Things like for-profit media and social media have financial interest in getting you to devote attention to things you really have no interest in. They are not growing their market if you aren’t getting sucked in to whatever they are pushing at you.
It can be innocuous. I am only on Facebook to share stories of animal rescues here on Lemmy. That is literally all I do there. But I get pushed plenty of stuff I never asked for. I keep getting video of hoof care. I don’t have any livestock. A lot of things in the video I find absolutely repellant. But I watch so many of them now, so they keep pushing me more. At first I said, this is disgusting, I don’t want to see this. But now, I see how much work the guys have to do to keep these animals healthy, and I feel it has to be such a huge relief for something weighing so much to have its feet fixed and feeling good again. That’s the kind of thing a media algorithm will do.
But you get people with legitimate complaints with life. Not finding work, not making enough money, feeling they have no rights, wondering why life isn’t going their way. They start to get pushed things where some people give legit advice, and some will be a little darker. Linger on those mean spirited ones a bit too long, and the computer says, oh they seem to like this, send them more. Without even actively looking for it, you start to get exposed to things you never would have looked for. Pickup artists, nationalists, zealotry, racists. You get fed it in larger and larger doses and you may or may not notice.
Algorithms do what they’re built to do. But we don’t always remember they’re there. We don’t know who is making them or what behavior they are looking for. Most people probably couldn’t really tell you what an algorithm is. Most public officials are included in that. Tech will keep getting better, and hopefully we do as well.
Things like for-profit media and social media have financial interest in getting you to devote attention to things you really have no interest in. They are not growing their market if you aren’t getting sucked in to whatever they are pushing at you.
It can be innocuous. I am only on Facebook to share stories of animal rescues here on Lemmy. That is literally all I do there. But I get pushed plenty of stuff I never asked for. I keep getting video of hoof care. I don’t have any livestock. A lot of things in the video I find absolutely repellant. But I watch so many of them now, so they keep pushing me more. At first I said, this is disgusting, I don’t want to see this. But now, I see how much work the guys have to do to keep these animals healthy, and I feel it has to be such a huge relief for something weighing so much to have its feet fixed and feeling good again. That’s the kind of thing a media algorithm will do.
But you get people with legitimate complaints with life. Not finding work, not making enough money, feeling they have no rights, wondering why life isn’t going their way. They start to get pushed things where some people give legit advice, and some will be a little darker. Linger on those mean spirited ones a bit too long, and the computer says, oh they seem to like this, send them more. Without even actively looking for it, you start to get exposed to things you never would have looked for. Pickup artists, nationalists, zealotry, racists. You get fed it in larger and larger doses and you may or may not notice.
Algorithms do what they’re built to do. But we don’t always remember they’re there. We don’t know who is making them or what behavior they are looking for. Most people probably couldn’t really tell you what an algorithm is. Most public officials are included in that. Tech will keep getting better, and hopefully we do as well.