I guess it is not a surprise.
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I guess it is not a surprise. Most of you think that social media platforms that utilize algorithmic feeds are inherently anti-free-speech. So do I.
You have made the choice to join Mastodon, where the content you see is chronological and not decided by algorithms. IMHO, you have made the right choice.
I remember a time when we all viewed the Web with optimism. The more people we could get to join, the better for the world. Now it is a bit more mixed, but IMHO social media companies that utilize algorithmic feeds are to blame. We can move towards a better Web together by getting more people to join us.
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Domando Al Loboreplied to Jon S. von Tetzchner last edited by
@jon and then Mastodon will be 'broken' as every beautiful thing
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sjtwstot :blackcat:replied to Jon S. von Tetzchner last edited by
@jon Ah the good ol days. Remember back when we were so delusional we use to think the web would unite the world? We couldn't even begin to conceive that it would end up being weaponized.
Good times.
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Jon S. von Tetzchnerreplied to sjtwstot :blackcat: last edited by
@sjtwstot , I do not believe we were delusional. For a really long time things were actually moving in the right direction. Sadly certain companies changed that, but it can be changed again.
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Jon S. von Tetzchnerreplied to Domando Al Lobo last edited by
@DomandoAlLobo , we will try our best to not make that happen.
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@jon I understand some problems the algorithms used in other social media can bring, but is using an algorithm bad per se? I am now using daily @phanpy, and I love the catch-up feature to discover the most shared, liked and discussed posts, based on people I follow. That's just an example of an open source algorithm that can aggregate value to what you want to read.
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@everton137 @phanpy ,
my concerns with algorythms based on the most shared, liked and discussed posts is that they can be easily manipulated and are being easily manipulated. AI does not help there, but even without AI, this was happening. AI just made it easier. -
@jon What would be the best course IMHO is to expose the controls and tools to the users so they can make their own algoritm.
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@ilpalazzo , I do not think most users are capable to make their own algorithm and I fear any algorithm would end up using methods that can be manipulated and will be manipulated. The best solution is a feed that is based on those you follow in chronological order, which is what we have here on Mastodon.
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everton137replied to Jon S. von Tetzchner last edited by [email protected]
@jon @phanpy I see that they can be easily manipulated, in the same way they can be transparent and useful, as it's the case, at least for me, of phanpy. I acknowledge it needs some technical skills to check the code tho.
I cannot understand the demonization of any other algorithm other than a reverse chronological order.
No one can stay all the time following their timeline. How could we catch up on interesting posts from **profiles we decided to follow**? Curiously, using this feature, I even saw posts of yours in the most boosted posts of my network, that I missed.
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I guess I am seeing the consequence of the current implementation of user profiling and popularity algorithms. The damage is clear as we see the division in our society.
If you go looking for content, then that is fine. You can find interesting content using a combination of looking for people, following people your friends follow, searching for hash tags, etc.
The problem with the algorithmic content, and particularly in the main feed, is the fact that so-called engaging content is quite often negative.
It is also clear that any such popularity algorithm can be manipulated. It all started with Twitter trending topics and from there it got worse.
