[lancesells]

I don't have an answer to this, but why if the algorithm can manipulate people, regardless of who directed it, why are we ok with the algorithmic content of all the platforms? I'm not much of a social media user but a lot of the argument here is the algorithm can feed propoganda that people will succumb to.

Why is it ok then for Youtube to feed violence and awful behavior to people (probably to lots of kids) in the US if it's able to influence people? Is the thought that Meta and Google (both without ethics or morals) are just trying to get us to buy shit we don't need, but Tiktok is trying to get us to agree (or not agree) with their stance on x?

[cogman10]

> why are we ok with the algorithmic content of all the platforms?

What's the alternative? Even HN has "algorithmic content" the algorithm is based on voting and time.

[hn_acker]

Tangent: There's a study that I can't access, but the abstract claims that during the 2020 election, chronological feeds exposed Facebook users to more "untrustworthy content", without necessarily having an effect on people's political knowledge or polarization [1]:

> We investigated the effects of Facebook’s and Instagram’s feed algorithms during the 2020 US election. We assigned a sample of consenting users to reverse-chronologically-ordered feeds instead of the default algorithms. Moving users out of algorithmic feeds substantially decreased the time they spent on the platforms and their activity. The chronological feed also affected exposure to content: The amount of political and untrustworthy content they saw increased on both platforms, the amount of content classified as uncivil or containing slur words they saw decreased on Facebook, and the amount of content from moderate friends and sources with ideologically mixed audiences they saw increased on Facebook. Despite these substantial changes in users’ on-platform experience, the chronological feed did not significantly alter levels of issue polarization, affective polarization, political knowledge, or other key attitudes during the 3-month study period.

[1] https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp9364

[mindslight]

Regulation forcing the unbundling of client software from content hosting. Then people can choose different client software depending on which algorithms they'd like to sort things by.

[ImJamal]

While still algorithmic, a strictly chronological timeline is not really manipulatable, at least not in the same way

[Nasrudith]

Spamming is the trivial way to manipulate chronological feeds. It is so bad that they need active moderation or ranking to prevent a board from going into a state of absolute uselessness.

[ImJamal]

I haven't used Facebook in 15 years, but I don't recall spam being a problem. I saw my friend's posts and replies by people who are friends with my friend.

That model may not work with all social media, but as far as I remember it worked for Facebook.

[tincholio]

Friends' posts are a tiny fraction of what you see on FB nowadays.

[Nasrudith]

Because influence being illegal means "speech which causes an impact" is illegal. You don't want a law that outlaws propaganda because whomever decides what is propaganda has massive power.

There isn't such a thing as a non-manipulatible feed. Even a chronological feed can be manipulated by spam, so it is a bit like asking why is it okay for tools to be made of mass when it means they can be used to bludgeon someone to death.

[glenstein]

>why are we ok with the algorithmic content of all the platforms?

I don't think we are okay, but I don't think there's an across the board equivalent. We prioritize the egregious examples while simultaneously searching for a systematic redress that's less heavy handed.

I don't think Facebook marketing Blue Apron to its users is the same kind of issue as undermining democracy in Romania.