Senator Paula Simons🇨🇦I spent a fun & fascinating morning at CN’s Walker Yard, in Edmonton’s Calder neighbourhood, the busiest rail yard in Canada. At harvest time, they routinely handle 6000-7000 cars a day. Their engine shop can service up to 27 locomotives. #TRCM #CN #Edmonton #yeg #Calder #trains #rail #SenateofCanada
Interesting. I posted these same pictures on FB and got absolutely pummelled with furious and abusive posts. Why? Because I am seen wearing a mask. Such fury - people mocking me for being ugly, people calling me “it” and “he”, people shrieking about the WEF, people calling for the abolition of the Senate, because one senator wore a mask in a group setting. I finally started deleting and even, for the nastiest comments, blocking, which I rarely, almost never, do. Just wild. #Covid19 #Facebook
My FB posts rarely get much engagement these days. This one went through the roof, with dozens & dozens of angry comments from anti maskers. I’m curious, algorithmically, about how that works. Is there some AI set up that looks for images of people in masks, and pops them into the feeds of anti mask folks to provoke response? Or is it just that one or two people post abuse and then share their posts with their others and it grows virally? But I’ve been posting masked photos for months. Why now?
KatyMackay@Paulatics The ways of the algorithm are mysterious. I rarely see your posts there for some reason.
Bridget Rivers@Paulatics Calls for people to mask have increased as Covid cases are on the rise. I imagine this has motivated the anti-maskers to ramp back up as well.
Paul Turnbull 🇨🇦@Paulatics I think all it takes is for one of the hard-core anti-maskers to see a post to message a group to start a pile on.
Maggie Maybe@Chigaze @Paulatics yeah I don’t know how it works on Facebook but on Twitter they make lists and if you don’t regularly check lists people have put you on so that you can block them, you get a lot of that.
KimberlyN 
I think it’s probably a combination of timing + trolls + bots + true believers.
Because public health professionals have been advising more use of masks going into the fall season, it’s a great way for the bots to amplify their engagement with both troll farms and true believers. Bots/spiders can be designed to scan images for certain elements — like people wearing masks. Then trolls and true believers glom onto a post, and voilà …algorithmic amplification. 🫤
WTL@Paulatics FB's *only* goal is to keep users on the site as long as it can to maximize the number of ads it can show, so the algorithm feeds each user what keeps them around the most, and some people *love* being outraged and yelling at people.
Serendipity@Paulatics Surge of anti-maskers now that they are being recommended again during the Covid uptick. Add the political fireball of upcoming elections in the U.S. But still not a good explanation for why people are defying science and their own well-being!
Alison Creekside@Paulatics One way they find you is to add you to a list on X and that list acts as a rallying call.
Bruce Acton 🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦@Paulatics Hi Paula the reason the #antimaskers are angry now is #masking is coming BACK! For some of us it never stopped. The #Covid surge in the #US and #Canada will cause more folks to mask and some people just feel the need to be oppressed. Just wait the #CPC will see this as an evil plan.
UrbanEdm@Paulatics The algorithm rewards "Engagement." Have they confused "content people want" with "content people comment on?" Or maybe there's something about controversy and ad sales that I don't understand. Anyway.
Fronts in the culture war are perfect for creating Engagement. Once a couple anti-maskers see your post and start commenting, the algorithm is designed to create a pile-on, by boosting your post to others who Engage with the same kinds of posts as those first couple anti-maskers.
@UrbanEdm I think that's it, in a nutshell. Alas.