~

        Likewise, people got used to examining one metric of engagement, now they have that removed and get to examine some other metric that Facebook decided is better.

        Mutatio gratia mutationis

  • ... it's distorted bullshit anyway.

  • This is a good idea.
  • by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Thursday January 07, 2021 @09:27PM (#60909360)

    The Uninstall button.

    • Haha nice. Minds good, I keep getting banned for 2005 shit. Last straw was a chick at the beach in the background getting me banned for titties
      • Sounds like you need a media account. You upload all pictures and videos to that account and then link that account on facebook comments to signal you've uploaded new stuff to the media account.
        It doesn't need to be anything fancy, You can use Mega for instance. It supports password protection so you could send the password to your friends. This will prevent creepy facebook moderators from accessing your pictures and videos.
        Most if not all moderators on social platforms these days are snowflakes. They activ

  • by libra-dragon ( 701553 ) on Thursday January 07, 2021 @09:32PM (#60909370)

    The "like" is the social media equivalent of a caveman's grunt.

    I remember seeing a FB post about a GoFundMe for a friend's cancer treatment. Hundreds of "likes", but only a few people could e bothered to chip in a few bucks. I was disgusted. People think they're doing their part by clicking "like". Probably because that's what they seek for themselves on social media --more "likes". I've since moved on, others won't. They're perpetually addicted. The playbook of big tobacco has been passed on to big tech.

    • I remember seeing a FB post about a GoFundMe for a friend's cancer treatment. Hundreds of "likes", but only a few people could e bothered to chip in a few bucks. I was disgusted.

      You should be disgusted at how underpaid people are, and how people have to have a GoFundMe in order to afford cancer treatment. Instead, you're mad at broke people. Go you.

      • by malkavian ( 9512 )

        > You should be disgusted at how underpaid people are
        There's no indication that the GP isn't disgusted at how underpaid people are.

        > and how people have to have a GoFundMe in order to afford cancer treatment
        Again, no indication that the GP isn't disgusted by this. The appreciation of the GoFundMe site would indicate they're not a fan of having to pay for treatment (it's why I chose to give up a very lucrative business to work for the UK's NHS; I strongly believe in what I'm doing, and nothing gives j

    • Don't blame me - I sent thoughts and prayers.
      • Hehe. Funny.

        I got to say though that it really ruffles my feathers when someone say "I will pray for you" instead of donating some money for food, clothing and hygiene stuff, etc..

  • by edi_guy ( 2225738 ) on Thursday January 07, 2021 @09:36PM (#60909382)

    When you have both McConnell and Biden aiming to rewrite 230, it's going to happen. Add in the Capitol Building riots and its almost a sure thing as a "First 100 days, bipartisanship display"

    Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Youtube...Slashdot? Change is coming.

    • by Anachronous Coward ( 6177134 ) on Thursday January 07, 2021 @09:42PM (#60909400)

      ...Slashdot? Change is coming.

      Oh boy, Unicode support!

      • Presumably they will instead make yet another new mobile theme that drops even more of the features of the classic interface, because shittier new themes are an integral part of the slashdot experience.

    • > Change is coming.

      You mean /. editors will finally do their one job of not posting duplicates? /s ;-)

  • I don't necessarily "follow" a page that I like, precisely because I don't want to be smothered in updates. When I feel like seeing it, I'll go there. Otherwise, I do not want to be bothered.

    "like" but "not followed" is what people do who are tired of constant updates.

    • That's what RSS is for!

      Liferea for Linux for me ... open links in Firefox from the feed and use a good adblock

      Filter out all Trump and Covid feeds to a subfolder to read last ... and so on

    • I always accepted every friend request but unfollowed people immediately if I didn't see a meme that made me laugh immediately. Few years back I purged all family, and people from high school I didnt talked to, called it Facebook classic. Fuck Facebook, get on minds.com/breefuckstheworld/ the anti Facebook with no censorship.
  • but I guess my ass isn't half as big as Kim K. and my boyfriend doesn't have mental breakdowns all the time.
    And my sister is not into social media like Kendall.

  • If they remove my likes from Facebook, I remove Facebook from my likes.

    • by malkavian ( 9512 )

      Sounds like you made the winning move. I left FB quite some time ago. It's the Eternal September on PCP.

  • So Facebook is declaring that page follows are the opposite of what I used to intend by them. Its own blog post does use that language: 'fans', 'favorite Pages'. I used to *follow* horrible groups and public figures to keep some idea of what derangement they were up to, but I could never bring myself to *like* them.

    You can read the short blog post directly from Facebook - I don't know why /.ers would want to support that Murdoch intermediary.

    https://about.fb.com/news/2021/01/introducing-the-new-page-experie

  • Facebook charges for engagement.

    Advertisers are the ones saying that "Likes," are not a good metric for gauging engagement.

    However, "Followers" make an effort to engage and are a better scientific wild-ass guess about engagement.

    • It's been years since Facebook changed their system so that just because someone liked your page, that doesn't mean they'll actually see anything you post to it (and most of the time, they won't, unless you pay). So in reality, neither "likes" nor "follows" is much use for guessing about engagement these days. It's all just a smokescreen for Facebook's less than entirely transparent and much less cost-effective than it used to be advertising market.

  • Removing any hint of approval or disapproval is all one step closer to communism. Everything's equal, bigot, and don't you dare have any opinions outside the established group-think!
    • by malkavian ( 9512 )

      Incorrect. It removes the bias of being able to stack a concept to give it artifical validity (triangulation in sociopathic narcissistic behaviour for example).
      Without "Likes", a concept needs to stand on its own merit in the eyes of a reader, which is exactly how public speaking and debates used to work.
      There's actually going to need to be some effort to repudiate something (rather than "Nyah, I don't like what you say, so I'll post something short and shitty, and get 1000 people to laugh and hit like and

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

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