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If Facebook followed some deterministic algorithm like "show all content from friends, in chronological order" then I don't think there would be such loud voice

If Facebook followed some deterministic algorithm like "show all content from friends, in chronological order" then I don't think there would be such loud voices calling for it to also solve $social_problem. But Facebook does exercise editorial control, in the service of engagement. It's fair to ask that this curation consider other objectives as well, or at least counterbalance the side-effects it's known to have (divisive content is more engaging and so is amplified; at least correct it back down to neutral).

ccktlmazeltov 6y ago
If facebook was following a deterministic algorithm, people would complain too.
- deadwing0 6y ago
  Is that reason enough not to try? Because people will complain? You know very well that people will complain no matter what happens, yet we still must seek to work towards truth and a better way, even though "better" is in opinion word, and sometimes so is "truth."
  - ccktlmazeltov 6y ago
    good luck filtering human content via deterministic algorithms, and if people can reverse engineer these then they'll get gamed... it's just a stupid idea.
- irishcoffee 6y ago
  Back in the day this is how it worked. They changed it. Nobody that I can recall was complaining for it to change at the time. Circa 2006 I think. edit: grammar
  - canjobear 6y ago
    It was much smaller and less influential back then.
knzhou 6y ago
But that’s not how it actually works. For example, it’s agreed among journalists covering social media that Facebook’s greatest crime is that it “created a genocide in Myanmar”, as you can read in an ocean of longform articles. What they mean is that people shared hateful messages privately via Messenger and Whatsapp, two services that use a completely deterministic algorithm (“show all incoming messages by recent”). The only practical way to stop this is to employ an army of censors to read private conversations and delete the ones deemed bad. But of course this is also horrible and dystopian. So, as always, it’s trivial to write a scathing critique of Facebook no matter what they do. The problem is that hate doesn’t need an algorithm to amplify it; it can just amplify itself, as it has throughout all of human history. The problem isn’t the algorithm, it’s the people. And you can’t just “fix” people.
spangry 6y ago
I agree. The second you start censoring $VIEW_X, people will start questioning why you aren't also censoring $VIEW_Y. Are you not censoring $VIEW_Y because you endorse it, Facebook? Is Facebook $VIEW_Y-ist? Rinse and repeat for every fringe view.
lightgreen 6y ago
> show all content from friends, in chronological order Then typical user Facebook feed will be 99% pictures of funny cats from one of their loved friends, which are too good to unfriend (if that friend is, for example, mother). (Not to mention, it's practically impossible to configure filtering for 99% users). And then these users will just leave the service because it's boring, and that's it, end of Facebook. We already had a lot of services with no feed ranking. All of them died or started doing the ranking. > Facebook does exercise editorial control As any other mainstream service with feed and user-generated content. For example, Twitter or TikTok. > It's fair to ask that this curation consider other objectives as well The big neural network which defines feed ranking is developed by hundreds of engineers, and already optimized for (I guess) hundreds of parameters, including time spend of website, ads revenue, fraud protection, lower risk of suicide and so on.

ccktlmazeltov 6y ago

If facebook was following a deterministic algorithm, people would complain too.

deadwing0 6y ago
Is that reason enough not to try? Because people will complain? You know very well that people will complain no matter what happens, yet we still must seek to work towards truth and a better way, even though "better" is in opinion word, and sometimes so is "truth."
- ccktlmazeltov 6y ago
  good luck filtering human content via deterministic algorithms, and if people can reverse engineer these then they'll get gamed... it's just a stupid idea.
irishcoffee 6y ago
Back in the day this is how it worked. They changed it. Nobody that I can recall was complaining for it to change at the time. Circa 2006 I think. edit: grammar
- canjobear 6y ago
  It was much smaller and less influential back then.

knzhou 6y ago

But that’s not how it actually works. For example, it’s agreed among journalists covering social media that Facebook’s greatest crime is that it “created a genocide in Myanmar”, as you can read in an ocean of longform articles. What they mean is that people shared hateful messages privately via Messenger and Whatsapp, two services that use a completely deterministic algorithm (“show all incoming messages by recent”). The only practical way to stop this is to employ an army of censors to read private conversations and delete the ones deemed bad. But of course this is also horrible and dystopian. So, as always, it’s trivial to write a scathing critique of Facebook no matter what they do. The problem is that hate doesn’t need an algorithm to amplify it; it can just amplify itself, as it has throughout all of human history. The problem isn’t the algorithm, it’s the people. And you can’t just “fix” people.

spangry 6y ago

I agree. The second you start censoring $VIEW_X, people will start questioning why you aren't also censoring $VIEW_Y. Are you not censoring $VIEW_Y because you endorse it, Facebook? Is Facebook $VIEW_Y-ist? Rinse and repeat for every fringe view.

lightgreen 6y ago

> show all content from friends, in chronological order Then typical user Facebook feed will be 99% pictures of funny cats from one of their loved friends, which are too good to unfriend (if that friend is, for example, mother). (Not to mention, it's practically impossible to configure filtering for 99% users). And then these users will just leave the service because it's boring, and that's it, end of Facebook. We already had a lot of services with no feed ranking. All of them died or started doing the ranking. > Facebook does exercise editorial control As any other mainstream service with feed and user-generated content. For example, Twitter or TikTok. > It's fair to ask that this curation consider other objectives as well The big neural network which defines feed ranking is developed by hundreds of engineers, and already optimized for (I guess) hundreds of parameters, including time spend of website, ads revenue, fraud protection, lower risk of suicide and so on.