Overrated Echo-chambers
Today in the digital world we are living in, social media may be considered as the primary source of news in most developed countries, this is valid especially for the younger generations. Older generations still count on TV networks to provide them with information and acknowledge them with what is happening around them or elsewhere.
With the rise of social media as a primary source of information, a question was then raised regarding the objectivity and neutrality of these networks when delivering information to users.
A lot of people are attacking social media networks and search engines claiming that their algorithms systems is creating a biased atmosphere in which some media outlets or specifically oriented stories or pieces receive higher ranking in the feed.
Facebook originally was using an algorithm that would automatically simply display stories from friends or liked pages in a reverse chronological order, this means that stories displayed first where those posted last. However, in order to enhance the Facebook experience for the users, Facebook started working on a more user-oriented experience. The new sophisticated algorithm takes thousands of posts and arranges them according to how likely the user would be to interact with the content.
If you try to simplify the algorithmic experience, you can count on four main factors that affect its placement in your feed. These four main factors are your interest in the poster, the time it was posted, the type of posting, and finally the post’s general performance. The interest in the post can be described as how likely you are to interact with a post by the writer based on what your previous experience with his posts was. As for the time aspect, according to Tarleton Gillespie, when you log onto Facebook for example, the posts you’re immediately shown at the top of the News Feed are not every post from your friends in reverse chronological order (Gillespie, 2014).
Critics often claim that social media creates Echo-chambers, which are virtual bubbles of like-minded people re-sharing the same opinions in politics and socio-economics and this is the heart of the problem that claims that social media is being bias. I personally believe the echo-chambers on social media are just a reflection of the individual own life outside the screens. Your friends on Facebook, are most likely to be the same ones you meet in your everyday life, if you only meet people who are like-minded your feed is most probably going to be featuring stories of similar opinions.
An example can be shaped this way, change often starts in urban and racially mixed cities where the population has no fear of “the other” as a result of living with him/her and interacting in everyday life where they are both willingly looking to develop together better societies and where voting occurs usually based on economic programs and ideas. This is verified almost worldwide, and I will give two recent examples in two very different parts of the world. In the US most urban citizens of racially mixed societies did not vote for Trump unlike most of his supporters who live in rural homogeneous areas of the US. In Lebanon the story is different yet similar; Lebanese people living in rural homogeneous areas voted vastly for traditional sectarian parties while those living Beirut, despite being a minority within the city itself, were able to present new ideas allowing two secular parliamentary females to represent them in the new round. In reference to what was mentioned above, to which extent should we blame echo-chambers which have long existed before the rise of social media on the lack of progress rather the reality of demographics itself? These demographics are re-embedded in our networks.
In conclusion, I believe that Algorithms don’t necessarily control or pressure us to read or watch content, it reflects what content we may hear from our own social circles, if in real life if you are surrounded by people who do not all share the same political opinion or affiliation, you will most likely have a diverse feed where articles and stories are from multiple sources. However, ads on other hand are content that is pressured upon you, thus some regulations must be placed on ads for the social media website or search engines not be bias, especially when the ads are political. According to The Verge, some companies like Facebook are already testing new strategies to avoid such issues through labeling political pages and news agencies as “political advertisers”, this labeling will require all advertisers to have their ads verified before going live and will set a budget limit to each campaign for its ads. When this is implemented in the algorithmic system, the pushed ads will be sent to users in a less bias manner, Facebook promised to deliver all sides of a specific story if it was to be pushed through ads while maintaining the user-based experience mentioned above.
It is also to be noted that Google is following a similar strategy in the first page following a search on a specific story where they are assuring that multiple diverse sources are being listed respectable of the performance of the story or the link itself.
The above picture shows the diverse results featured when I searched for the trending story regarding Trump’s decision to withdraw from the with Russia, however, it is obvious that the results lack Republican oriented agencies sources, this is probably due to the fact that I rarely refer to those Republic bias sites, reflecting the fact that Google offered me diverse sources which I will visit based on my history with Google.
Sources:
Brandom, Russell. “Facebook’s Ad Rules Are Forcing News Outlets to Register as Political Advertisers.” The Verge, The Verge, 1 June 2018, www.theverge.com/2018/6/1/17416710/facebook-political-ad-rules-news-promotion-blocked.
Constine, Josh. “How Facebook News Feed Works.” TechCrunch, TechCrunch, 6 Sept. 2016, techcrunch.com/2016/09/06/ultimate-guide-to-the-news-feed/.
Kulwin, Noah. “Social Media ‘Filter Bubbles’ Aren’t Actually a Thing, Research Suggests.” VICE News, VICE News, 14 Apr. 2017, news.vice.com/en_ca/article/9kdjez/social-media-filter-bubbles-arent-actually-a-thing-research-suggests.
