12
submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

"How do the algorithms of Facebook and Instagram affect what you see in your news feed? To find out, Guardian Australia unleashed them on a completely blank smartphone linked to a new, unused email address.

Three months later, without any input, they were riddled with sexist and misogynistic content..."

top 7 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

We scrolled through the feed every couple of weeks to check what was being served up.

This is a critical flaw in the studies methodology. 'loiter time' is a metric used by algorithms to serve up new content, if the researchers where checking each post for signs of misogyny, then they were probably skipping by totally innocucus stuff whilst paying attention to misogyny. This (being the only feedback given) will have shown the researchers what they wanted to see.

Three months later, The Office, Star Wars, and now The Boys memes continue to punctuate the feed, now interspersed with highly sexist and misogynistic images that have have appeared in the feed without any input from the user.

It'd be good to know the actual ratios, given this was a guardian study there's no reason to withhold data, nor a secondary source I can go and find the data. It's possible that Facebook is simply serving up the entire spectrum of posts proportionately to their activity on the internet, or even favouring anti-sexist posts that are just not noticed/mentioned by the guardian.

Does anyone genuinely believe banning this sorta stuff is going to "end violence against women and children in one generation"?

[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

The John Doe profiles were set up in April as generic 24-year-old males

Does the fact that they only used dummy male accounts and didn't bother to find out what women are subjected to represent the authors' own misogyny? Perhaps The Guardian should look at cleaning it's own house up before finding dirt on others'.

[-] [email protected] -5 points 1 month ago

What's this got to do with the UK exactly?

[-] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

If anyone has an issue with the appropriateness of an article for a community feel free to report it and let the Mods decide. There's no need to make a big deal about it.

I'm now locking discussion here as it has become uncivil and, ironically, off-topic.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

We have Facebook and Instagram in the UK, and I thought it was interesting and important information.

[-] [email protected] -3 points 1 month ago

We also have KFC and McDonald's, but does that mean a study from the US about them should be posted here too?

It's really not on topic especially since it's coming from an Australian study?

[-] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

Thanks for your opinion.

this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2024
12 points (83.3% liked)

United Kingdom

4030 readers
87 users here now

General community for news/discussion in the UK.

Less serious posts should go in [email protected] or [email protected]
More serious politics should go in [email protected].

Try not to spam the same link to multiple feddit.uk communities.
Pick the most appropriate, and put it there.

Posts should be related to UK-centric news, and should be either a link to a reputable source, or a text post on this community.

Opinion pieces are also allowed, provided they are not misleading/misrepresented/drivel, and have proper sources.

If you think "reputable news source" needs some definition, by all means start a meta thread.

Posts should be manually submitted, not by bot. Link titles should not be editorialised.

Disappointing comments will generally be left to fester in ratio, outright horrible comments will be removed.
Message the mods if you feel something really should be removed, or if a user seems to have a pattern of awful comments.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS