A Whackadoodle Fact-Checking Morning
Where a simple question can lead you, if you keep asking.
I had an interesting morning doing a Fact-Check today. It began with my wanting to understand what the scammers who post “copy/paste” scams on Facebook, get out of the scam. (You know, where a trusted friend asks you to copy and paste something into your own feed. I wanted to know what the scammers get out of a simple copy/paste.) For once, Bing gave me some good leads:
Copy-and-paste scams on Facebook are usually designed to spread spam and malware, and to trick users into sharing personal information. The scammers behind these posts often use them to collect data from unsuspecting users, such as email addresses, phone numbers, and other sensitive information.
In some cases, these scams can also be used to spread fake news or propaganda. By encouraging users to copy and paste the same message into their own newsfeed, scammers can create a sense of urgency and make their message appear more legitimate .
It’s important to be cautious when you come across such posts on Facebook. If you’re unsure about the authenticity of a post, it’s best to ignore it and not share it with others. If you’re concerned about the content on your newsfeed, you can always adjust your Facebook settings to prioritize posts from your friends and family .
But my day didn’t stop there. Tracing Bing’s sources led me to a Newsweek article, that led me to a Snopes article, that led me to this article: How Facebook’s news feed algorithm works. (slate.com) Yeah, I know. TLDR (Too Long; Didn’t Read). So let me give you a few soundbites from the Slate article in order to wet your appetite.
Every time you open Facebook, one of the world’s most influential, controversial, and misunderstood algorithms springs into action. It scans and collects everything posted in the past week by each of your friends, everyone you follow, each group you belong to, and every Facebook page you’ve liked. For the average Facebook user, that’s more than 1,500 posts. If you have several hundred friends, it could be as many as 10,000. Then, according to a closely guarded and constantly shifting formula, Facebook’s news feed algorithm ranks them all, in what it believes to be the precise order of how likely you are to find each post worthwhile. Most users will only ever see the top few hundred.
No one outside Facebook knows for sure how it does this, and no one inside the company will tell you. And yet the results of this automated ranking process shape the social lives and reading habits of more than 1 billion daily active users—one-fifth of the world’s adult population…
…And yet, for all its power, Facebook’s news feed algorithm is surprisingly inelegant, maddeningly mercurial, and stubbornly opaque. It remains as likely as not to serve us posts we find trivial, irritating, misleading, or just plain boring. And Facebook knows it...
“Hang on,” my student interrupted. “I don’t even know what an algorithm is.”
“Yeah you do,” I replied. “An algorithm is nothing more that an equation with complex variables.”
“Huh?”
“3 + x = 5. What is x?”
“Two,” she answered without thinking.
“Computers do not have human brains. They speak a binary language made up of ones and zeros. On or off. Left or right. Up or down. This or that. They couldn’t answer a simple mathematical question without an algorithm. Computer algorithms are simply mathematical equations written by human brains attempting to train binary machines.”
“I still don’t get algorithms.”
“(My post) x (my post’s likes) = (The number of times my post will be seen and liked by others). An algorithm is nothing more than a binary equation with complex variables. The more my post is ‘liked,’ the more my post will be seen and liked by others, and then been seen and liked by others, and then seen and liked by others, until we all go viral.”
“Exponential growth,” she said suddenly.
“Exactly,” I replied. “Now, if you have any other questions about computer algorithms, I suggest we get back to the Slate article. It might provide you with some insight. There are even several paragraphs in which a Facebook executive attempts to explain algorithms to the article’s writer.”
“Oh right, the article.”
The “like” button wasn’t just a new way for users to interact on the site. It was a way for Facebook to enlist its users in solving the problem of how best to filter their own news feeds. That users didn’t realize they were doing this was perhaps the most ingenious part. If Facebook had told users they had to rank and review their friends’ posts to help the company determine how many other people should see them, we would have found the process tedious and distracting. Facebook’s news feed algorithm was one of the first to surreptitiously enlist users in personalizing their experience—and influencing everyone else’s…
…if there’s one thing that Facebook has learned in 10 years of running the news feed, it’s that data never tell the full story, and the algorithm will never be perfect. What looks like it’s working today might be unmasked as a mistake tomorrow. And when it does, the humans who go to work every day in Menlo Park will read a bunch of spreadsheets, hold a bunch of meetings, run a bunch of tests—and then change the algorithm once again.
“So that’s it?” she said.
“Yeah that’s it,” I replied. “Unless you want to read the original article declared TLDR. The article doesn’t mention it, but I bet Facebook has also calculated every emoji reaction from a friend into their algorithm. They really like telling you when a ‘friend’ has ‘reacted’ to a post.”
“So the friends I react to are the friends that Facebook’s algorithms will keep sending to my feed simply because I react?”
“Now you’re getting it.”
“And what happens to posts nobody sees or likes?”
“They go into the great abyss of people talking to themselves.”
“So what is the answer?”
“You might try actually reaching out to friends instead of letting algorithms decide which friends can reach you. I believe people once called them letters.”
She snorted and said in a pretty good impression of me, “I believe people now call them emails and directed messaging.”
“Fair enough,” I agreed. “Of course, you could always just go to your “friends file” and look at a real friend’s feed. If you react a little, and like a little, I guarantee you that the algorithm will start showing that friend’s posts in your feed. Much more effective than a copy/paste scam.”
“So the algorithm is designed to show me what I want to be shown?”
“What the algorithm thinks you want to be shown.” I emphasized. “Although think is a strong word. Computers don’t think. They run on algorithms. If you comment on a sponsored post, the computer algorithm will send you more of the same because the algorithm has determined that you will respond to such a sponsored post. The same thing goes when you respond to a friend. Your responses are in the equation.”
“So whenever I post, comment, like, share, or respond, the algorithm uses it to decide what I am likely to post, comment, like, share, or respond to again?”
“And so the cycle continues,” I nodded. “And the question then becomes, ‘Are you aware of how powerful your simple likes, shares, and comments are to that algorithm? Are you aware of how much of your Facebook feed responds to your reactions? Are you aware of how much you actually influenced those feeds by your reactions?”
Do you know anyone who doesn't like getting a Birthday card in the mail.n There is something special abut a a hand written note. Bill