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Comment by andrewstuart2 | Hacker News Reader

Or, hear me out, requiring certain levels of transparency from content systems that have started to augment such fundamental constructs as human-to-human communication and information sharing.

There's nothing inherently wrong with automating content discovery; it's the cost function being optimized that I think we would almost all take issue with.

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Agreed. Much of the problem I see is that people can fall down a rabbit hole of polarization without realizing it; no matter how far into the fringes the recommendation algorithm gets, it'll always feel like "oh everyone's saying this" to you as a viewer.

"What happens when you take a creature with a strong confirmation bias and feed it content specifically chosen for congruence with its particular bias?"

Or rather, they knew the answer, but knew that it was the best way to maximize engagement and thus profit.

There still needs to be scope for personal responsibility though. Blaming your own behaviours on the recommendation algorithm of youtube etc is just a cop out.

It's a copout on an individual level, but the question of who's responsible is a lot less important than the question of what we're going to do about the problem. In the absence of a plan to make millions upon millions of partisans more individually responsible, we've gotta do something about the recommendation algorithms.

  A cop sees a guy crawling around under a streetlight and asks him, "Sir, what are you doing?"
  
  The man replies, "Well, officer, I dropped my car keys and I'm trying to find them."
  
  The policeman offers to help, and they search fruitlessly for ten minutes. 
  
  Finally, the officer says, "Are you sure this is where you dropped them?"
  
  "Oh, no, it's not. I dropped them way over there in the parking lot."
  
  Dumbfounded, the cop says, "WHY are you looking over HERE?"
  
  "Well, the light is better over here."

If it is well known human behaviour, is it their personal responsibility? Especially combined with the deliberate exploitation of said behaviour by corporations?

Rabbit holes are good for most kinds content. I do want to go down a rabbit hole of restoration gardening videos. Its only politics and news which become a problem

What does the transparency change though?

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