[HN Gopher] Algorithmic Curation Impacts Media Exposure in Twitt...
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Algorithmic Curation Impacts Media Exposure in Twitter Timelines
Author : luu
Score : 48 points
Date : 2022-10-05 03:02 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (par.nsf.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (par.nsf.gov)
| passwordoops wrote:
| I've long wished all social media platforms had a "Under no
| circumstances do I wish my feed to be curated. Ever."
|
| Just show me content on a genuine, unfiltered timeline from
| accounts I have chosen to follow. Doesn't matter if it's a
| firehose, the feed is already a firehose and I only follow
| quality posters anyway
| Kiro wrote:
| Did you find this article through "New" or front page?
| passwordoops wrote:
| I usually come to HN from Front page, because the discussions
| are often as good (if not better) than the original link.
| However, my useage pattern is to peruse the top articles,
| then switch to New
|
| Having said that, HN isn't ad driven and is more a descendant
| of message boards. So the incentives driving the curation
| mechanism are not personalized, but guided (as far as I can
| tell) purely by user engagement. Considering the good quality
| of HN's readership, and that there don't seem to be any
| (few?) bots or influencers what floats to the top tends to be
| worthwhile. Can't say the same for Twitter, and most
| definitely not FB.
| gjreda wrote:
| At least for Twitter, I think this still happens if you move
| everyone into a list and only view the list.
| alexpotato wrote:
| You can also use search queries like this:
|
| https://twitter.com/search?q=filter%3Afollows%20-filter%3Are.
| ..
| vorpalhex wrote:
| And unfortunately lists are the only functional way to use
| Twitter.
| whiddershins wrote:
| Twitter has 'latest' vs. 'home'
| passwordoops wrote:
| That discovery is the only reason I stay on the platform.
| It's instantly noticeable when they automatically switch me
| back to 'Home'
| mellosouls wrote:
| (pdf)
| photochemsyn wrote:
| One of the articles referenced in this paper looks pretty
| interesting:
|
| https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/1369118x.2019.1637447
|
| > Bruns, A. (2019). "After the "APIcalypse": social media
| platforms and their fight against critical scholarly research."
|
| Here's a sample:
|
| > "In early 2019, Facebook also took explicit steps to disable
| the functionality of a browser plugin promoted by the
| investigative journalism initiative ProPublica that would capture
| the Facebook ads encountered by plugin users, as well as a number
| of similar other tools. Using direct Web scraping methods that
| did not rely on API access, the plugin sought to generate
| independent, publicly accessible observational data especially on
| political advertising practices in the United States and
| elsewhere; citing a need 'to keep people's information safe',
| Facebook responded by deliberately obfuscating the HTML code
| served by its Website in such a way that ads could no longer be
| immediately recognised as distinct elements of a Facebook page
| (Merrill & Tobin, 2019)."
|
| The social media business model is still based on selling
| people's information to third parties, but they don't want
| independent scrutiny of their propaganda practices (aka content
| curation, labeling and promotion of 'trusted sources', etc.)
| qvrjuec wrote:
| I'm skeptical of that claim... It's natural to assume that the
| HTML obfuscation would also be useful for reducing the
| effectiveness of ad blocking tools which would presumably have
| a much more clear impact on FB's bottom line
| tqi wrote:
| Or the line between researcher and malicious actor is not super
| clear (Aleksandr Kogan was also a third party researcher after
| all), and its "easier" to have blanket rules against it?
| dvt wrote:
| I'll go for "duh!" for $100, Alex. _Any_ curation affects media
| exposure (algorithmic or not). By definition, curation means
| there 's a filter, and a filter implies that some things won't
| get through. A bit of a shame to see my tax dollars funding do-
| nothing studies like this one.
|
| Study also seems weirdly partisan: for example, "During the
| COVID-19 pandemic, informative tweets about fatality rates and
| preventative measures are often more important than tweets
| related to political events"--important to _whom_? I have a
| feeling Republicans were more interested in the latter, while
| Democrats were more interested in the former.
|
| "Adding tweets to user timelines is an especially opportune
| mechanism to mitigate the potential negative impacts of social
| media platforms. Added content could be curated using more
| traditional editorial values, in service to both journalists and
| Twitter users"--authors seem to be confused as to what Twitter
| is. It's NOT a newspaper, and it's absolutely not supposed to
| have the same editorial standards as a newspaper. Twitter has
| echo chambers by _design_. From a product standpoint, people
| happen to like them. So the algorithm reinforces this.
|
| Is this healthy? I don't know, probably not, but neither is
| alcohol or tobacco. Maybe all social media apps should have a
| "surgeon general's" warning. Which seems like a way more
| actionable course than making social media apps use journalistic-
| style editorial standards (how do you even enforce that on
| something like TikTok?).
| throbintrash wrote:
| > a shame to see my tax dollars funding do-nothing studies like
| this one.
|
| I assure, they are doing a lot of stuff; but granted, it's
| mostly bureaucracy to get the money to pay their bills...
|
| with the little time and effort which remains they make and
| publish this stuff
| passwordoops wrote:
| It's "duh" to HN users, not so much to the normies. So studies
| like this are still needed, unfortunately
| kragen wrote:
| > _By definition, curation means there 's a filter,_
|
| That is not the definition of curation:
|
| > _In smaller organizations, a curator may have sole
| responsibility for acquisitions and even for collections care.
| A curator makes decisions regarding what objects to select,
| oversees their potential and documentation, conducts research
| based on the collection and its history, provides proper
| packaging of object for transportation, and shares research
| with the public and community through exhibitions and
| publications. In very small, volunteer-based museums, such as
| those of local historical societies, a curator may be the only
| paid staff-member._
|
| > _In larger institutions, the curator 's primary function is
| that of a subject specialist, with the expectation that he or
| she will conduct original research on objects and guide the
| organization in its collecting. Such institutions can have
| multiple curators, each assigned to a specific collecting area
| (e.g., curator of ancient art, curator of prints and drawings,
| etc.) and often operating under the direction of a head
| curator. In such organizations, the physical care of the
| collection may be overseen by museum collections-managers or by
| museum conservators, with documentation and administrative
| matters (such as personnel, insurance, and loans) handled by a
| museum registrar._
|
| (from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curator)
|
| If the second type of curator starts "filtering" the museum's
| collection, they're likely to be fired and possibly sued or
| even criminally prosecuted. Of course, acquisitions and exhibit
| curation do involve filtering.
|
| Using the word "curation" to mean "selection" -- possibly even
| automatic, unconscious selection, rather than selection by a
| subject specialist or even a conscious being of any kind --
| trivializes actual curation.
| lalopalota wrote:
| > makes decisions regarding what objects to select
|
| > guide the organization in its collecting
|
| just because it's at the front of the pipeline doesn't mean
| it's not a filter.
| kragen wrote:
| Yes, that's why the comment you're replying to says, "Of
| course, acquisitions and exhibit curation do involve
| filtering."
| ySocMedia wrote:
| Why just social media? Why not a notice before Fox and Friends,
| Tucker Carlson, Maddow, and John Oliver? Are they not biased
| curators?
|
| Why should "traditional media" get a pass?
|
| Do "journalistic style standards" defined by a minority not
| result in curated exposure?
|
| The language being used is so vague it could apply more broadly
| than just TikTok.
|
| Why do east coasters get to broadcast to west coasters? Why is
| someone else curating my media exposure at all, claiming my
| attention; ah right they're all ad platforms. All content must
| as broadly acceptable as possible to expose ads as broadly as
| possible. Gamble on their success soaking up our attention.
|
| It's my hope AI content ends this silly semantics game. It may
| cost TV influencers and TikTok influencers but they're all
| repetitive shallow attention seekers anyway.
| ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote:
| It's a wonderful article, I'm glad someone is finally quantifying
| what has been evident to many people for a long time. Namely that
| Twitter is a harmful tool that encourages extremism and widens
| the political divide in America.
|
| One can only hope it will finally be regulated, and not with
| attacks on free-speech like "misinformation boards" but through
| transparency and fairness in the way the algorithmic feeds are
| implemented.
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