Facebook has long been well aware that its algorithms affect polarization of positions and increase of social divisions. He himself commissioned a report from which such conclusions are drawn.
According to The Wall Street Journal, in 2018 a presentation was presented to the management of Facebook, which shows that if the company's algorithms are not controlled, platform users will get more and more polarizing content. They ensure user engagement and increase the time he spends on the site. This in turn translates into specific money flowing into bank accounts and into the pockets of tailor-made jackets of the bosses of the largest social medium.
We, the users, know the social consequences of leaving the algorithms to themselves too well - further polarization, intensification of conflicts, promotion of discussions during which one screams instead of talking. It is not just that we will lose some friends from high school, with whom we have not talked for three years. The consequences of an algorithm that nobody studies can be much more serious. In the 2016 report, the heads of Facebook could read that as many as 64 percent people who joined the extremist group on Facebook did it because the platform itself suggested it to them.
A changeable concept of good public debate.
Facebook representatives talking about algorithms used on the platform suggesting content, often mention such values as creating a community, universal access to information, taking care of users who want to see engaging content. All these beautiful speeches, however, sound cynical when you are aware that Facebook is well aware of the impact its algorithms have and have had on the quality of public debate. Sam himself finally commissioned a report to investigate.
Facebook in a statement for the WSJ assures that, contrary to the suggestions of journalists, it takes its own reports to heart. The company claims that it has learned a lot since 2016 and has been working since then to limit the spread of harmful and polarizing content.
Some people indicate, however, that although such efforts actually took place, they expired in the spring of 2018, when the Facebook scandal of Cambridge Analytica hit. The enormity of criticism that fell on the social platform was to make it go on the defensive and withdrew from the changes that he announced in his New Year's post Mark Zuckerberg - a post in which he apologized for previous mistakes and promised that from now on important for Facebook will primarily be building good relationships between users.
However, after the scandal, the mission of creating a less polarizing platform has gone to the background. Facebook has changed tactics. For fear of being accused of being influenced by one side of the political dispute or favoring the left, Facebook withdrew from some of its plans and began to adhere to a policy of less interference in the content promoted on the platform. The result of this change is even a controversial provision about the possibility of placing untruth in political ads.
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Facebook had a chance not to divide or polarize. He did not take advantage
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