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The Algoâs Just Not That Into You
Something weird is happening on Farcaster, and itâs time we talk about it openly. This isnât just âhome feed doing home feed things.â Itâs much deeper and more concerning.
Some casts are skyrocketing with 10k+ views from accounts that have 1k followers. Meanwhile, longtime casters with 100k+ followers are seeing reach crater by 50%. The math doesnât add upâŚunless somethingâs being boosted.
Weâre watching artificial amplification play out in real time and this experiment needs to end now before more trust is lost.
The algorithm cares more about engagement quality than raw follower numbers. There are several Dune queries who show the most popular casters by the numbers, but they do NOT align with the Farcaster Leaderboard. We know that not everyoneâs engagement is weighted equally, and most of us have come to begrudgingly accept this fact.
The home and trending feed have always favored certain accounts, and as little as two engagements with those accounts can amplify a cast to trending. We see it and have come to terms with it.
But recently, weâve seen a new trend emerge: artificial algorithmic boostingâŚto levels never before seen on FarcasterâŚand we need to stop dancing around the subject and talk about it.
A user with 1,000 followers might have a highly active niche audience, while someone with 250,000 might have a large but disengaged baseâŚbut we have Dune queries to show us how âactiveâ each accountâs followers have been over the last 7 and 30 days.
Very large accounts (6-figure followings) tend to have about 50% of their followers be considered âactiveâ under this metric (active=have casted, liked, or recasted).
Newer accounts skew higher because many are only a few weeks old, so most of their followers are obviously active.
If the algorithm is boosting based on more active followers, it could explain the great discrepancies we are seeing in reach, so we need to look deeper.
A new tool has emerged that lets us look into the number of unique accounts that interacted with a user's content in the last 30 days, and the data is very telling. This data counts everyone on the protocol, not just those with good spam labels.
If you think your engagement has gone down a lot over the past few weeks, you arenât imagining it. Usually, if 2-3% of your followers interact with your casts, you are doing great. But what if most of the people who follow you never even see your casts in the latest version of the algorithm? Spoiler alert: they donât.
Letâs compare some of the biggest, most established accounts on the network to newer accounts who I believe are being artificially amplified.
These accounts all have well over 100,000 followers each (even more on the protocol!), cast daily, and consistently engage back with the network. Their content and casting patterns have not changed noticeably over the last 30 days.
The number of unique accounts they have reached in the last 30 days and how much their engagement is down is as follows:
15,400 (down 67%)
7,500 (down 49%)
1,500 (down 29%)
2,700 (down 36%)
6,500 (down 55%)
4,200 (down 54%)
Now letâs compare this to one of the new accounts that I believe are being purposely placed into many usersâ home feeds (note that these accounts have 1,000-3,000 followers).
10,500
The number of views on many of their casts are also between 10,000 and 18,000 views. Remember, the data above shows interactions, but even more people have seen these casts!
A user with 1,000 followers getting seen by 10,000+ people requires external amplification.
That reach doesnât emerge organically. The algorithm chose to show them beyond their organic social graph.
Observing a few examples of weird reach/follower ratios doesnât necessarily prove systemic bias. Visibility is complex and can swing based on timing, interaction graphs, and reposts by top casters, but the math doesnât add up without boosting.
The people getting boosted didnât necessarily ask to be. Now theyâre targets of backlash; they are victims as well.
Meanwhile, those who have not had this type of algorithmic boost feel invisible and demoralized, even if theyâve consistently added value to the community.
Itâs creating a toxic imbalance that erodes trust across the board. We can politely say âvibes are offâ and tell people to just mute what they donât want to see, but thatâs not going to solve the issue at hand. This is deeper than engagement FOMO.
We are watching something weâve invested time into start to resemble the very platforms we came here to escape.
The algorithm may be silent, but its choices are loud. If it is hand picking winners, the rest of us should stop pretending weâre playing the same game. Invest your time here accordingly. 88 replies
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