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Comment by CodeSheikh | Hacker News Reader

When you use Snapchat you will notice that most of the top "news" publishers are the sort of Daily Mail and other tabloids infested with celebrities and kardashians bogus stories. It does not allow you to curate newsfeed per your taste. The publishers I want to read/watch/follow are not on Snapchat or I can't pick and create my selection. Unlike Facebook, where my wall is full with informational posts catered towards me, by me. This can tell you a lot about who is paying for advertisements on Snapchat and what type of audience they are catering to with what kind of content. It reeks desperation.

Edit 1: Grammar

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Don't bother bending over backwards to cater to a sophisticated audience when the idiot demographic is what you're going to end up with in the end anyhow. They don't need a bunch of people saying 'Snapchat was alright for a while, now it's overrun with crap ads and shit content so I abandoned the platform.'

I appreciate their honesty, I'll never feel betrayed by them because they designed the UI to be hostile to anyone with discriminating preferences from the getgo. I'm not going to wake up one morning to discover the New York Times has suddenly become the Weekly World News.

Are we really associating Facebook feeds and ads with a "sophisticated audience"?

Well it can be. I notoriously don't follow most of my friends newsfeed except the ones i see or talk to often. Then I follow pages that are of interest to me. Socioeconomic pages, tech pages, science ad medicine related, sports team I like and Oatmeal :)

As far ads are concerned, I use ad block on desktop browsers and Sponsored content can be tweaked to the point by continuous reporting that you will stop getting obnoxious Sponsored storied from Facebook.

Like it or not, this stuff is what normal people like to read though.

Take Twitter Moments. It's widely derided (lots of the content is the same as you describe - celebrity sports stuff), but I actually find it fairly interesting/valuable to keep in touch with "pop culture."

I often find it nearly embarrassing to check my "Stories" section on the bus, because right there at the top is some sort of sensational headline with an out-of-context, usually quite risqué photo.

In the recent past, the first few tiles would show some Kardashian sister in a wet shirt, bathing suit, or less. Just a couple days ago, I want to say, was a revolting picture of just two large tongues lashing one another... One of the best parts about my jailbroken iPhone 6 was that I could tweak Snapchat to hide those (along with the "Featured" Stories below, today in which is a whole communal story dedicated to eating pasta).

Thats because they are trying way too hard to be edgy and "young". Like MTV these days.

How did you tweak your Snapchat? Spare me Google research.

On iOS it was Snap++ or Phantom. Both tweaks can hide your Snapchat ads. Requires an iPhone running iOS < version 10.

Check the magazines next to the cash register that you never buy: tabloids, US Magazine, other celebriscandal rags. That's what your Snapchat Moments appear to be.

Yeah, I wish they gave me the freedom to publish as well. Id love to be able to have my own "channel" as easy as it is having a facebook page. The story is too limiting.

You can publish. Those are called stories. People can follow you on Snapchat (by username).

The story is quite different than a channel. The story wont let you publish any content, just stuff you record with your device.

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