Technology
This is the official technology community of Lemmy.ml for all news related to creation and use of technology, and to facilitate civil, meaningful discussion around it.
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I don't think the problem is strictly the existence algorithms, but rather how they are used against the users.
To some extent, on Lemmy users are free to sort posts how they wish. Such as by new, or hot.. etc. Should these types of algorithm-like features be banned too?
While pretty much Youtube and Facebook just decide for you what gets pitched to you.
You think the Meta algorithm just sorts the feed for you? It is way more complex and it basically puts you on some very fine-grained clusters, then decides what to show to you, then collects your clicks and reactions and adjusts itself. For scale, no academic "research with human subjects" would be approved with mechanics like that under the hood. It is deeply unethical and invasive, outright dangerous for the individuals (eg teen self esteem issues, anorexias, etc, etc). So "algorithm-like features" is apples to oranges here.
Exactly my point. In lemmy I can still see all the posts, Meta’s algorithm will remove stuff from the feeds and push others and even hide comments. It is literally a reality warping engine.
Now you're talking.
It's not as cut and dry obviously, but Meta certainly does take away control from the user in comparison to Fediverse based platforms regarding algorithms. and despite how complex it is, the algorithm will still sort your feed for you based off that data.
I think that algorithms that the user can control is good. But when the algorithm is used against users like with Meta it's bad. It's about how it's used not just simply because an algorithm exists.
Fancier algorithms are not bad per se. They can be ultra-productive for many purposes. In fact, we take no issue with fancy algorithms when published as software libraries. But then only specially trained folks can seize their fruit, which it happens it is people working for Big Tech. Now, if we had user interfaces that could let the user control several free parameters of the algorithms and experience different feeds, then it would be kinda nice. The problem boils down to these areas:
Political interference and proliferation of fascist "ideas" is just a function that is possible if and only if all of the above are in play. If you take all this destructive shit away, a software that would let you explore vast amounts of data with cool algorithms through a user-friendly interface would not be bad in itself.
But you see, that is why we say "the medium is the message" and that "television is not a neutral technology". As a media system, television is so constructed so that few corporations can address the masses, not the other way round, nor people interact with their neighbor. For a brief point in time, the internet promised to subvert that, when centralized social media brought back the exertion of control over the messaging by few corporations. The current alternative is the Fediverse and P2P networks. This is my analysis.
Like I said below I think the distinction is that a) I have access to a algorithm free feed here and b) lemmy (as far as I understand it) simply sorts content, rather than outright removing content from my feed if it thinks it will make me spend less time on it. I could be wrong about that second point though.
Algorithm isn't just whether or not it shows you the content. It is the sorting. Well plus the show it or not.
Through the discussion I’ve had here I can see that I should have been more specific and defined what kind of algorithm is the problem. But that was the point of making the post in the first place, to understand why the narrative is not moving in that direction and now I can see why, it’s nuanced discussion. But I think it’s well worth it to steer it in that direction.