Machine Learning Times
Machine Learning Times
EXCLUSIVE HIGHLIGHTS
Why Alphabet’s Clean Energy Moonshot Depends On AI
 Originally published in Forbes Note: Ravi Jain, Chief Technology Officer...
Predictive AI Only Works If Stakeholders Tune This Dial
 Originally published in Forbes I’ll break it to you gently:...
The Rise Of Large Database Models
 Originally published in Forbes Even as large language models have...
3 Predictions For Predictive AI In 2025
 Originally published in Forbes GenAI’s complementary sibling, predictive AI, makes...
SHARE THIS:

3 years ago
Five Points for Anger, One for a ‘Like’: How Facebook’s Formula Fostered Rage and Misinformation

 
Originally published in The Washington Post, Oct 26, 2021.  

Facebook engineers gave extra value to emoji reactions, including ‘angry,’ pushing more emotional and provocative content into users’ news feeds.

Five years ago, Facebook gave its users five new ways to react to a post in their news feed beyond the iconic “like” thumbs-up: “love,” “haha,” “wow,” “sad” and “angry.”

Behind the scenes, Facebook programmed the algorithm that decides what people see in their news feeds to use the reaction emoji as signals to push more emotional and provocative content — including content likely to make them angry. Starting in 2017, Facebook’s ranking algorithm treated emoji reactions as five times more valuable than “likes,” internal documents reveal. The theory was simple: Posts that prompted lots of reaction emoji tended to keep users more engaged, and keeping users engaged was the key to Facebook’s business.

Facebook’s own researchers were quick to suspect a critical flaw. Favoring “controversial” posts — including those that make users angry — could open “the door to more spam/abuse/clickbait inadvertently,” a staffer, whose name was redacted, wrote in one of the internal documents. A colleague responded, “It’s possible.”

The warning proved prescient. The company’s data scientists confirmed in 2019 that posts that sparked angry reaction emoji were disproportionately likely to include misinformation, toxicity and low-quality news.

To continue reading this article, click here.

9 thoughts on “Five Points for Anger, One for a ‘Like’: How Facebook’s Formula Fostered Rage and Misinformation

  1. I’m absolutely enamored with Sprunked ! The platform encourages creativity and experimentation. The eclectic sound library is impressive, and the interface is smooth. The community feedback has been valuable. It’s a fantastic way to dive into music-making.

     
  2. Try the new nyt zorse game, an exciting word game inspired by the New York Times. In this game, you start with a clue and see a series of blank tiles. As you reveal letters, they spell out a phrase related to the hint.

     

Leave a Reply