That's exactly the problem! I don't want to see them, but the algorithm refuses to ask me.

If they think that the length of time I spend on a post is 100% correlated with the amount that I want to see it, they really don't understand people at all. It's an embarrassingly shallow model of how how humans behave.

> It's an embarrassingly shallow model of how how humans behave.

It's a trade off. Viewing rates give back feedback 100% of the time. Asking users for a thumbs up or down gives feedback almost none of the time, and still might not be accurate.