Are You Appalled that Trump is the Nominee? It’s Facebook’s Fault!

An Amerian friend recently remarked that she is surprised at Trump making it as far as he has. Almost apologetically, she added that not only does she hate him, all her ‘friends’ hate him too. She spent a considerable part of the evening wondering who are the people who are actually voting for Trump!

The simple answer is that these people are all around her — but she never gets to see them on her Facebook wall! Facebook controls what you see and shapes your world view. No one quite knows the details of how the ‘edge rank’ algorithm works but it has been observed that the algorithm serves you more of what you already consume and engage with.

Therefore if you are someone who is surprised by the fact that Trump is winning because you hate him and ‘all’ your friends on Facebook seem to hate him, you may be stuck in Facebook’s walled garden where you get to see more of what you like. It’s a vicious cycle of similar ideas reinforcing a point of view that you perhaps already hold.

Your world view is being largely restricted to the ideas you and your friends already hold. Your friends who think differently (and the rest of the world) are not able to get a foot inside your ‘feed’ and therefore the cycle will continue.

As this process continues, your world view will increasingly be shaped by your existing views and the views of your like minded friends.

Where will you get new ideas from? What will stimulate you?