←back to thread

Bluesky is ushering in a pick-your-own algorithm era of social media

(www.newscientist.com)
190 points amichail | 5 comments | 20 Nov 24 12:59 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
Show context
grishka ◴[20 Nov 24 16:09 UTC] No.42195272[source]▶
> The use of algorithms to filter information has become the norm because chronologically presenting information from followers creates a confusing morass for the average user to process.

Can't disagree more. Call me old-fashioned but I hate any algorithms at all meddling with what I see. If I follow someone, I want to see their posts, all of them, without exceptions. If I don't follow someone, I only want to see their posts if they were knowingly reposted by someone who I do follow. If I want some posts filtered from my feed, I'll set up word filters myself, thank you very much.

It's a recurring theme in the modern IT industry that "the average user" can't be trusted to take their own responsibility. It's sometimes taken as an indisputable truth, even. Why does this keep happening? What can I do to put an end to this?

replies(15): >>42195452 #>>42195484 #>>42195500 #>>42195534 #>>42195550 #>>42195552 #>>42195629 #>>42195648 #>>42195715 #>>42195785 #>>42195811 #>>42195814 #>>42196019 #>>42198305 #>>42198449 #
aeturnum ◴[20 Nov 24 16:26 UTC] No.42195500[source]▶
It's true, of course, that the "chronological timeline" is an obvious and straightforward default, but I think you are being unfair to the position you are critiquing.

Many (90%+ I would say but the exact proportion doesn't matter for this) people do not have the time to process every social media post from every person they are connected to. They are only going to see N "posts" (videos, texts, questions, etc) per time unit (day / week / bathroom break). It is 100% genuinely and obviously worse to, if someone only sees...3 posts on your social network for those posts to be [someone complaining about commute, breakfast photo, angry election post] as opposed to [wedding announcement, request for a resource the user has, a close friend sharing something exciting that the user hasn't seen]. Telling users that you are showing them less interesting stuff because "they happened in chronological order" is a bad answer.

Of course social media companies do a bad job at this! They push high-conflict high-engagement content into our feeds because it makes them more money. But I think the problem of "there is a lot going on and you would like a machine to help you prioritize how to process things" is genuinely one of the pressing problems of our age and I get so frustrated when people downplay it. There is more stuff happening in my social world than I have time to fully process - that's just true. I am not interesting in living such a small life that I have time to fully engage with every single happening - I would like a machine to help me.

replies(5): >>42195575 #>>42195741 #>>42195798 #>>42196527 #>>42196854 #
1. kristofferg ◴[20 Nov 24 18:38 UTC] No.42196854[source]▶
You know people are lost in the woods when the they use terms like “100% genuine and obvious. Your personal preferences are not universal and people are not downplaying it the need for controlling feeds. They are frustrated that control of feeds are taken from them from paternalistic profit-driven product managers et al.
replies(2): >>42197697 #>>42197881 #
2. bayindirh ◴[20 Nov 24 20:17 UTC] No.42197697[source]▶
What prevents Bluesky from slighyly and slowly manipulating these feeds for their gain in the mid-term?

Bluesky is not like Mastodon. You control own your data, but traffic chokes at a central point, and the firehose is still controlled, AFAIK, so you can't just federate, and run your own algorithm on your instance and call it a day?

replies(1): >>42198371 #
3. aeturnum ◴[20 Nov 24 20:39 UTC] No.42197881[source]▶
I know they aren't universal! I also do not like those product managers. I think you may be mis-reading what I am saying.
4. steveklabnik ◴[20 Nov 24 21:38 UTC] No.42198371[source]▶
“On your instance” doesn’t make sense because the way that the parts are split up isn’t the same as mastodon.

If you write a custom feed, you control what’s in it. If you use a feed by someone else, they control what’s in it.

In theory Bluesky could secretly change their client to mess with the feed subtly, but if you aren’t using their client, then they can’t.

Feeds are on top of the firehose, not below it.

replies(1): >>42201886 #
5. bayindirh ◴[21 Nov 24 07:11 UTC] No.42201886{3}[source]▶
> if you aren’t using their client, then they can’t.

This is my point. How many people won't use "their" client, sans the knowledgeable people?

Mastodon is much more fragmented than Bluesky, so an intentional feed manipulation is only visible to the users of that instance.