“Facebook and the Tyranny of the “Like” in a Difficult World”
“Not everything in life is “like”able.
We cannot like refugee kids wading among dead bodies. And we cannot directly tell Facebook’s algorithm that we still care about this, or find it important.
The reverse of this is my inability to signal “like” to my friends weddings and babies, without the algorithm interpreting this to mean “show me more.” As a result, my feed is overflowing with babies and weddings (And really, I do want to congratulate and support my friends but I don’t want to see nothing but their babies for the next two weeks).
I’ve documented this issue before, on how Facebook’s algorithm structures visibility for positive, networked posts (like ice-bucket challenge) while downplaying significant, but less pleasant events, like the Ferguson protests.
Your post says you are open to feedback. So here’s mine: The choice of “like” as a primary signal in the world’s biggest social network has substantive political consequences.”
