Facebook's Updated Algorithm

Social media is a big part of today’s society.  With each generation, social media seems to be gaining more and more usage, with even high-ranking politicians and well-established brands using it as their primary way to communicate with the public.  Social media connects people around the world and has proved it is a great platform to spread messages.  However, the price that users pay is losing their sense of privacy.  Almost every site implements algorithms in order to deliver content that it thinks the user may enjoy.  Users of these sites feel that their privacy is being invaded because the sites use the microphone in smart phones and internet searches to decide what to show the user.  One of the oldest and still most popular social media sites, Facebook, has decided to address this issue by developing different ways users can view their feed.  They have taken steps to allow users to customize how they want to view their feed.

 

I agree with the direction Facebook has decided to go.  Facebook has implemented a new interface for their users; they will be able to view their feed in one of three ways: the default way, viewing the most recent feed first, or viewing their favorite accounts first.  While there are still some problems with this setup, these are massive steps in the right direction.  With the two alternative options, the user’s feed will be more streamlined to posts they have viewed in the app.  This will make them feel more secured because they will not be seeing random posts on topics that they do not care about or on things that their phone’s microphone may have picked up from everyday conversations.  Along with implementing these alternatives, Facebook also took steps to provide transparency for their algorithm, such as adding a “Why Am I Seeing This” button.  These steps are further attempting to streamline the content that users are seeing by giving them the power to reject topics that they do not want in their feed.  The updated algorithm stores this information to ensure that the user will not be bothered by the same type of post.  I think this is a very significant upgrade to the system.  It was a compromise between Facebook and the users.  On one hand, Facebook can still collect data from its users and try to feed them topics that they think might interest them.  On the other hand, the users now have the option to reject these topics.

 

As stated above, I think that Facebook has made a significant contribution to making the internet a more secure place.  Although some social media sites have more features to protect the user’s privacy, Facebook, being one of the industry’s titans, has made it more commonplace among the other sites.  Like in any other industry, the smaller companies usually follow the leader.  While I do not think that there will ever be total privacy on the internet, Facebook has taken massive steps in the right direction.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-is-giving-us-some-control-of-our-feedsbut-not-enough-11617372000?mod=tech_lead_pos5