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this post was submitted on 20 Mar 2024
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Back when I was on reddit, I subscribed to about 120 subreddits. Starting a couple years ago though, I noticed that my front page really only showed content for 15-20 subreddits at a time and it was heavily weighted towards recent visits and interactions.
For example, if I hadn't visited r/3DPrinting in a couple weeks, it slowly faded from my front page until it disappeared all together. It was so bad that I ended up writing a browser automation script to visit all 120 of my subreddits at night and click the top link. This ended up giving me a more balanced front page that mixed in all of my subreddits and interests.
My point is these algorithms are fucking toxic. They're focused 100% on increasing time on page and interaction with zero consideration for side effects. I would love to see social media algorithms required by law to be open source. We have a public interest in knowing how we're being manipulated.
I used google news phone widget years ago and clicked on a giant asteroid article, and for whatever reason my entire feed became asteroid/meteor articles. Its also just such a dumb way to populate feeds.
Yo dawg, I heard you like asteroids. So I populated your entire feed with articles about asteroids.
YouTube does the exact same thing.
thats why i always use youtube by subscribed first, then only delve into regular front page if theres nothing interesting in my subscriptions
I agree. It's important to remember the only "conspiracy" is making money and keeping people on the platform. That said, it will cause people to go down rabbit holes. The solution isn't as simple as "show people content they disagree with" because they either ignore it or it creates another rabbit hole. For example, it would mean that progressives start getting bombarded with Tim Pool videos. I don't believe Tim is intentionally "alt right" but that's exactly why his videos are the most dangerous. They consist of nothing but conservative rage bait with a veneer of progressiveness that allows his viewers to believe they aren't being manipulated.