I absolutely cannot stand algorithmic feeds. Unless I can.
Here’s the thing: I left Facebook when I stopped seeing anything my friends posted. At the same time, YouTube wouldn’t be all that useful without suggestions. My subscriptions is my home page, so I’m getting videos in chronological order from users I’ve decided to follow, and then the algorithm occasionally serves up a suggestion that leads to a new subscription.
So just saying “social media must provide an opt-out method” is something of a sledgehammer. Moreover, companies will bury that method behind a bunch of dark patterns so no one ever ever gets to it, even if it technically exists.
Sending the HTTP request and receiving and processing the response is a sequence of countless algorithms.
It seems the common meaning for “algorithmic feed” is actually “personalized feed” or “targeted feed”. They adapt based on the user, not necessarily the community as a whole.
I absolutely cannot stand algorithmic feeds. Unless I can.
Here’s the thing: I left Facebook when I stopped seeing anything my friends posted. At the same time, YouTube wouldn’t be all that useful without suggestions. My subscriptions is my home page, so I’m getting videos in chronological order from users I’ve decided to follow, and then the algorithm occasionally serves up a suggestion that leads to a new subscription.
So just saying “social media must provide an opt-out method” is something of a sledgehammer. Moreover, companies will bury that method behind a bunch of dark patterns so no one ever ever gets to it, even if it technically exists.
Technically sorting your Lemmy feed by Hot or Active is an algorithm.
Why would I do that on a low-volume instance? I still sort by New on Reddit.
Sorting by new? That’s also an algorithm.
Sending the HTTP request and receiving and processing the response is a sequence of countless algorithms.
It seems the common meaning for “algorithmic feed” is actually “personalized feed” or “targeted feed”. They adapt based on the user, not necessarily the community as a whole.