Read the link below this morning and it’s been rumbling around my brain all day (and it’s been a weird day, so it fit in just fine). The press I’ve been seeing throughout the day has focused on the outrage against Musk for bringing the lawsuit forward. What I found disturbing was the lack of attention being paid to the fact that Media Matters was so easily able to game X’s algos.
If you’ve spent any time on Instagram, you might have found yourself wondering why you are suddenly being inundated by content that you’re not deeply interested in, but maybe spent a few minutes looking at, scrolling through, maybe looking at the source account before moving on. Your “dwell time” and “links followed” are of course being tracked by Insta and the algo then decides you would like to see more of that content. The next thing you know, your Instagram account feed is filled with images of sea cucumbers, mixed with ads for 12-day cruises to the best spots for viewing said sea cucumbers.
You can game that system quite easily. THAT should be of concern to you, as a user. What Media Matters seems to have done is shown just how X is doing this very thing, resulting in the repugnant posts showing up next to the posts that are at the heart of the complaint.
Caveat user… if there are ads involved, you’re at risk.
Here’s an image that has nothing to do with all of this; think of it as a mental palette cleanser —
Leave a Reply