Monday, 25 April 2016

NDM News Story 61: Facebook is going to start showing you pieces people actually read

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/22/facebook-algorithm-change-pieces-people-actually-read
Woman on laptop.

Facebook is planning to use new methods of showing the users content that they are genuinely interested in. Normally, they deal with a lot of data that helps them understand what content that they normally broadcast to each individual user however, they will now start to think about the time that is spent on each type of article which will signal what sort of stories that users find interesting and appealing. They ignore click bait articles from their research as users tend to only spend a mere few seconds on such articles.
  •  News Feed filled with 30,000 word New Yorker epics.
  • In January this year, Upworthy laid off 14 of its 97 employees and pivoted towards video content.
  • The company’s video traffic had grown 33 times in the previous 11 months
This is a very effective method for choosing news articles that the public would be interested in and can be considered to empower the audience as they are subjected to information that they believe will benefit their interests. However, this can also be considered to be disempowering as it may divert the users from the truly important news that is happening in society, therefore, dumbing us down.

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