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Facebook's newsfeed algorithms are actively tailoring the content that is surfaced in your newsfeed in a manner that encourages 'engagement', but this quest for

by evgen 5y ago

Facebook's newsfeed algorithms are actively tailoring the content that is surfaced in your newsfeed in a manner that encourages 'engagement', but this quest for engagement creates false narratives and an inaccurate understanding of reality. People engage with combative and controversial content that supports their biases or triggers a few discrete emotional centers like disgust, outrage, and strong in-group/out-group distinctions. I also do more that just 'believe' this, I know it to be true for a fact.

tyrfing 5y ago
Isn't this website, post, and comment an example as well? Content ranked by engagement, and a comment on controversial content that supports bias.
- sleepybrett 5y ago
  All the content is still plainly visible with no extra clicks or screens. In the standard interface I often miss hackernews comment rankings unless they are highly negative (causing the comment to be grey). The comments are also broadly divided by topic (the post itself) whereas a facebook feed is a firehose of 'anything that might engage the user'. These two facts alone heavily dispute your argument in my opinion.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> Facebook's newsfeed algorithms are actively tailoring the content that is surfaced in your newsfeed in a manner that encourages 'engagement', but this quest for engagement creates false narratives and an inaccurate understanding of reality Except that the “algorithms” are executed by humans and not always concretely defined, this has been true of every ad-supported commercial news medium ever, for the same reason as it is for Facebook: the business model is securing attention of an audience to sell ads to them.
- fwip 5y ago
  The humans running the news agencies used to at least pretend to exercise due diligence when selecting their stories. Without humans reviewing the stories that run, the paperclip/engagement-maximizer is happy to run garbage. Facebook seems happy to be the Weekly World News, amplifying the modern BatBoy stories.
  - evgen 5y ago
    Basically this, but it even goes a level deeper. Facebook engineers to not know they are working at the Weekly World News. At a high-level the algorithms treat the actual content as a black box; what matters is how people respond to and interact with that lump of content and this response is what is measured and optimized. A human editor in a newsroom at least applies some conscious thought to the nature of the story and the facts claimed within. The people designing and operating the paperclip/engagement-maximizer do not really try to understand what they are maximizing other than the fact that it is considered a revenue-generating target and their paperclip production gets published in the quarterly reports.

by evgen 5y ago

tyrfing 5y ago

Isn't this website, post, and comment an example as well? Content ranked by engagement, and a comment on controversial content that supports bias.

sleepybrett 5y ago
All the content is still plainly visible with no extra clicks or screens. In the standard interface I often miss hackernews comment rankings unless they are highly negative (causing the comment to be grey). The comments are also broadly divided by topic (the post itself) whereas a facebook feed is a firehose of 'anything that might engage the user'. These two facts alone heavily dispute your argument in my opinion.

dragonwriter 5y ago

> Facebook's newsfeed algorithms are actively tailoring the content that is surfaced in your newsfeed in a manner that encourages 'engagement', but this quest for engagement creates false narratives and an inaccurate understanding of reality Except that the “algorithms” are executed by humans and not always concretely defined, this has been true of every ad-supported commercial news medium ever, for the same reason as it is for Facebook: the business model is securing attention of an audience to sell ads to them.

fwip 5y ago
The humans running the news agencies used to at least pretend to exercise due diligence when selecting their stories. Without humans reviewing the stories that run, the paperclip/engagement-maximizer is happy to run garbage. Facebook seems happy to be the Weekly World News, amplifying the modern BatBoy stories.
- evgen 5y ago
  Basically this, but it even goes a level deeper. Facebook engineers to not know they are working at the Weekly World News. At a high-level the algorithms treat the actual content as a black box; what matters is how people respond to and interact with that lump of content and this response is what is measured and optimized. A human editor in a newsroom at least applies some conscious thought to the nature of the story and the facts claimed within. The people designing and operating the paperclip/engagement-maximizer do not really try to understand what they are maximizing other than the fact that it is considered a revenue-generating target and their paperclip production gets published in the quarterly reports.