It is possible - though inconvenient and slow - to game them back, which is why so few people do.
The looming question is, if there is an opportunity to make that process easier and faster, will more people do so? Complexity theory suggests that the process of co-evolution means the algorithms will simply adapt.
But it could mean that, at scale, powerful demand changes could influence future use. JL
David Pierce reports in the Wall Street Journal:
Ostensibly, the point of these algorithms is to show you what you care about. These services claim to have users’ interests at heart, but they have an interest of their own, to show you whatever good, bad or ugly stuff it takes to keep force-feeding you ads.“If it’s outrageous, it’s contagious.” This is life in the age of the inscrutable, opaque algorithmic feed: "I may decide whom I friend or follow, but Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and the rest decide what I actually see."
The top of my Facebook feed currently shows a photo of a woman I’m not really friends with—I think we were on a kickball team once?—who recently got married. This photo has topped my feed for the better part of three days, despite the fact that I don’t care. Meanwhile, there’s been a black-hole sighting and a new way to watch Disney movies and a WikiLeaks arrest and presumably lots more. I’ll never know because, according to Facebook, what matters is that wedding photo.
This is life in the age of the inscrutable, opaque algorithmic feed. I may decide whom I friend or follow, but Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and the rest decide what I actually see.
This can be annoying, like the ever-present wedding photos. It can also be hugely problematic, like when Facebook surfaces hateful and fake content or a simple YouTube search leads you down a recommendations rabbit hole into the internet’s darkest corners. Often, what you’re seeing and who made it are a total mystery.
Ostensibly, the point of these algorithms is to show you what you care about. The companies frame it like the difference between Netflix and channel-flipping: Wouldn’t you rather see the best stuff whenever you want, instead of only what happens to be on right now? These services claim to have users’ interests at heart, but they also have an interest of their own, to show you whatever good, bad or ugly stuff it takes to keep force-feeding you ads.
These services don’t make it easy, but there are ways to take back a bit of control over your feed. Some offer the ability to turn the algorithms off and see your feeds in more transparent ways. More often, the best you can do is try to influence the algorithm slightly in your direction. (You still might never know if it’s working.) There are handy Chrome extensions and third-party apps that do some of the work for you, too.
Tweaking the System
In general, one word rules the way your feed is sorted and presented to you: engagement. The more you click, like, comment, share and read, the more likely you are to keep checking back in. Your feed is carefully ordered to make sure you never get bored. As my colleague Christopher Mims put it so well: “If it’s outrageous, it’s contagious.”
The invisible sorting systems start with a few obvious things: whom you follow, friend or subscribe to heavily influences what you see in your feeds. If you double-tap to like an Instagram post or comment below it, that’s another positive signal. If you tend to watch a lot of videos, the platforms will show you more videos and fewer photos. If you don’t like a post, but stare at it for a while, you’re still adding a tick to the “show me more!” column. And these bots don’t get sarcasm: Hate-likes are the same as like-likes.
But it’s also possible to tell the algorithms what you don’t like. On Facebook, for instance, you can click the three dots at the top right of any post and choose from options such as “Hide post,” which will both hide that post and show you fewer like it, or “Unfollow [the person who posted],” which removes all of that person’s posts from your feed without unfriending them. Facebook says these are among the strongest indicators you can send to its algorithm. Twitter and YouTube offer similar tools. Clicking the “Not Interested” button on a YouTube thumbnail makes a powerful statement.
Companies should make it easier. “This is an area we’re investing more in—explicit controls for you to say, ‘I like this thing’ or ‘I don’t,’” said Wally Gurzynski, a product manager at Twitter. Mr. Gurzynski said Twitter’s also working on helping users understand what happens when they click those buttons and how their actions affect the content they see. Facebook recently announced a similar feature, called “Why am I seeing this post?” When (if?) the company rolls it out, you’ll be allowed to take actions to see more or less content like any particular post.
Even then, these controls aren’t enough. “They give you the illusion of control without giving you actual control,” said Matt Kruse, the developer of Social Fixer, a browser extension I like that lets you filter certain users, keywords or topics out of your Facebook feed. When you tell Facebook what you don’t like, all you’re really doing is shouting instructions at the wizard behind the curtain. You should really be able to get back there and tinker yourself.
For all its problems with abuse and hate speech, Twitter is at least the most transparent feed: You can click the starry icon at the top and see all your tweets in reverse-chronological order. Keep an eye on it, though, because Twitter will eventually switch you back to the algorithmic feed. It wants to show you all the intoxicating stuff you’ve missed.
The other networks are worse. Facebook offers a version of your news feed sorted by “Most Recent,” which you can access by clicking the three dots to the right of the News Feed icon, but Facebook still filters out lots of content. (You can access the feed on mobile by typing “Most Recent” into the app’s search field.) Eventually, it also switches back to the Top Stories feed.
Facebook-owned Instagram doesn’t even pretend to offer a chronological feed. “Before we were ranking people’s feeds, they were missing over half of their friends’ posts,” said Julian Gutman, a product lead at Instagram. If you want a cleaner, more transparent experience, I recommend Filtergram, a web app that gives you a chronological, filterable feed of all the public accounts you choose. You don’t need an Instagram account to use it.For YouTube users, I recommend the Chrome extension DF Tube. With it enabled, a YouTube page is rendered as minimally as possible. It won’t automatically play recommended videos at the end, show you related videos on the side, or display all the comments below a video. With everything disabled, YouTube’s homepage becomes a search bar and any video page shows nothing but a video.
Extensions like SocialFixer and DF Tube are popular and the developers say they’re not collecting private information, but you should always be careful about what you add to your browser. They’re also powerless on your phone. Nobody can really give you the tools you need there except the social companies themselves.
I’d like more tools, but even now, by giving up as much algorithmic help as possible, I’ve found I use the services less—and that’s a good thing. In general I feel more able to understand what I’m seeing and why, and more in control over the unrelenting stream of content that determines so much of my life.
And if I don’t like what I see on Facebook or YouTube? You better believe I’ll let them know. And I hope they—or at least, the mysterious black boxes they built that control our lives—are listening.
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