Twitter and The Algorithm
Algorithms play a huge role in the way that social media sites function and how their users interact with them. The term “algorithm” in this context is pertaining to the process by which content is sorted for users to maximize the time they stay on the site and continue to peruse, giving incentive to advertisers to buy up spaces for users to see. Twitter, like almost every social media, has an algorithm to push tweets to users depending on that person’s own likelihood of “favoriting” that tweet.
In 2006, when Twitter launched, it simply displayed tweets from all the people that an individual followed in chronological order. Now, while a real-time feed has recently been added back in as an option, the algorithm controlled feed is the face of Twitter for many users. Through this algorithm tweets are scored based on their relevance, attempting to predict what kind of content and accounts that the user would find interesting. While this process can make Twitter more enjoyable in the short term, there are consequences to the quality of content and the user experience.
The algorithm puts an extraordinary amount of importance on the trends that circulate the Twitter-sphere. This means that content-creators, even those with massive followings, are pressured into tweeting the same ideas, “hot-takes”, or jokes to their audiences. The result is not only a massive echo chamber of either opinions or memes, but a drought of creativity, with little to no support going to creators who make things that are slightly different from the norm. This creates a cycle where less and less original thought is put into use to create content, and tweet-deckers (those who simply copy and paste popular tweets) take over a majority of the timeline. Even in the responses to overused memes or these tweet-deckers, it is apparent that users are frustrated with the system, if not directly complaining about the algorithm.
Personally, I am not totally against how the algorithms work, as they often find ways to connect people in ideas in interesting ways. However, the extent to which they have overtaken the timeline often causes followers who have a personal connection with another user to not even see their tweets. Overall, the amount that the algorithm controls in pushing popular tweets has led to a degradation in the quality of Twitter as a whole and will continue to do so if only trends get the most attention.
