Social media has changed the world, and there is no question about it. I remember when Odnoklassniki (Classmates) social media was introduced in Russia in 2006.
That was a revolution!
Suddenly, you could revive old contacts and get in touch with people – literally, your classmates you saw last time when finishing high school. There was no Facebook or other social media in Russia back then, so Odnoklassniki got all the spotlight.
To me, getting in touch with people I last contacted ten or fifteen years ago was like opening a door into the past you thought had gone forever.
Odnoklassniki was so popular in the late 2000s that it was even nicknamed ‘The last chance to fuck your school love.’
Then we saw Facebook coming to Russia, and later VContacte (In Touch), its Russian clone developed by Pavel Durov, now Telegram’s founder and owner (together with his brother Nickolay, who does all the tech staff). A bit later, Instagram and Twitter were introduced, too. By the way, all of them – Meta media and Twitter/X – are now banned in Russia by our Dear Leader, though they are available through VPN.
Now, social media offers your own version of the world because of the algorithms’ settings that provide the so-called smart news feed based on your interests and affinities, like topic-based or interest-based feeds. I have Alaskan resources on my Facebook personalized feed and follow my friends and some public people. I also have a few martial arts, travel, and media resources.
By the way, Telegram, as both a messenger and a social media, doesn’t have a news feed. There are channels you subscribe to, and they appear on screen chronologically. This is a fundamental difference compared to Facebook, for example. You choose what to subscribe to and simply don’t have any AI that offers you anything beyond it.
Though personalized feeds create content that can theoretically impact your vision of the world, I don’t perceive social media as Big Brother. To me, it is just an enhanced communication tool. After all, you are in control of your own preferences. You can simply unfollow/unsubscribe unwanted persons or things, and that’s it!
I think social media have positively affected society, establishing connections with people you can’t meet offline or providing access to sources of information you wouldn’t get otherwise. So, no Big Brother is watching you! In fact, algorithms are merely web tools, and real Big Brothers live offline.
Has the Algorithm changed Society?
Yes.
I suppose I’d better enlarge on that. Algorithms, in simple terms, watch our behaviour and determine what millions of us see when we log on. For instance, and you all know how annoying this is, instead of seeing Facebook posts in chronological order, you see what Facebook wants you to see.
Also, when we write online, be that sharing a thought, or posting a photo or video, who knows who will see us? The answer is determined in large part by algorithms.
Our current era has, apparently, been labelled “the algorithmic society” – one in which, it could be argued, social media platforms and search engines govern speech in the same way nation states once did. Maybe, these algorithms should be made public, otherwise aren’t we just being manipulated?
You can bet that algorithms aren’t going away. However, new microblogging platforms like Bluesky are trying to offer users control over the algorithm that displays content, in an effort to revive the chronological timelines of old, in the belief that offers an experience which is less mediated.
I am interested by what the US political scientist Francis Fukuyama proposes. It’s called “Middleware”, which could offer social media users more control over what they see, with independent services providing a form of curation separate from that inbuilt on the platforms. Rather than being fed content according to the platforms’ internal algorithms, “a competitive ecosystem of middleware providers … could filter platform content according to the user’s individual preferences,” writes Fukuyama.
I want algorithms to work for me, no one else. I have personal experience that when using tools on some social media apps to, for example, avoid violent content, I continued to be recommended it.
In the U.K., half of the councils in England, Wales and Scotland have used or are using algorithms to help make decisions about benefit claims, who gets social housing and other issues, despite huge concerns about their reliability. One of those councils admitted that it was only 26% accurate……
There are small signs that the future of algorithms may not be in the hands of Musk-type big wank-type tech, or even politicians, but with the people. Until that happens though, algorithms can have an adverse and sometimes highly negative effect on society.
Has the Algorithm changed society?
If you want an idea of just how important the rich Tech Bros are to the incoming administration, look no further than how many of them are making the trip to a certain Golf Club in Florida. It’s easier to count who is not going; Apple CEO, Tim Cook seems to be on the only one on that list. I suspect it’s because he’s gay. Everybody else is invited as far as I can tell. Cue The O’Jays classic: For the Love of Money.
We are only worried about a subset of the Robber Barron billionaire club; the Social Media CEOs. Of course, X owner Musk has brought a tent and is squatting on the sixth hole. “Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is also seeking an ‘active’ role in policy discussions with Trump’s team”, an executive for the company said this week. The word active should concern you. There’s something about this guy that… well, I can’t really put my finger on it. Zuck gives me the heebie-jeebies, he even looks freaky.
I suppose we should talk about Facebook first. According to an NPR story about the site: “studies found liberals and conservatives live in their own political news bubbles more so than elsewhere online. They also show that changing the platform’s algorithm substantially changes what people see and how they behave on the site”
That is not too much of a surprise and the AP piles on: “Overall, 97% of the political news sources on Facebook identified by fact-checkers as having spread misinformation were more popular with conservatives than liberals.” That matches with what I have read before.
Facebook has drastically cut the amount of political news they show in the feed since the 2020 US Elections. This is a good thing. Currently, the majority of Americans get their news from digital sources, mostly traditional news websites. Roger will be pleased to know his former employer, BBC, ranks second in trust among Americans. Thankfully, it appears that Social Media is currently the primary news source for only 11% and that number mostly comprises of children. It appears that few people are getting their news from Facebook now. Yeah!
China has spent billions on Twitter/X trying to influence users. It looks like they are miffed by the sudden move of users away from the platform. The investment has been largely wasted as around a million people a day are shifting to Blue Sky. Again, yeah!
I’ve done an unusual amount of reading for this article because it’s a topic I care about and I’m pleased to report that research points to the idea that social media memes have little impact on how Americans view their world. I’ll be honest, I’m relieved and surprised. A third, yeah! Three cheers for democracy.