Do You Know What's Going On In Your Facebook Settings Without Your Input?

Something is happening in Facebook's settings that most people are probably unaware of. It wasn't until a friend told me about it that I wanted to let everyone know in case they felt the same as I did about having my choices made for me without any information or notice.

Have you noticed what you're seeing in your Facebook feed has been altered lately? Maybe you're not seeing as much content from The Blast or other news outlets you follow. Or even those friends that share racy jokes or half-true information. There's a reason...

I was recently informed that Facebook now has a forced feature that hides "problematic," "low quality," and "sensitive content" from your feed without you even knowing about it. It's just turned on by default in your settings and in a place that most people wouldn't even think to go check out. I know when I go into Facebook's settings, it's for a specific reason, and I don't wander around just because. But now, after hearing about this, maybe it's time we all start investigating to see what's going on.

When you go into settings, click on "Newsfeed" in Preferences. Then you'll see a list - Favorites, Snooze, Unfollow, Reconnect, and Reduce. Click on "Reduce." You'll then see this page:

You can then click on "Low-quality content," "Unoriginal content and problematic sharing," "Sensitive content," and "Content reduced by fact-checking." Each option you click on will take you to another page with opportunities to choose from as to what you see. But you'll notice Facebook already decided for you in the hopes that you won't explore settings and find these options yourself.

When I clicked on "Unoriginal content and problematic sharing," I found that Facebook had chosen "Reduce (default)." Some examples of what you won't be seeing much in your timeline are "posts from sources that share the same posts many times," "news articles with content that's copied from other reports," and "posts from pages that have shared unoriginal content in the past."

You'll notice that Facebook has defaulted to "reduce" without asking your thoughts or what you want.

When you click on "sensitive content," you find that they only give you two options - "reduce (default)" and "reduce more." Their examples of "sensitive content" are "sexually suggestive content," "certain violent or graphic content," and "people who repeatedly share posts that go against our Community Standards."

So, they have chosen for you what they consider "sensitive content" will either rarely make it to your news feed or never. There's no other option.

And then there's "content reduced by fact-checking." That applies to "false information, like claims that are impossible," "altered photos or videos that are fake or manipulated," "partly false information, like a combination of true and false statements," and "posts from people who repeatedly share content reduced by fact-checking."

So, I'm reading here that many jokes will be "fact-checked" and never seen by anyone.

It's nothing new, but the censoring and decision-making by the social media giant is out of control.

In 2021, I found that the app stole my Facebook page from me. I was told that I violated some rules and could appeal. They never bothered to tell me exactly what I broke. And the confusion was real for someone who only posts positive content and photos of my family.

Then I learned from my son's girlfriend that I was hacked. She saw that my cover and profile photos were changed to Islamic prayers in the middle of the night. She screenshotted it and sent it to me the following morning, but by then, I already knew my page was no longer mine. I sent Facebook the screenshots and my driver's license to prove my identity, and they told me too bad; your page is already gone.

I lost ten years of photos of my kids' childhoods. I lost messages that were saved from friends and family that have passed. I lost all the status memories of the funny things my kids did and said. And all over the fact that my page was hacked by someone who didn't know who they were hacking because I had no credit cards on file or anything of value to them, but I was the one who suffered and lost everything I valued without any human speaking to me about it.

I tried for MONTHS to find a live person on Facebook and Instagram (oh yeah, they also took down my IG page and any pages connected to mine, such as my son's acting page). I tried so hard to reach someone to beg for my page back that it affected my mental health. I want my photos back. That's all. But I can't get that because there's no one there to speak to.

And on the flip side of this argument, Facebook won't listen to me about my page being hacked, but they'll make choices for me, taking away my rights and not telling me about it upfront.

What do you think about Facebook's settings being chosen for you? Do you have a story about something that Facebook has done to you? If you'd like to share a future story, please email me.