Did Facebook's News Feed Algorithm Elect Donald Trump?

math-blog.com

5 points·NumberSix··4 comments

An alternative title: "Was Facebook's News Feed algorithm heavily exploited by the Trump campaign to push their own agenda?"

Also Reddit.

My guess is you didn't read the article.

The original title has a style similar to "Do cars kill people?".

Well, cars are inanimate objects and do not kill people per se. Something else is hidden but obscured by the choice of the title.

The article has two points:

(1) Algorithms don't make decisions. People choose the algorithms and design the algorithms. The algorithms reflect the biases, failings, and agendas, both hidden and overt, of people.

(2) Hillary Clinton was severely damaged by factually accurate or mostly factually accurate articles on conflicts of interest involving the Clinton Foundation, her husband, and herself.

It is not just my personal opinion. Polls, granted polls have proven fallible in this election, showed public awareness of the Clinton Foundation conflicts of interest stories and that it was adversely impacting her campaign.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/09/21/th...

An ABC/Washington Post poll in September showed that about 6 in 10 (59 percent) thought special favors had been done for Clinton Foundation donors.

This shows public was well aware of the issue.

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