We are all governed by algorithms. Secret formula’s engineered by the big tech companies – whether Google, eBay, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Amazon etc – which process how and what we see in our interactions with them. Attempts at cracking these formula’s – whether through Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), content marketing, hacking or other means – can sometimes make or break a business or individual. The value of appearing on page one of Google’s search results can offer financial reward and success to a company wanting to sell a product or service. Page one ensures more people find you, hence increasing your traffic which in term will ideally generate more sales. There is a whole industry around trying to game results across all of these platforms, whether to increase sales, get more likes and followers or get more views on your video’s and content. Everyone is shouting – not everyone is heard.

In terms of Facebook, things can get a bit more sinister. Facebook’s agenda is – with profits in mind – to ensure people spend as much time on the platform engaging with other users and hence in this proccess offering valuable eyeballs to advertisers looking to reach potential markets. Simply put, the more users and time spent – the more money they can earn. Hence, it would appear it’s in their interest to keep people engaged on the platform by all means necessary. As Facebook is increasingly – sadly – the main source for many people’s news things can get quite sinister. Of late there has been some big news events from Trump and Brexit, to the Corona pandemic and now the riots which all means good business for it’s sticky content as people look for information, engage and argue.

I am not an expert on the Facebook algorithm and how it decides what content to serve as you scroll through the pages. I do use Facebook every day – mainly as a way of keeping in touch with friends and family from all over the world – and often I will be scrolling through, not sure what I am looking for, but still tapping and dragging with my fingers as you get sucked in by the pixels. In short I feel a slight addiction. I try and abstain from getting in pointless angry debates with strangers – something Facebook must love – but still find myself reguarly checking back to see if a post or comment I made got likes or replies. Incredibly sad, I know. I am sure there are armies of psychologists employed by Facebook implementing strategies to keep you logged on and hooked, looking to to engineer the brief release of dopamine from double digit likes or an empty affirmation of self from strangers on another continent.

As we have the world at our fingertips, ideas both good and bad transmit around the globe instantly like a pulse to be absorbed and parsed by the masses. Events happen and in a nanosecond they are all there for us to see, slightly behind realtime. Or sometimes even in realtime if it’s broadcast on Facebook live. In the case of the Floyd George video, hopefully generating disgust in viewers and mobilising action for positive change to stamp out racism and police brutality. On the flipside, the video might have been – god forbid – cheered by white supremacists and other peddlers of hate.

It is said that Facebook often works like an echo chamber as you will typically mainly engage with similar and like minded people who re-affirm and amplify what you already know. In this way, the gaps between different groups can be widened – and if they do meet or comment on each other’s posts the divide and polarisation can be increased. Much like the advent of 24 hour rolling news media – which first really came around in the early 90s – platforms such as Facebook like big news events as it keeps people on the site longer as they engage in angry exchanges. A recent story in the UK was the Dominic Cummings situation – the powerful government advisor who ignored the very advice to not travel whilst in the pandemic lockdown that he himself created. Many people – myself included – thought he should resign as it makes a mockery of the public and the government through hypocritical and dangerous ignorance of the rules he put in place for good measure. If he’s not following the rules, why should we? Then others – on the right – thought he had done nothing wrong and the whole thing was a ‘witchhunt’. I saw both camps peddle their views on Facebook and with zero middle ground. A polarised dichotomy in which never the twain shall meet.

Million dollar question, but I wonder exactly how the Facebook algorithim works? There must be – I suspect – a lot of sinister metrics at play. The platform owns so much valuable data about each user and this can also be used in nefarious ways, most obviously as seen in both the Trump election and Brexit result which mainly saw success from niche demographic targetting of users to achieve the desired result. Mine the rich data – age, sex, what they buy, where they live, what they like, who they like, what they earn etc – and come up with groups (on the fence voters in swing states) to micro target with specific adverts and content. Voila. Britain has left Europe and Donald Trump is President – two things I never thought I would ever say. So yes, some might say Facebook brings us together, although I would realistically argue that the opposite is true.