The effects of algorithms on the public discourse
1–10 of 97 posts
Re: The effects of algorithms on the public discourse
#2Nice, there is
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_(protocol)
which I went to over the last few years.
But yes, I agree pretty much with the whole article.
Re: The effects of algorithms on the public discourse
#3I appreciate the advice at the bottom, but I'd love to hear more about what other people suggest for finding content that isn't algorithm based.
Relatively niche but traditional bulletin board forums are good. Recent posts to the top do tend make some threads be attention hogs, but there's a human mod in the loop if the forum is small enough.
I suppose chats (usually Discord) also fall into this as well. A smaller community there can be similar to a smaller community on Mastodon, forums, etc.
Any other thoughts? How do people discover new blogs?
Side note, I think I realized or came to the belief about 10 years ago that large groups of humans suck. Moderation becomes impractical or ineffective; content discovery becomes manipulated like this post is talking about. Similarly, large communities on a monolithic platform have to be monetized -- which results in clickbait of a sorts to maintain engagement.
Re: The effects of algorithms on the public discourse
#4I started using RSS. Not so much of the enshittification there. In fact it is sort of like using the web of 20 years ago.
Re: The effects of algorithms on the public discourse
#5I started using RSS. Not so much of the enshittification there. In fact it is sort of like using the web of 20 years ago.
I am all about newsletters and RSS feeds now. The internet is so much nicer. F--k the algorithms.
Re: The effects of algorithms on the public discourse
#6I appreciate the advice at the bottom, but I'd love to hear more about what other people suggest for finding content that isn't algorithm based. Relatively niche but traditional bulletin board forums are good. Recent posts to the top do tend make some threads be attention hogs, but there's a human mod in the loop if the forum is small enough. I suppose chats (usually Discord) also fall into this as well. A smaller co…
Small-blog-aggregators like Kottke are a goldmine. The trick, of course, is to remember to follow the interesting people he surfaces.
And RSS. It never went away. Just use RSS.
Re: The effects of algorithms on the public discourse
#7Much before. Why SEO, SEM, AdWords, etc are not mentioned?
Re: The effects of algorithms on the public discourse
#8Ironically I saw this video, which didn’t come up with the thesis, that blogs were the first domino that led to the modern internet:
Re: The effects of algorithms on the public discourse
#9I appreciate the advice at the bottom, but I'd love to hear more about what other people suggest for finding content that isn't algorithm based. Relatively niche but traditional bulletin board forums are good. Recent posts to the top do tend make some threads be attention hogs, but there's a human mod in the loop if the forum is small enough. I suppose chats (usually Discord) also fall into this as well. A smaller co…
Private group chats are the new social networks. It's apples and oranges but I think for people that really don't want to be "on social media" the alternative is to keep engagement with close friends on a group-by-group basis.
So whatever they share on there is how I get my social-media awareness. It's basically intentionally a very very narrow filter. It has to be.
Then, subscribe to paid publications, journalism, podcasts, newsletters.
Re: The effects of algorithms on the public discourse
#10The article mentions "Technology Connections titled 'Algorithms Are Breaking How We Think'"
I'm a huge fan of the channel, and that video is mostly great and insightful. But his being "puzzled" at the way people use the subscriptions "feed" is kinda surprising. The low percentaged from that feed should lead to asking questions to understand why, instead of assuming people are "doing it wrong". People use subscriptions as a sort of meta bookmarking system. It's also a way of honing their algorithm. People can have a wide variety of interests. Just because someone is subscribed to a channel on anime doesn't mean it's the thing they're looking for at the time they dip into that feed. And some channels just fill the feed up with posts that don't always necessitate the work of pruning it. So, that firehose ends up being a lot of noise. The ideal would be some sort of in-between. Where you can pare down the subscriptions feed based on a current interest. One doesn't need to see the very latest post by a creator of they aren't someone who is chronically online.
I think we will still see the emergence of "human algorithms" that personally curate content for you.