You're probably aware of this, but the Netflix movie, "The Social Dilemma," addresses why the algorithms do what they do. It's a docu-drama with aspects of a documentary, agumented with some fictional drama storylines.
The algorithms aren't a function of the political biases of Facebook management. They're about reinforcing their users' pre-existing biases in order to keep them more engaged for longer periods of time....which drives ad revenue and therefore Facebook profit.
If Facebook could make more money by presenting content that goes contrary to its users' biases, it would do that. But it makes more money by presenting content that reinforces users' biases -- so it does that.
The Social Dilemma is highly instructive and really, really chilling. For anyone who hasn't seen it, it's well worth an hour and a half of your time. I just checked, and as of this writing, it's still available on Netflix.
BTW - you bring up a point which is why I think too much has been made about the whole "Russian interference" (which, yes, DID happen) in the 2016 election with your reference to algorithms.
Yeah, sure, I have no doubt Russia flooded the internet with God knows what about "bad Hillary." But the idea that they went on Facebook and CONVERTED a bunch of Hillary voters into Trump voters with a bunch of propaganda has always sounded like little more than a hollow "why we lost" excuse to me. OR the idea that they converted a bunch of non-voters into Trump voters, again, I just don't buy it. You can show me all of the THEORETICAL OCCURENCES you wish, but as Kevin Costner noted in "JFK," theoretical physics can prove that an elephant can hang over a cliff from a daisy, too.
People are not blank slates just waiting to be filled with information, certainly not 45-year-olds with a long voting history. It's also why the "but her emails" excuse is so damn lame. The idea that this is meant to "prove" is that there were thousands/millions of voters out there who were for Hillary/not voting, they heard this bad information about her and SWITCHED THEIR VOTES (that's the key point) to Trump. And given the turnout in 2016 was t
he lowest since the Clinton-Dole snooze-fest of 1996, good luck arguing "millions who were NOT voting ran into the polling booth for Trump".
I don't doubt for a second social media REINFORCED notions already baked into the cake - that's what happens. But these same voters are supposedly the ones who "watch Fox News because it will tell them what they ALREADY think to be true", which kinda contradicts the entire theory of switched votes.
Also - I see I need to follow CA's discipline in more ways than one.
