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Uncovering Algorithms: Looking Inside the Facebook News Feed

Uncovering Algorithms: Looking Inside the Facebook News Feed. Motahhare Eslami , Kevin Hamilton, Karrie Karahalios , Cedric Langbort , Aimee Rickman, Christian Sandvig.

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Uncovering Algorithms: Looking Inside the Facebook News Feed

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  1. Uncovering Algorithms: Looking Inside the Facebook News Feed MotahhareEslami, Kevin Hamilton, Karrie Karahalios, Cedric Langbort, Aimee Rickman, Christian Sandvig

  2. “The preferential display of our flights,and the corresponding increasein our market share, is the competitiveraison d’être for having createdthe [SABRE] system in the first place.”Robert Crandall, CEOAmerican Airlines

  3. SOURCE: ReadWrite

  4. Questions How can research on algorithms proceed without access to the algorithm? Then, initial results from a study about the Facebook news feed, investigating: What is the algorithm doing for a particular person? How should we usefully visualize it? How do people make sense of the algorithm?

  5. Social Science Audits

  6. Our proposal: The Algorithm Audit Five illustrative research designs

  7. Get the Code

  8. Ask the Users

  9. Scrape Everything

  10. Sock Puppets

  11. Collaborative Audit

  12. Our Audit

  13. How aware are users of the role of algorithms and filters in their news sources?

  14. Kevin Lynch, “Wayfinding”

  15. Our Approach • Interviewing/surveying users • Exposing hidden algorithmic processes with social media prompts using the API and studying the effects of knowledge on use • Working with users to try and deduce algorithmic processes and the design rationale behind them

  16. FeedVis

  17. Aware 37.5% • Unaware/Uncertain 62.5%

  18. Levels of Awareness

  19. Paths to Awareness • “but some people have...I mean I have 250 friends but some people have thousand... [and if it wants to show everything], there is no way, it couldn't... it crashes your computer [laughing].” (P24) • “… Plus like the phone newsfeed is different from the laptop newsfeed sometimes like I look at something on my phone but then when I go online, there's a ton more. So, it's also “where” you look.” (P26) • “I read this a while ago, a year or two ago. That, all these keys of things that you have to do to get into people news feed.” (P21)

  20. Unaware • “I bet it would be on my news feed. I probably would catch [it] at some point during the day.”  (P30) • “... and probably I don't scroll down enough but you know [you] cannot always scroll down so much, you just go like a few posts and that’s it.” (P9) • “I don't know for sure [...] because I know there are some friends I guess, it seems like I don't see anything by them very often. I don't know if they really use Facebook that much or […]" (P36) • “My wife also uses Facebook and she has occasionally asked me if I saw a post by her friend and I will not have seen it and I don't know why I didn't see it.” (P36)

  21. Exploring Awareness Factors • Membership Duration • Seen Content/Total Content • Friendship Network Size • Usage Frequency • Activity Level (Poster, Light Poster, Listener) • Facebook Page/Group Management • Newsfeed Parameter Manipulation (top/recent stories, block people, hide posts)

  22. Reactions to FeedVis

  23. InitialSurprise “So do they actually hide these things for [from] me? [mentioning to the unseen stories] Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey!” (P1) “It's kind of intense because... have you seen the movie "The Matrix"? It's kind of waking up in the Matrix in a way ...I mean you have what you think as your reality of like what they choose to show you.”(P19) What the hell Facebook? [after scrolling Content View] Well, I’m super frustrated… (P3) • (In seen/not seen content-centric view)

  24. “So, there is some algorithm or something or some rules to choose these white things that would not appear to me? [....]It’s very interesting. I never know that FB really hides something! So they are doing some data mining or machine learning thing?” (P1)

  25. “I think she needs support for that [mentioning to a not shown story]; if I see it, then I will say something [to support her].” (P8) • (In content-centric view) • “For now, I cannot really understand how they categorize • these people.  Actually this is my brother [pointing to • sometimes seen] and actually he needs to be here [pointing • to almost seen]. “(P1) • (In people-centric view)

  26. Folk Theories

  27. After Follow-up

  28. After Learning about the Algorithm, People Changed their Behavior

  29. Reading Behavior Changing interaction behavior Using the most recent feature Changing news feed settings (ex. hiding posts) Posting Behavior Relationship Changes Unfriending people

  30. “After our discussion, I actually went back and started experimenting a little with the newsfeed and discussing with some friends on ways to streamline what I was receiving. Since then, I’ve become more interested in checking my Facebook because it does not seem as cluttered with random information I have no interest in.” (P10)

  31. Conclusion • A Question, an Admonishment, and a Call to Arms • What do you users need to know? • Transparency alone is not enough! • Create infrastructure for algorithm auditing!

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