Russell Johnston January 27, 2014 Adam Padgett English 1102 Facebook Filtering and Its Effects on Personal

Outlook

Since 2004, sites like Facebook have been used to connect friends, promote business, and expedite the spread of news and information. The popularity and pervasiveness of these services continue to raise concerns over the effects of social media on the human psyche. In this piece, I will highlight the inherent flaws of Facebook and the effects that their filtering service has on a persons worldview. Additionally, I will raise questions regarding future inquiry and some of the steps I will take to find answers or solutions. To give some context, I will name some figures. Currently, Facebook has 1.2 billion users. Each user has an average of 400 friends; each of these friends post an average of 4.4 times a day. With some rough calculations we realize that on any given day you could receive upwards of 1700 posts on your wall. To control this, Facebook filters your friends messages and prevents you from seeing a large percentage of them. Facebook filtering, while designed under a complex algorithm, is very simple to understand. If you like something, then that persons posts will populate your wall in the future. As you can guess, if you do not like a persons posts, then their posts will slowly stop populating your wall. The use of filtering is needed to make sure that users are not overwhelmed by the sheer amount of posts

Comment [AP1]: Even before then, right?

Comment [AP2]: Very good and interesting topic. Also, your writing is clear and succinct. Good writing here.

that hundreds of their friends post a day. However, there are unintended trade-offs for the user. I suspect that this method of filtering could lead to some degrees of selfconfirmation. Put simply, when a persons news feed is filtered based on what a user has liked in the past, that person is not receiving a full representation of your friends list. For instance, I can reasonably suspect that if a person watch Fox News for the majority of their news, they will get a skewed worldview. This is not unlike the current Facebook filtering service. In general, when a person chooses to not like a certain type of comment; they are unintentionally excluding large portions of their friends list. If a person does not actively like or engage in a post, then that persons future content will fade away. Should a person be required to like a status in order to ensure that it stays in their feed in the future? Should someone feel obligated to publicly state his or her opinions on Facebook? These are just a few of the questions that present itself in the light of this filtering system. Next we come to the issue of self-promotion and the methods that Facebook uses to promote messages. Currently Facebook requires content creators to pay money in order to distribute their posts to wider audiences. As we now know, Facebook uses filtering to show relevant, or liked, posts to a Facebook user. Likewise for celebrities, not all of their posts reach their fanbase (this being the people that lLike any particular page). In fact, only about 9% of the people who follow a fan page will see the fan pages content in the their newsfeed. However, if a content creator so desires, he or she can pay Facebook to circumvent the filtering system in order to reach wider audiences. The amount of people who see a given
Comment [AP4]: Should you be citing these numbers? Where did you get them? Comment [AP3]: Too easy of a target?

post depends on how much money the content creator spent on promotion . A post made by Jon Doe will not have the same pervasiveness as a post made by Microsoft. If Microsoft is willing, they can spend thousands on any given post to ensure it reaches a larger amount of peoples walls. What are the potential problems that are associated with a pay-based model of content distribution? What are the effects of allowing companies to directly pay for larger audiences through social media? How does this aeffect the social development of a Facebook user (if at all)? As I develop these lines of thinking, I hope to find a few things. One of the most beneficial pieces for my line of inquiry would be an academic paper regarding the use of Facebook and its effects on a persons worldview. Next, I would be interested in seeing a study done regarding the fees Facebook charges for selfpromotion. Ideally, the study regarding the fees would tie into official statements made by Facebook regarding their filtering system. My thesis for the research paper might argue that Facebooks policies and methods of content distribution cause social dysfunction (such as confirmation biases) in people who frequently use Facebook. The thesis depends on the results of any research I find; if there is evidence to suggest that this theory is wrong, then I will be forced to take a different topic or line of questioning. Russ, I think you have some really excellent ideas here and are really great for you especially since you are studying computer science (right?). I really look forward to seeing what you discover in your research as that time comes. But in case you come across some obstacles, be open to change, if only slight or even if dramatic. Again, do
Comment [AP6]: Do you hold facebook accountable for this imbalance or do you hold the users accountable? Comment [AP5]: These are all really good questions. Like we discussed in your workshop, a concern here will be the amount of information on such a specific topic. So, what I think might be a good second option could be to investigate how facebook has influenced civic discourse, either on matters political or otherwise.

some research on discourse and the internet s influence (for better or for worse, though I suspect the spread of misinformation could be an issue of concern). Good work here. Looking forward to seeing how these ideas develop.