On this episode of TechStuff, Jonathan Strickland dives deep into the Facebook algorithm. It’s been a huge topic of conversation and concern for years now, bringing up issues with privacy, discriminatory targeting practices, and the rapid spread of misinformation, disinformation, and fake news that Facebook lets run unabated throughout their platform. When the social media website first appeared, there was no algorithm or even a newsfeed. You had to visit each friend’s profile individually to see what they posted. In 2007, the newsfeed was introduced, but still no algorithm – every post appeared in reverse chronological order, with the most recent at the top. But then the algorithm experimentation began, and while Facebook has refined it over the years, there have been significant real-world impacts we’re only just beginning to reckon with.
The algorithm works to show us posts from friends and family with whom we have the most affinity; it also prioritizes how much engagement posts get, so even if you’re not close to a Facebook friend in real life, you might see a post of theirs that got a lot of comments or likes. Major life events are big priorities, as are posts with photos and videos. The idea is to show you more of what you want to see, so you spend more time on the site. The more time you spend, the more ads get served to you, and the more likely you are to interact with the ads. Though the platform is free to use, Facebook is able to rake in billions of dollars a year in ad revenue alone by selling its ability to target users with the products and services they’re most motivated to buy.
Unfortunately, because the priority is simply to keep you on the site, the algorithm doesn’t care if the content is true or false, whether it’s positive or negative, or whether it’s discriminatory; all it cares about is keeping you scrolling. So the platform has become a hotbed of disinformation and even radicalization; though Facebook has continued to dodge responsibility for content, they have worked to shut down millions of fake bot accounts that help spread the fake news around. But they’re a little slow to respond to these problems: It took several years for Facebook to stop allowing race to be a factor in their targeted ads, even after it was discovered that upscale apartments were being targeted only to white users, or that fast-food job listings were disproportionately targeted to black users. Listen to this episode for more details about the Facebook algorithm, and what changes we might see in the future, on TechStuff.
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