Users, manipulated or manipulating ?

Our vision of the world, nowadays, is based on what we see on social media. A new routine established: scrolling through our newsfeed on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat… We read, we like, and we react to other posts. With various platforms, we can express ourselves and show our interest or disinterest for something. For us, we just use our rights and we enjoy our freedom. But little did we know, we manipulate social media too. Tim Weninger, an assistant of a professor in the college of engineering at the University Notre Dame in Indiana, during his Ted Talk, showed how users manipulate social media. With the example of Reddit, a notorious social network in the United States, he explained the functioning of the algorithm used for this network. By liking or disliking a content, we increase or decrease the chances for the news to be on the front page. By upvoting*, the reader makes it 20% more likely to appear on the front page of the website but when downvoting*, he reduces its chance of being on the front page by 12%. Liking and disliking changes the score of the post and its rank on Reddit. The rank of the post will be read by all the users. With this system, only the news we consider “interesting” will have a bigger visibility by all the community. With a click, we shape and manipulate the opinion. These kinds of algorithms are used more and more by social networks. AJ Agrawal, an entrepreneur and marketer, wrote on Forbes’ website an article on the backstage of social networks, and more especially algorithms. He explained that it is no coincidence if we see advertisements linked to our latest researches in our newsfeed. Social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram use algorithms based on our data. 

The main goal is to keep the content closer to our expectations. Suggestions, posts, videos are all related to our previous searches or activities on the web, thanks to the power of algorithms. The improvement of social media has consequences on the information we get. Social media is indeed a real progress. Information is easier to get, and opinions are easier to express. These changes have a powerful consequence on our vision of reality. Do we manipulate social media or does social media manipulate us ? 

By Nivo Rabetrano Tovoharon