![]() ![]() It’s a good thing we now have Facebook’s documents, via Haugen, to guide us. These complex problems require nuanced answers, drawing from a deep understanding of the issues and attempted solutions. It shows just how complex some of Facebook’s issues are, and that trying to solve them with soundbites often comes up short. And bad actors, you can be sure, would find a way to exploit an algorithm-free Facebook.įacebook eventually gave up on the idea - the News Feed is still ranked with an algorithm - but the experiment is revealing. But wiping out all ranked sorting of the News Feed clearly led to other problems, including the integrity issues. And given how angry some of these exchanges made people, that might not be a bad thing. Meaningful Social Interactions - the back and forth comments between friends that Facebook optimizes for - also dropped by 20%. Even though the researcher kept the “integrity pass” in place, or the first layer of the algorithm that sorts for integrity ahead of engagement, they said that “integrity bad metrics still shot through the roof.” “Things are trending down,” they said in an internal forum, adding a chart showing declining user sessions. The experiment was still in progress at the time of the report, but the researcher indicated that things were going poorly. “We reduce the distribution of these posts massively as they seem to be a constant quality compliant,” the researcher said of the public pages. And they saw double the amount of posts from public pages they don’t follow, often because friends commented on those pages. They saw more Groups content, because Groups is one of the few places on Facebook that remains vibrant. They hid 50% more posts, indicating they weren’t thrilled with what they were seeing. People spent more time scrolling through the News Feed searching for interesting stuff, and saw more advertisements as they went (hence the revenue spike). Turning off the News Feed ranking algorithm, the researcher found, led to a worse experience almost across the board. (Though I joined this consortium on Monday, I’m in favor of its dissolution and the speedy, responsible release of all Haugen’s documents to the public.) The redacted versions received by Congress were obtained by a consortium of news organizations, including Big Technology. The report comes from Frances Haugen’s disclosures to the Securities and Exchange Commission, which were also provided to Congress in redacted form by her legal team. ![]() Their findings: Without a News Feed algorithm, engagement on Facebook drops significantly, people hide 50% more posts, content from Facebook Groups rises to the top, and - surprisingly - Facebook makes even more money from users scrolling through the News Feed. “What happens if we delete ranked News Feed?” they asked in an internal report summing up the experiment. In February 2018, a Facebook researcher all but shut off the News Feed ranking algorithm for. Yet now, after years of speculation, we have an idea of what Facebook would look like without it. Critics want to do away with it, and Congress may strip Facebook’s legal protections for the content it amplifies. Just silence.Everyone seems to hate Facebook’s News Feed algorithm. It uses the walkthrough method to investigate their technical features while also examining how they fit into platforms’ economic interests and regulatory processes. Bike around in it, without even a helmet. This article draws on van Dijck and Poell’s framework of social media logic to examine two platform news functionalities: Facebook Trending Topics and Twitter Moments. She has notified the team to take it down.įor its brief, continued existence, enjoy this digital cul-de-sac. A rep confirmed it's a vestige from the old feature and shouldn’t be there. We expected Facebook would remove the tab soon, and, in fact, just before posting, we heard back from the company. Let it refresh you.Īnd like everything beautiful, this too is short-lived. But in Facebook's accidental secret garden, the surprise of the screen makes you feel, if only for a moment, that there's nothing to worry about. You know that there's plenty going on out there, and that your ability to take even this momentary break is a sign of your privilege (opens in a new tab). Seeing the empty Trending News tab is like placing a eucalyptus-scented washcloth over your face. You exhale with relief at this digital white flag. Thus, it is a surprise - a delightful, welcome, relieving shock - when your app tells you the latest Trending News is. So we greet our feeds, as they load, with a grimace. Opening news-centric social media, lately, has become an exercise in self-flagellation. ![]() Usually, when you click the any Trending News or other social media tab, you gird yourself for the worst for the latest news of judges ascending to lifelong appointments or trillion-dollar corporations becoming even wealthier. Credit: SCREENSHOT: RACHEL KRAUS/MASHABLE/FACEBOOK ![]()
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