[LIS-Forum] An interview with ResearchBuzz's Tara Calishain - The Best of the Business Web

[Padmanabha Vyasamoorthy]

​This piece might interest only a few; Librarians may discover something
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Full interview in URL
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3) ALGORITHMS TOUCH EVERYTHING: My wardrobe does not include a tinfoil hat,
but I am very troubled at how much algorithms control what I see. Facebook,
for example, doesn't distribute a Page's post to everyone who likes that
page. It uses a number of factors to determine how many people get a post.
What are those factors? Facebook isn't tellin'.

Google controls what you see in its search results, and in what order, with
other algorithms. What factors are included? There's a lot of guessing, but
nobody knows for sure but Google.

I'm sure the rationale to keep these things secret is so that people can't
game them. But there's SO much potential for abuse. Facebook has already
admitted it manipulated user feeds for an experiment and research has
suggested that social networks can fool people into thinking that things
are common and popular when they're not.

Is it *that* big a step to imagine Facebook manipulating organic page reach
in favor of a political candidate? Add to that the fact that Millenials use
Facebook as a primary source of political news -  - and can you see how
much power Facebook holds on a lot of fronts, using distribution algorithms
that are not in the least bit transparent?

http://www.bestbizweb.com/thinking-out-loud/a-conversation-with-tara-calishain-of-researchbuzz
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