Social Media Algorithms ‘Digital Equivalent Of AR-15s’
By Movieguide® Contributor
A new report describes how pervasive social media algorithms are — and how America is behind the times when it comes to regulating them.
“These algorithms are the digital equivalent of AR-15s,” former Vice President Al Gore said at the Bloomberg Green at COP28 event. “They ought to be banned. It’s an abuse of the public forum.”
A report from NBC detailed how these algorithms work, with correspondent Jacob Ward explaining, “A social media company knows every time you pause, even for a moment, to look at anything, and it constantly reorganizes [itself] to be more attractive to you.”
Ward shared that you can turn this algorithm software off in the Settings sections of Facebook and Instagram and pointed out that logging out of accounts “limits [an app’s] ability to track you,” but these are not permanent fixes.
“China has censored social media for years,” he said. “And the EU recently passed laws guaranteeing people the right to opt out of algorithms.”
However, in the United States, there are no regulations in place when it comes to social media algorithms.
There has been some movement in the Senate to pass the Protecting Kids on Social Media Act, with Senators Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Chris Murphy (D-Conn), Katie Britt (R-Ala) and Tom Cotton (R-Ark) supporting the bill.
“The bill would set a minimum age of 13 to use social media sites, and would require parental consent and age verification for users under 18,” TechCrunch reported.
The Protecting Kids on Social Media Act has not been passed yet, but many hope its introduction will start conversations about the importance of regulating social media algorithms.
Movieguide® previously reported on the dangers of TikTok’s algorithms:
A new podcast expose from the Wall Street Journal is exposing how TikTok’s algorithms expose users to harmful content.
This harmful content includes videos about self-harm, extremely harmful dieting, and suicide. What makes it even worse is that these videos show up on TikTok users’ pages, even when they didn’t seek it out. In an episode of the Tech News Briefing podcast, the Wall Street Journal explores the impact this app is having on its users.
So, how does this happen? Why is TikTok showing users this type of content?
It all comes down to the TikTok algorithm.
In order to keep showing users content that will make them want to return to the app, sites like TikTok, Netflix, and Amazon use an algorithm that compares their habits to similar users.
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