I am willing to hear differing opinions on this.
I sometimes see people on Fediverse speak as if there is something inherently wrong about the idea of content sorting and filtering algorithms.
There is a massive amount of content today and limited time. Content algorithms could provide the benefit of helping us sort content based on what we want. The most he urgent news, the most informative articles, the closest friends, etc. This might have some similarities with how Facebook and others do it, but it is not the same. Big social media algorithms have one goal: maximizing their profit. One metric for that is maximizing screen on-time and scrolling.
Personally, I’ve been developing an algorithm to help me sift through the content I get on my RSS reader, as there’s a lot of content I’m uninterested in. This algorithm would save me time, whereas those of Twitter and Facebook maximize my wasted time.
In my opinion, algorithms should be:
- opt-in: off my default, and the user is given a clear choice to change it
- transparent: the algorithm should be transparent about its goals and inner workings
Only with this, can algorithms be good.
What are your thoughts?
Not really my opinion, but there is a reasonable argument to be made about even benevolent algorithms ultimately increasing your engagement with online content and alienate you from your physical surrounding and people near you. Just because you set it up yourself does not mean that it healthy for you.
In English at least, the algorithms considered socially problematic can be more precisely as “The Algorithm” — capitalised to hint the more specific meaning. But to understand the hint you already need to know the context of the broader conversation around corporate-interest-oriented algorithms.
So, we have an obscure inexplicit grammar that only makes sense if you already know what it means. Not great for bringing new people to the conversation.
i think when it comes to algorithms that save you time, simple filters do the job perfectly. like only people you follow vs. specific hashtags, or just full posts vs. replies included, or chronological vs. “good friends” (like in instagram) first. part of the reason modern algorithms are so complex is so they can confuse us and we end up spending more time on the platform. if you’re making an algorithm for ease of use, it should be the opposite of confusing. it should probably be clarified what people mean by algorithms, since that’s a very general word, but most of the time they probably mean the complex and confusing stuff modern social media uses, rather than the simple filters that most of the fediverse uses.
more complex algorithms might be useful for a site like YouTube, since it’s an entertainment platform not a socialization platform, so you just want to see anything that will be entertaining, and discover new content whenever possible.
I think, a big reason why techy people don’t value these algorithms as much, is because we can achieve a lot of the same (sometimes better, sometimes it just feels better) by manually setting up filter rules.
And a big reason for that, is that many of these algorithms are just hot garbage. Even Google’s supposedly unmatched algorithm knowledge and intimate knowledge of their users regularly fails to deliver anything of value.
I guess, they do have those corporate interests, and in particular don’t want to be transparent to avoid people gaming their algorithms, but then even the bloody algorithm in my IDE trying to guess what I want auto-completed feels disappointingly much like a broken clock being right twice a day.These are all anecdotes. I’m not aware of a non-commercial social media content algorithm, so maybe this is the one field where they’re amazing.
The inherently wrong thing about algorithms is that since they are made to maximize profits by maximizing engagement, they produce addiction. I don’t see anything wrong with an opt-in option for algorithms as long as there is a warning about the fact that it may produce addiction. The problem is that for an algorithm to work properly, more data needs to be gathered. And since many FOSS software is privacy focused they don’t tend to gather much data.
Addiction is a goal of the algorithms as they are designed. Better algorithms increase your screen-on time and mindless scrolling.
A good algorithm could, hypothetically, limit the number of content you see, or save you time from scrolling to find something interesting.
@cyclohexane
> What is wrong is using them for maximizing corporate profitsIt is arguably not wrong either for a company to design an algorithm in a way that serves their interest. What is definitely wrong is that the algorithms are imposed on the user.
If I want to continue exchanging with my friends that are on the platform, I need to be submitted to the algorithm.I said this in the context of me being a socialist who is against the idea that so much of society being shaped by profit motives.
But with socialism aside, I would be more accepting of Facebook if they were transparent about the goals of their algorithm, how it works exactly, and give the user the option to opt out.
My big problem with “algorithms” (by which I don’t mean the pedantic “well, pushing top-rated content to the top is ackshyouallee an algorithm, technically”) for controlling feeds is that algorithms are biased in subtly devastating ways. We like to think that “algorithms” are neutral because computers are neutral, but the truth is “algorithms” are designed and implemented by human beings and reflect what those human beings think is “normal” or “correct” or “important” or the like. Indeed there’s one huge, GLARING bias baked straight in from the outset: numericity. If it can’t be factored in some way into a number, it isn’t important to the “algorithm” because at its core the “algorithm” can’t work without numbers of some form or another.
Every “algorithmically”-curated system I deal with I can break with ease just by thinking a wee bit outside the box and flustering the poor so-called AI by selecting things on criterion that they’re likely not programmed for because in the biased view of the AI’s programmers the criterion wasn’t “important”.
At some point years ago Facebook started defaulting to relatives/family algorithmically. This is extremely biased and problematic. It makes a lot of sensitive assumptions, as everyone’s family structure is different. So “devastating” is a good choice of words.
Yep. Lemmy feed for example is algorithmic
Not really unless you have a really broad definition of algorithmic. It is just up and downvotes (and personalized subscriptions).
It uses an algorithm to determine score for sorting. What is your definition of algorithm then?
Of course some math is going to be involved, but that is not what people mean when they talk about algorithmic content curation on social media.
