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The issue is that Facebook is not simply a mirror, it’s one of those infinity mirrors. It doesn’t just let people spread their opinions it helps you find others
by schreiaj 6y ago
The issue is that Facebook is not simply a mirror, it’s one of those infinity mirrors. It doesn’t just let people spread their opinions it helps you find others with similar views. And then because those views align with your own you engage more so it reinforces the algorithm.
It’s a positive feedback loop. (Positive in the sense that the relationship between input and output is not inverted)
- rexpop 6y ago> Facebook is just a mirror This is an echo of the "dumb pipes" argument, which characterizes social media as neutral carriers of both harmless and harmful content. While I recognize that harmful ideology originate outside of Facebook, it's really unhelpful to deny that in Facebook's capacity as "a fun-house mirror that magnifies some things and minimizes others" it's really very deliberately shaping the discourse, the zeitgeist and, as such, political reality. We don't know the algorithm's ultimate purpose. It is, inevitably, biased. What biases Facebook management has decreed (and how closely its implementation hews) is an unknown to those of us on the outside. But it's certainly not, at this point an accident. Whenever discussing algorithmic bias, I am always reminded of the old programming koan: 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10970937 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10970937