If you can't see the connection between Facebook's ambitions and the role the newsfeed plays in our lives, this isn't a conversation worth having. Yes, the strategy is to analyze what you've like and show you more of the same. Yes, I understand that you dislike advertisements but continue to see them. That's because the newsfeed is a work in progress. Facebook's end game is to create the perfect advertisement: a targeted ad that you do -in fact- like, or an ad so indistinguishable from other content that you don't notice it is an ad. I'm hardly the tinfoil hat-type, but are you telling me this hasn't crossed your mind? You can't cry foul (or "tangent", as it were) when the "topic" you staked out was beside the point in the first place. Obviously, the topic you feel you've sacredly delineated ("you still select what friends you add or do not add on Facebook") doesn't merit discussion. Being able to see the interconnectedness of things should be a positive, not a strike against. It's an online forum, not a 5th-grade English paper. There are no points awarded for hewing close to some dismal little thesis. An ostrich buries its head in the sand. To you, the most salient argument to be made is that you choose who to friend on facebook. You somehow think this illusion of control means that the filtering process is neutral, anodyne, not worthy of further inspection. Ok, ostrich. And—just because connecting dots really seems to bother you—I'm going to refer you to Death of the Author. The article may or may not be stupid (that was your original point, yes?): but what actually matters is what you, the reader, make of it. How's that for a tangent?Do you know a lot of people who consider Facebook to be life or something?
Clearly you've never spent time around teenagers.