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Your idea that it was due to his pre-existing politics could be tested if others wanted to repeat the experiment, but the fact that he ended up with both extrem

Your idea that it was due to his pre-existing politics could be tested if others wanted to repeat the experiment, but the fact that he ended up with both extreme left and extreme right political news seems to be disproof enough. The expected outcome of liking everything the algorithm suggests indiscriminately should be more moderation, not more extremism. If (as a oversimplified example) you like colors so the algorithm asked if you like, blue, green, yellow or red and you select them all, one would not expect it to eventually lead to a community that believes green is the best color and all others should be destroyed.

mkingston 12y ago
Sure, if time wasn't a factor. However, if you were to like green first, the algorithm might show you this "destroy non-green" community before giving you the opportunity to like other colours. Similarly, purely out of chance you might be given the opportunity to like the "destroy non-green" community before the "destroy non-blue" community. Maybe what we can take from the fact that the writer ended up shown/liking both left and right views is that the algorithm doesn't give a very strong weighting to negative correlation; i.e. even though people who like left-wing pages (presumedly) don't like as many right-wing pages; facebook still gives users the opportunity to like both. And possibly will not necessarily bias on one side of apparently conflicting interests when choosing what to present in the news feed.
jerf 12y ago
"Your idea that it was due to his pre-existing politics could be tested if others wanted to repeat the experiment," Your phrasing suggests that you misunderstood my point, but does not prove it. My point is not that he started with extreme politics (or politics that might be viewed as extreme by most people since of course $MY_VIEWS are always perfectly sensible and obviously correct, it's everybody else who is extreme), my point is that he started with politics at all. "The expected outcome of liking everything the algorithm suggests indiscriminately should be more moderation, not more extremism." Uh, no, that makes no sense. You're engaging in an operation that is deliberately blurring Facebook's impression of you. Open your favorite image editor. Cover an image with pure white. Put a blob of black in the middle. Start using the "blur" tool. It doesn't shrink. And that's not perfect, either... the center of the blob will remain the darkest, but in this system, Facebook keeps presenting you with more "extreme" views, and you keep telling it you like it. Of course it pulls you away from the "center"... you keep telling it to. And this is where the raw volume point comes in... the extremes are louder, so if you blur like that you'll see a lot more of it.

mkingston 12y ago

Sure, if time wasn't a factor. However, if you were to like green first, the algorithm might show you this "destroy non-green" community before giving you the opportunity to like other colours. Similarly, purely out of chance you might be given the opportunity to like the "destroy non-green" community before the "destroy non-blue" community. Maybe what we can take from the fact that the writer ended up shown/liking both left and right views is that the algorithm doesn't give a very strong weighting to negative correlation; i.e. even though people who like left-wing pages (presumedly) don't like as many right-wing pages; facebook still gives users the opportunity to like both. And possibly will not necessarily bias on one side of apparently conflicting interests when choosing what to present in the news feed.

jerf 12y ago

"Your idea that it was due to his pre-existing politics could be tested if others wanted to repeat the experiment," Your phrasing suggests that you misunderstood my point, but does not prove it. My point is not that he started with extreme politics (or politics that might be viewed as extreme by most people since of course $MY_VIEWS are always perfectly sensible and obviously correct, it's everybody else who is extreme), my point is that he started with politics at all. "The expected outcome of liking everything the algorithm suggests indiscriminately should be more moderation, not more extremism." Uh, no, that makes no sense. You're engaging in an operation that is deliberately blurring Facebook's impression of you. Open your favorite image editor. Cover an image with pure white. Put a blob of black in the middle. Start using the "blur" tool. It doesn't shrink. And that's not perfect, either... the center of the blob will remain the darkest, but in this system, Facebook keeps presenting you with more "extreme" views, and you keep telling it you like it. Of course it pulls you away from the "center"... you keep telling it to. And this is where the raw volume point comes in... the extremes are louder, so if you blur like that you'll see a lot more of it.