Do Algorithms serve Objectivity?
Objectivity is considered one of the main components of media ethics. Objectivity is when media expose the facts and events without bias information or subjective interpretations of the writer. The writer should be neutral and cover all sides whether they are compatible with his/her opinions and beliefs or not. Social media platforms allow people to communicate, discuss certain issues, and publish any data. It has helped journalists to expose their content to people whether by reporting or covering something. However, journalists should be objective while using these media platforms. When talking about objectivity, it means that they should be accurate and factual when delivering their information instead of just using opinions and personal beliefs. According to Ward (2009), journalists can achieve objectivity by three means: ontologically, epistemologically and procedurally which means that they have to explain accurately the information, use concrete evidence and show people all perspectives and sides.
Journalistic objectivity is very essential because it allows people to get updated by new information and events taking place in their surrounding and worldwide. But, achieving this objectivity is hard. It is difficult to some people to control their urge to say out their opinion and control their bias thoughts. Some journalists like to exploits their position and share bias things to get control over a specific group in society through social media. Moreover, the rise of bloggers and citizen journalists made it hard for objectivity to be achieved an be effective (Ward, 2009). Algorithms, too, make journalists pressured to reach objectivity. First, algorithm is a finite of instruction that a machine performs in order calculate a function; it is a piece of computer code (Lotan, 2013). It has changed what is considered as knowledge and what is viewed as applicable; thus, it permits media to track their online behavior and shows them what is relevant for them according to their region, research topics, websites views and many other factors. The algorithm works whenever the user does any activity on social media in order to update its information system (Gillespie, 2012). This implies, the online users are not able to control what they want to view instead are exposed to limited options that were chosen by the algorithmic system. So when you google anything, the links given are chosen among thousands of other links but you are just allowed to choose from the given ones.
Furthermore, categorization is classifying and putting things into categorize depending on many factors. The same thing works for the categorization of the media database that is opposing objectivity. To explain, each person has his/her own criteria to classify and organize so there are different opinions and explanations. These opinions are bias and represents one’s personal beliefs or a group of the society but not every single person. Thus, when the algorithmic system categorize the links, it is being bias and subjective to some opinions that might not be relevant to the viewer but he is only allowed to view these options. This shows how algorithm restricts people’s freedom of choosing and their right to be exposed to everything equally and accurately. People engagements play a major role in allowing the algorithm to choose the links. Hashtags that do not go viral are not chosen by the system to be shared with people when they search something relevant. For instance, the “ Occupy Wall Street” issue was not expanded because the hashtag did not receive a great engagement from people. This criteria made Donald Trump exploits the algorithm and start sharing news that are not true or accurate but increase the rating and thus make his name viral so all people talk about him.
Social media role is to favor impartiality by sharing with people different points of view and options. Moreover, it made it easier to access information and get whatever information you want in several seconds. However, it still has disadvantages. Facebook, is one of the social media platforms that has billions of members that are allowed to search, like, add, chat and view with whom they want. This was the case until 2006 where Facebook started classifying for each person the people and pages that are relevant without giving him/her the freedom to discover. This immediately affects the news feeds of person’s account on Facebook. To elaborate, Facebook had a role in manipulating information that is shared and allow what is only beneficial for their benefits; for example, its role in American politics. In this way, algorithm is contributing to polarization since it is not allowing people to discover new things and get exposed to different perspectives. It is restricting people’s minds and trapping them in their bubble. In this way, social media is contradicting its main aim which is to make people discover new things and communicate with new people.
In conclusion, algorithm plays a major role in fighting objectivity. While objectivity depends on accuracy, transparency and consistency, algorithm depends on bias, sometimes fake news and ratings. It is obvious that companies are depending on algorithm in order to gain more money. So it all has to do with manipulating what they want people to know and business. Rating is becoming the greatest concern for media platforms and channels. The more people spend time on something, the higher the ratings get, the more ads the company receives and finally the more they gain money. Well, this is disastrous. Wikipedia being one of the most viewed sites online can be edited by anyone which can easily post any biased information that serves his/her interest. But in important issue should be taken into consideration, objectivity is the main essence of journalism and delivering information but can we still reach it with all these manipulations? Lastly, being bias is by human nature and people cannot control their need to prove themselves right and impose their opinions.
References:
Gillespie, T. (2012). The relevance of algorithms. Culture digitally. Retrieved from http://culturedigitally.org/2012/11/the-relevance-of-algorithms/
Lotan, G. (2013) Networked Audiences, in McBride, K. & Rosenstiel, T. The new Ethics of Journalism, Sage, London, p. 105–119.
Ward (2009) ‘Truth and Objectivity’ in in Wilkins & Christians (eds.) Handbook of Mass Media Ethics, Routledge, London; New York, pp. 71–83.
