Algorithmic Curation Impacts Media Exposure in Twitter Timelines | Hacker News Reader

Algorithmic Curation Impacts Media Exposure in Twitter Timelines

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49 pointsluu23 comments

I'll go for "duh!" for $100, Alex. Any curation affects media exposure (algorithmic or not). By definition, curation means there's a filter, and a filter implies that some things won't get through. A bit of a shame to see my tax dollars funding do-nothing studies like this one.

Study also seems weirdly partisan: for example, "During the COVID-19 pandemic, informative tweets about fatality rates and preventative measures are often more important than tweets related to political events"—important to whom? I have a feeling Republicans were more interested in the latter, while Democrats were more interested in the former.

"Adding tweets to user timelines is an especially opportune mechanism to mitigate the potential negative impacts of social media platforms. Added content could be curated using more traditional editorial values, in service to both journalists and Twitter users"—authors seem to be confused as to what Twitter is. It's NOT a newspaper, and it's absolutely not supposed to have the same editorial standards as a newspaper. Twitter has echo chambers by design. From a product standpoint, people happen to like them. So the algorithm reinforces this.

Is this healthy? I don't know, probably not, but neither is alcohol or tobacco. Maybe all social media apps should have a "surgeon general's" warning. Which seems like a way more actionable course than making social media apps use journalistic-style editorial standards (how do you even enforce that on something like TikTok?).

> By definition, curation means there's a filter,

That is not the definition of curation:

> In smaller organizations, a curator may have sole responsibility for acquisitions and even for collections care. A curator makes decisions regarding what objects to select, oversees their potential and documentation, conducts research based on the collection and its history, provides proper packaging of object for transportation, and shares research with the public and community through exhibitions and publications. In very small, volunteer-based museums, such as those of local historical societies, a curator may be the only paid staff-member.

> In larger institutions, the curator's primary function is that of a subject specialist, with the expectation that he or she will conduct original research on objects and guide the organization in its collecting. Such institutions can have multiple curators, each assigned to a specific collecting area (e.g., curator of ancient art, curator of prints and drawings, etc.) and often operating under the direction of a head curator. In such organizations, the physical care of the collection may be overseen by museum collections-managers or by museum conservators, with documentation and administrative matters (such as personnel, insurance, and loans) handled by a museum registrar.

(from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curator)

If the second type of curator starts "filtering" the museum's collection, they're likely to be fired and possibly sued or even criminally prosecuted. Of course, acquisitions and exhibit curation do involve filtering.

Using the word "curation" to mean "selection" — possibly even automatic, unconscious selection, rather than selection by a subject specialist or even a conscious being of any kind — trivializes actual curation.

> makes decisions regarding what objects to select

> guide the organization in its collecting

just because it's at the front of the pipeline doesn't mean it's not a filter.

Yes, that's why the comment you're replying to says, "Of course, acquisitions and exhibit curation do involve filtering."

When someone says "by definition, X means Y" they don't mean "X only means Y". Your comment thereby reads as an internal contradiction as you are admitting they are correct and yet also are adamant they are wrong.

You are very confused, but I am not sure exactly how.

Why just social media? Why not a notice before Fox and Friends, Tucker Carlson, Maddow, and John Oliver? Are they not biased curators?

Why should “traditional media” get a pass?

Do “journalistic style standards” defined by a minority not result in curated exposure?

The language being used is so vague it could apply more broadly than just TikTok.

Why do east coasters get to broadcast to west coasters? Why is someone else curating my media exposure at all, claiming my attention; ah right they’re all ad platforms. All content must as broadly acceptable as possible to expose ads as broadly as possible. Gamble on their success soaking up our attention.

It’s my hope AI content ends this silly semantics game. It may cost TV influencers and TikTok influencers but they’re all repetitive shallow attention seekers anyway.

Because they are Publishers? And not platforms?

> a shame to see my tax dollars funding do-nothing studies like this one.

I assure, they are doing a lot of stuff; but granted, it's mostly bureaucracy to get the money to pay their bills...

with the little time and effort which remains they make and publish this stuff

It's "duh" to HN users, not so much to the normies. So studies like this are still needed, unfortunately

One of the articles referenced in this paper looks pretty interesting:

https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/1369118x.2019.1637447

> Bruns, A. (2019). "After the “APIcalypse”: social media platforms and their fight against critical scholarly research."

Here's a sample:

> "In early 2019, Facebook also took explicit steps to disable the functionality of a browser plugin promoted by the investigative journalism initiative ProPublica that would capture the Facebook ads encountered by plugin users, as well as a number of similar other tools. Using direct Web scraping methods that did not rely on API access, the plugin sought to generate independent, publicly accessible observational data especially on political advertising practices in the United States and elsewhere; citing a need ‘to keep people’s information safe’, Facebook responded by deliberately obfuscating the HTML code served by its Website in such a way that ads could no longer be immediately recognised as distinct elements of a Facebook page (Merrill & Tobin, 2019)."

The social media business model is still based on selling people's information to third parties, but they don't want independent scrutiny of their propaganda practices (aka content curation, labeling and promotion of 'trusted sources', etc.)

I'm skeptical of that claim... It's natural to assume that the HTML obfuscation would also be useful for reducing the effectiveness of ad blocking tools which would presumably have a much more clear impact on FB's bottom line

Or the line between researcher and malicious actor is not super clear (Aleksandr Kogan was also a third party researcher after all), and its "easier" to have blanket rules against it?

I've long wished all social media platforms had a "Under no circumstances do I wish my feed to be curated. Ever."

Just show me content on a genuine, unfiltered timeline from accounts I have chosen to follow. Doesn't matter if it's a firehose, the feed is already a firehose and I only follow quality posters anyway

Did you find this article through "New" or front page?

I usually come to HN from Front page, because the discussions are often as good (if not better) than the original link. However, my useage pattern is to peruse the top articles, then switch to New

Having said that, HN isn't ad driven and is more a descendant of message boards. So the incentives driving the curation mechanism are not personalized, but guided (as far as I can tell) purely by user engagement. Considering the good quality of HN's readership, and that there don't seem to be any (few?) bots or influencers what floats to the top tends to be worthwhile. Can't say the same for Twitter, and most definitely not FB.

At least for Twitter, I think this still happens if you move everyone into a list and only view the list.

You can also use search queries like this:

https://twitter.com/search?q=filter%3Afollows%20-filter%3Are...

And unfortunately lists are the only functional way to use Twitter.

Twitter has 'latest' vs. 'home'

That discovery is the only reason I stay on the platform. It's instantly noticeable when they automatically switch me back to 'Home'

It's a wonderful article, I'm glad someone is finally quantifying what has been evident to many people for a long time. Namely that Twitter is a harmful tool that encourages extremism and widens the political divide in America.

One can only hope it will finally be regulated, and not with attacks on free-speech like "misinformation boards" but through transparency and fairness in the way the algorithmic feeds are implemented.

(pdf)

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