Exploring the Impact of Social Media Algorithms | Peter Hughes
Social media algorithms do not just show you content. They shape what you believe is normal. That is why I wanted to test something simple and a bit unsettling. The experiment I created two identical Facebook profiles. Same basic details, same baseline interests, same starting pages and groups. For the first two weeks I interacted with the same kinds of posts on both accounts. The divergence After the baseline, I started a slow split. - Profile A leaned slightly toward one side of the political spectrum. - Profile B leaned slightly toward the other. Then, over time, I increased the extremity of what each profile engaged with, and tracked the changes. What I am looking for The question is not whether social media can influence us. We already know it can. The question is how quickly a feed becomes a corridor. If two identical starting points can be pushed into two different realities, that matters. It matters for how families argue, how teams communicate, and how society keeps a shared set of facts. I will share what I find as the weeks progress.
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