TL;DR: If the algoβs picking winners, trust erodes for everyone. Itβs time we stop whispering about it and say it out loud.
Something weird is happening on Farcaster, and itβs time we talk about it openly. This isnβt just βhome feed doing home feed things.β Itβs 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 doesnβt add upβ¦unless somethingβs being boosted. Weβre 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 everyoneβs 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, weβve seen a new trend emerge: artificial algorithmic boostingβ¦to levels never before seen on Farcasterβ¦and 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 baseβ¦but we have Dune queries to show us how βactiveβ each accountβs 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 βactiveβ 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 arenβt 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 donβt.
Letβs 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 letβs compare this to one of the new accounts that I believe are being purposely placed into many usersβ 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 doesnβt emerge organically.
The algorithm chose to show them beyond their organic social graph. Observing a few examples of weird reach/follower ratios doesnβt necessarily prove systemic bias. Visibility is complex and can swing based on timing, interaction graphs, and reposts by top casters, but the math doesnβt add up without boosting.
The people getting boosted didnβt necessarily ask to be. Now theyβre 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 theyβve consistently added value to the community.
Itβs creating a toxic imbalance that erodes trust across the board. We can politely say βvibes are offβ and tell people to just mute what they donβt want to see, but thatβs not going to solve the issue at hand. This is deeper than engagement FOMO. We are watching something weβve 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 weβre playing the same game. Invest your time here accordingly.
Link to Original Cast on Farcaster
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A very good read I must say!
Best
yes nice
Amazing article Pichi. Something's off, especially with the fact that this article isn't trending
I really liked reading your post. It's quite insightful. I assumed Farcaster had a better algo to address a lot of the issues traditional social media platforms employ. It'll be interesting to see the evolution of this platform.
Does this happen to everyone? Farcaster changed their algo's? People left? @quotient @ruminations what do you overall? https://www.quotient.social/user/mvr
Even dwr's engagement is down Is everyone just looking at their wallets? Or did botnets leave? https://www.quotient.social/user/dwr.eth
I used their data for this article. Many are seeing this. https://paragraph.com/@pichi/the-algos-just-not-that-into-you?share=true
nice article! just noticed it's even for dwr
I checked 25 accounts of varying sizes. All were down. Some new accounts saw clear reach way outside their organic potential. Most everyone else is down. A few folks who join in the last 90 days are doing well, but their followers are probably more active because they are clearly here now.
I checked mine seems to be up but maybe Iβm looking wrongly on mobile
You are also casting significantly more than you were before. Keep doing what you are doing. Itβs clearly working well!!!
lol. Thanks. Thanks to ai agents using up my resources so I have time to look at other things. But back to cooking again
Looks like my wallet balance π€£
haha thats just the last days right π
Down something around 50% in a few days also the worse week on rewards leaderboard 1.6-2k place and 3$ + 2$ baseapp
I think bots are engaging less
i still get these a lot
Absolutely, 74.8% of all engagement is from spam label 2 atm. Less active spam label 0, and those who are active are engaging less.
There's also more spam label 2s nowadays
ππππ
I can't prove it but i know it has something to do with TBA
Maybe many will move to the Base app
Stumbled across @marmo.ethβs walkntalk video & had to give him a follow. Valid points yo lol. @pichi I think youβd enjoy this rant as much as I did. https://farcaster.xyz/miniapps/WQrlE2ZKRKVQ/walkntalk
So good!!! I think many people feel this.
Real talk!
Instant follow too. Articulated so much of how the network feels.
haha! thanks man! @mjc716 crushed it with @walkntalk βone of the best mini apps ever, right up there with @stylizemexyz u back! i want to see and hear some of with walkntalks! honestly, front facing cam has got to be the way we tell the real ones from the bots. itβs so clear to me. soon others will see.
I agree, camera time, selfies in daily context, and walkntalks are all high value points that I am immediately drawn to & more likely to follow/engage with! The bot/spam activity is rampant & thereβs a level of accountability that comes with showing face! Also agree with your sentiments on the unintended negative side effects of the reward system. Hyper monetization is indeed a slippery slope that weβll have to be careful navigating!
yes, this was a point i was desperately trying to make was pretty much ignored by the powers that be crypto people generally believe the way to make people do things is to pay them in crypto it's so hard to explain to them that people do things for the love of doing things and it's nice and equitable to pay them to do the things they love doing it's not that the payment makes them do the things the payment represents gratitude for the things that were done out of love for better or for worse most people post on and consume social media because they enjoy doing it not for any goal of blowing up or making money that's a very small minority of the user base the reason why base is so much more successful in its narrative which people mocked so intensely the "base is for everyone" narrative is that base wants to put the crypto parts in the background to change the default to onchain but just as you don't talk about using cloud computing when you're doing something on google docs you shouldn't think about crypto when you're using the functionality it's just there in the backround part of the reality playing financial games with people ranking them giving them crumbs and then making them wonder how do i get more of those crumbs pitting them against each other with leaderboard dynamics that creates an angry feed it may drive up engagement in the short term but it's opportunistic and then people crash out hard because the message is that they suck if they can't put up good numbers the message is literally YOU ARE NOT AS GOOD AS THESE OTHER PEOPLE i think that's an odd feature of this moment in time while people used to secretly think things like that now they're definitely saying the quiet part out loud that people with money and power more valuable than people without money and power it's one of the most upsetting things about this moment but i think we get back to who we really are our oneness and togetherness with art with music with creativity with spirit with soul that can break through all the hyper-financialization it can break through all the hardened models that say this is how you stack up in the hierarchy someone just created out of thin air
does it still work?! I think I accidentally broke the webhook at some point
Uh oh π Iβm only just now stumbling across it, and all I was able to do I watch a video, and none of the buttons/interaction points worked, as in I couldnβt click @marmo.ethβs profile or the caption to expand it. I havenβt attempted anything else.
I stumbled across marmo as well. A visionary being not afraid to speak his mind. He has shaped my journey here and on Zora.
Another great @paragraph post by @pichi that hits close to home. As creators, we pour our time and energy into showing up, only to watch our reach tank while brand-new accounts hit 10k+ views overnight. Somethingβs off. How do we get the algo on our side? Or at least understand what game weβre playing? Give it a read and letβs talk about it π https://paragraph.com/@pichi/the-algos-just-not-that-into-you?referrer=0x570124A4f149724E8eA7e99BEEc4491FeCB28C95
Thanks a ton for reading and sharing!! 250 $TIPN
Thanks for putting my mind at ease. Always helpful to know I'm not the only one struggling π π
ππ
My thoughts exactly
Something was always off on FC
Now maybe even more than before. Something is happening with the algo and the mini apps are having a hard time working properly. Summer hit hard I guess
interesting!
I thought so too
Looking for more feedback on my article OR if youβve felt any shift in the algorithm over the past week. Data/metrics would be amazing. Will tip helpful comments!
Agree, I think Farcaster is skewing towards rewarding new users more, get them to the βaha momentβ, quickly, and get them to refer others. Not the best for old account, but boosts overall growth
Iβll be interested to see if they can retain them in 3 months when the boost wears off.
Great work, thanks for sharing I have a feeling itβs downstream of the rewards algorithm. We know that the rewards algo artificially boosts accounts with smaller followings, and may also directly or indirectly boost new users These users then climb the rewards leaderboard, and a lot of other people are engaging with people at the top of the leaderboard So this has a downstream effect of boosting these new and/or smaller users, who are now showing up on everyoneβs home feeds since theyβre getting disproportionate engagement Just a theory, I havenβt looked into it too deeply yet, but I agree with you that thereβs a serious issue here and it would be good to dig into more data
Itβs definitely a bit circular. You see someone youβve never seen on the leaderboard and check them out. Some of them are awesome and some are not. I look at it rarely mainly to see how itβs moving since they made some updates a few weeks ago. But I like this framing. I try to stay away from leaderboard specific stuff because I think itβs silly aka the algorithm that runs it. But the boosts definitely affect it! 250 $TIPN
Womp womp
Hey pichi, Has the Farcaster team shown any response or reaction regarding this algorithm issue?
I havenβt seen anything at all regarding the algorithm or the new user boosts we can all see.
Well, thatβs really bad for a platform that claims to be decentralized!
Heading into the city for the farcaster meetup this evening, will give this a read when I get home tonight!!!π€ π€
This and last week things went pretty well with engagement. I think it's difficult to measure a boost because, for example, if they're introduced by casters with authority. If they follow or recommend them, others will be more likely to follow or interact. Perhaps a script could be created with engagement over time for both new and old accounts. I'm not sure yet if that will yield any results.
Iβve just been manually checking. It was super obvious when accounts with extremely small followings were pulling 10,000 - 18,000 views on casts. Things feel like they are returning to the βBBβ era. Before Boosts.
In general, MM seems to be living up to Mark Zuckerberg's slogan "move fast and break things."
Thanks for the intel! 250 $TIPN
Will carefully go through it
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