Mat Honan’s article “I Liked Everything I Saw on Facebook for Two Days. Here’s What It Did to Me,” is an experiment in manipulating the content Facebook decides to show on the Newsfeed. Honan’s argument is that the Facebook Newsfeed is created to sell things to its user by appealing to their interests. In other words, Facebook and its advertisers have a profit-driven incentive to insulate the Newsfeed by only showing the user content that they agree with.
The article’s audience is ostensibly Facebook-users in general. However, give that it is published on Wired.com, I think it’s mainly targeted towards men in their late 20s and 30s; a quick scan of the site’s top stories reveals an interesting combination of articles about video games, international news, and public schools and children. Honan’s piece treads the line between entertainment and serious discussion, examining the social implications of Facebook’s algorithms while poking fun at some of the mindless content circulated over Facebook. For example, Honan warns that “we set up our political and social filter bubbles and they reinforce themselves,” something he believes can lead to extreme beliefs and an inability to interact with people who don’t share our views. I think Honan’s goal with this article was to make people more mindful of how the content on their Newsfeed is constructed.
One thing I especially enjoyed about Honan’s commentary is when he calls out the “sensational garbage” all over Facebook Newsfeeds: quizzes like “Which Titanic Character Are You?” and articles like “Katy Perry’s Backup Dancer Is the Man Candy You Deserve” that content mills like Buzzfeed and Upworthy churn out constantly. As someone who enjoys talking about pop culture, I really dislike seeing articles like those on my Newsfeed. To me they are exemplary of the worst way to talk about pop culture because they’re not challenging or productive, and ultimately boring in their sameness. After reading this article, I would like to know if it’s possible to curate “likes” on Facebook to get a good Newsfeed. Is there any way to encourage Facebook to display content that appeals to the user’s interests without isolating them from opinions different from their own? Should we even look to Facebook as a source for news and new perspectives?
Great observations about the Wired audience here! I wonder, in what ways do you think that an article on the same subject aimed at a different group would have been different? I’m also curious to know whether you think that there’s any way to use the content created by sites like Buzzfeed for good rather than evil – they do have their moments of focus on social justice, after all. And it may surprise you to learn that Upworthy was actually co-founded by Eli Pariser with the aim of providing social media content with “no empty calories”: http://www.upworthy.com/eli-pariser