Does the Algo Encourage Clickbait?

Does the Algo Encourage Clickbait?(dailyunlearner.com)

1 points by eddiejaoude 1 year ago | 3 comments

"The idea behind the algorithm is to give high-quality content more exposure. But it's not about quality anymore. It's about what gets the most likes and shares. We end up pushing a few types of content that get engagement instead of quality. Most of the time, it's broad inspirational messages because they appeal to everyone."

PaulHoule 1 year ago | |

I don’t like the phrase “algorithm” because an “algorithm” could be just about anything.

For instance you might choose to emphasize titles that start with “B” and are between 40 and 50 characters long. In the AI age you can train a model to identify more complex characteristics as “angry”, “political”, “written by somebody depressed”, …

Then the are the fairly “organic” feeds that I think are toxic without a lot of work behind the scenes. Consider something like Mastodon or Twitter where you follow people and see their retweets/boosts, some people think that “chronological feed” is a Garden of Eden but it is really a chain reaction or clickbait and if you don’t believe me look at the “explore” feed that shows what is most boosted.

You can make an algorithm that privileges anything but ‘quality’ is probably the hardest recognize as you can at most detect signs of quality.

eddiejaoude 1 year ago | | |

thanks for the reply Paul and elaborating