# Finding an audience (on Facebook)

By [Brandon Donnelly](https://brandondonnelly.com) · 2021-01-18

coronavirus, extreme-views, facebook, instagram, new-york-times, social-media, tech, twitter

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Social media can be both fun and useful. Over the weekend, we were exploring a few different design options for an address sign at [Mackay Laneway House](https://www.globizen.com/blog/2021/1/9/mackay-laneway-house-cladding-complete) and so I posted [this image on Twitter](https://twitter.com/donnelly_b/status/1350917646888402945?s=20) and storied it on Instagram. I got a bunch of responses, as well as some great suggestions. And we ultimately ended up making a small change to the design. That process was both fun and useful. The final design is now out for pricing and production.

![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/df0d22869c1fa70a488afc1f3e11969e.jpg)

But as we all know, there is also a dark side to social media. The algorithms that power social media have been optimized to amplify whatever drives the most engagement. Oftentimes that means whatever gets people the most enraged. [In this recent NY Times article](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/14/opinion/facebook-far-right.html), Stuart A. Thompson and Charlie Warzel make a compelling argument that Facebook has actually been coaxing many Americans into taking more extreme views on the platform -- it made them more popular.

And we're not talking about extreme views on home address signs.

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*Originally published on [Brandon Donnelly](https://brandondonnelly.com/finding-an-audience-on-facebook)*