Facebook Redux
Kayleigh Rogers reporting from fivethirtyeight.com has written an interesting article entitled:
“Facebook’s Algorithm Is Broken. We Collected Some Suggestions On How To Fix It.”,
Rogers interviewed several computer media experts for their suggestions on how to combat problems with misinformation, fraud and privacy on all Internet websites but focussed on Facebook's growing issues
The suggestions ranged from “Facebook can completely revamp its astronomically successful and profitable business plan” to “Facebook is irredeemable, and should be forced to fail. “
So what exactly is the “Algorithm” mentioned in her title? Most generally, the term “algorithm” is a fancy word for any step-by-step process for someone or (something) to follow to achieve a specified result. More precisely, “it is a set of instructions for solving logical and mathematical problems, or for accomplishing some other task. A recipe is a good example of an algorithm because it says what must be done, step by step. It takes inputs (ingredients) and produces an output (the completed dish)”. [Google search]
Facebook also is keeping track of every website you visit (while you are on Facebook) and how you navigate Facebook itself, gathering data and “decides” what you will see and when you will see it. They claim that this enhances your “Facebook experience”, and while that may be true, what they don’t say is that its algorithms are not just for your convenience but used primarily to maximize Facebook profits as well as the time the user will stay on its site. The longer you stay, the more ads you will see --- it’s the same reason supermarkets move items around. So, as you probably already know, using Facebook is not actually free --- it makes its money by selling information about you to companies which allow them to aim their advertising directly at you.
The Facebook business model is sort of like a souped-up version of the process of using billboards you will see as you travel to and from work on an actual highway (as opposed to the Information Highway). The owners of those billboards make their money from businesses which display their ads on said billboards so that these businesses can make money for themselves. For example, if and when you respond to one of the billboards, the money that these businesses will make as a result of your responding to the message on the billboard is used to pay the owner of the billboards and Capitalism goes on its merry way. If this highway happens to run by a posh neighborhood such as Tribeca, you can be reasonably certain that the ads you will see will be for high-end products and services as opposed to farm equipment or firearm purveyors. The maxim “Follow the Money” explains a lot about many of our behaviors as well as why something is happening.
While billboard advertising cannot predict what you are likely to buy, Facebook advertising is attempting to do just that by using the information that you input, be it typing, voice recognition or brain wave analysis. As an interesting side effect, you will see different ads than I do because Facebook's algorithm already has our likes and dislikes tucked safely away. We hope they are safe and private because that also is becoming a problem.
Besides the privacy issue there are problems: Facebook could be deemed to be a monopoly similar to the railroad companies in the early 19th century.
“By the late 1800s, railroad companies dominated shipping and transportation in the US. Several states had tried to curb railroad companies’ growing power and address perceived abuses. But in 1886, the Supreme Court ruled that state efforts to regulate interstate commerce were unconstitutional. That decision pushed Congress to create the Interstate Commerce Act.”
Unless all social media are fairly and smoothly regulated by appropriate federal government agencies as is the US Food and Drug Administration and until some sane regulation of the Internet is instituted, the future of the “marketing game” looks bright.
Following is a potpourri of juicy chunks of Rogers’ article wherein she presents the experts reccommendations:
“Some of the internal research found shockingly simple tweaks [to improve the algorithm],” said Noah Giansiracusa, a mathematics professor at Bentley University and author of “How Algorithms Create and Prevent Fake News.” “For example, if you limit the number of reshares, that will actually reduce the amount of disinformation.” Sharing is an effective method to engage the user and also allows that content (which, not surprisingly, contains ads) to spread quickly.”
“Multiple experts also pointed to more prominent user controls, to allow users to decide what content they’d like to see. While Facebook does offer quite a lot of user control options, studies have shown most users are unaware of how they work, and there’s not an intuitive way for users to signal dissatisfaction with content, said Karrie Karahalios, a computer science professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who has studied user experience with Facebook. “
“Roddy Lindsay, a former Facebook data scientist who went on to co-found a startup, wants the algorithm to prioritize content that users are likely to deem “good for the world.” It’s an admittedly subjective metric, but Facebook experimented with it by having users rate content on whether they felt it was “good” or “bad” for the world. It then used that feedback to train the algorithm to prioritize only the “good” stuff. Facebook researchers found this reduced the amount of negative content in users’ feeds, but it also reduced the number of times users logged onto Facebook, so a watered-down version of it was ultimately adopted instead. ...It’s not that these algorithms can’t be improved,” Lindsay said. “The problem is that the only decision makers for what these algorithms optimize for are the companies.”
“Another more dramatic change would be eliminating the ranking algorithm for the newsfeed altogether, and returning to a reverse-chronological feed. In other words, just show everybody everything people posted, rather than trying to personalize the feed just for you (and whatever the algorithm thinks you’re most likely to click, or rage-click). This notion is controversial. Some of the experts I spoke to said it would never work because it incentivizes quantity over quality — a fast road to spam — while also making it less likely that you’ll see anything relevant, interesting or engaging (in every sense of the word) on your feed.”
At the furthest end of the spectrum are two ideas, one optimistic and the other pessimistic:
Facebook can completely revamp its astronomically successful and profitable business plan
Facebook is irredeemable, and should be forced to fail
I have strong doubts about the feasibility of the second option as Facebook is surely no different than any other large organization in that it can easily afford a platoon of lobbyists to guarantee its survival and enhance their profitability.
