Inside the Facebook Algorithm Most Users Don't Even Know Exists

First time accepted submitter catparty (3600549) writes An examination of what we can know about Facebook's new machine learning News Feed algorithm. From the article: "Facebook's current News Feed algorithm might be smarter, but some of its core considerations don't stray too far from the groundwork laid by EdgeRank, though thanks to machine learning, Facebook's current algorithm has a better ear for 'signals from you.' Facebook confirmed to us that the new News Feed ranking algorithm does indeed take 100,000 weighted variables into account to determine what we see. These factors help Facebook display an average 300 posts culled from roughly 1,500 possible posts per day, per user."

Comments

Because

[heezer7]

just showing shit in chronological order is too easy.

Re:Because

[Lab Rat Jason]

The trouble here... and the reason I don't use facebook... is that just because I like coke, doesn't mean I "Like" coke. If I want to express my affinity for a product, that doesn't mean I want to be constantly marketed to by that company. Likewise, the sleazy practice of making someone like your product before you can see some kind of content (say a video for example) that has gone viral... but until you watch the video, you aren't sure whether you "Like" (or even like) the product/company... pisses me off.

Facebook operates under the pretense that it's a good way for you to keep in touch with your friends... but their quarterly financial statements argue for the fact that it is a good way for companies to market to individuals under the pretense of them keeping up with their friends.

Your description of the myriad ways in which your feed is broken and fails to satisfy you is a proxy for the myriad ways in which Facebook is making money off you.

The real News Feed algorithm

[DigitAl56K]

if (session.timeelapsed() > 1800 || rand() % 3 == 0)
        newsfeed.setmode(TOP_STORIES);

Re:I like to dick with FB

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, because they are able to analyze almost everything about your behavior but could never catch on that all your reports are crap? Its also very unlikely that they would even care about your report if you are the only person reporting.

Come on, can you really be that naive? Do you really think that during the design of the report functionality they said to themselves "a few million people will see this and might click on it, so we probably should handle everything manually and not find a way to filter out trolls, this is the internet after all and everybody is always nice here".

If you don't want to help facebook, then you don't join facebook. Simply being on there makes the whole system better for other users. Unless you are there but nobody ever contacts you on it or friends you.

Re:Bubbles

[znrt]

1. It is not possible to exert mind control over an intelligent and reasonable person simply by throttling their social media streams.

yeah but it's hivemind control. hivemind oriented individuals are a majority, so hivemind control is actually a reality. and a pretty obvious one if you ask me. now for example you may not be buying this bullshit but it is your hive, and you can't escape: these hivelings may be your relatives, your friends, people you like or love. you screwed, bro. in other words: controlled.

of course the problem itself points to the way out. let's not despair!

Re:Most Users

[Chris Mattern]

...and that's exactly how Facebook likes it.