The Washington Post is out today with a package of articles attacking Facebook, with one piece bannered “Five points for anger, one for a ‘like’: How Facebook’s formula fostered rage and misinformation.”
It turns out that the social media giant’s earlier algorithm gave all of its reaction emojis other than “Like,” such as “Love” and “Care,” five times the weighting. That makes some sense, since the less often chosen emojis send a stronger signal of reader interest than does the default “Like.” If you read down, you discover “Love” was used about 25–30 times as often as “Angry,” making its influence far greater in the promotion of posts. “Angry” was in fact the least-used of the emoji set. (Following further policy changes at Facebook, “Angry” now gets a zero rating — i.e., no boost for the content — while other emojis have been downgraded but still add more weight than “Like.”)
Meanwhile, complaints have been heard that the online front page, recommendation engines, etc. at large conventional-media outlets often disproportionately select for stories and headlines that stir outrage because they result in more click engagement. Checking the Washington Post’s online front page just now, for example, I notice a “Don’t Miss” promotional feature in which all but one of the first five headlines offered for clicking, on topics from “bitter confrontations” in “normally peaceful Montana” to police shooting practices, might stir fear or outrage (perhaps justified!) among readers. (The fifth story was about outsize Hallowe’en decorations on front lawns.)
The result: reporters at these media outfits can invest a lot of effort in a well-done piece that sinks to the bottom, or fails to make the online front page at all, because it can’t be promoted in such a way to get anyone angry. And in general, pieces that don’t get read don’t result in career advancement.
In short, Facebook and politically aware media outlets like the Washington Post face feedback loops that create not-dissimilar incentives, but the Post invites us to get upset only about Facebook’s.
