Funded by advertising -> commercially incentivised to get as many users as possible and keep them on the site as long as possible -> optimise structure/design/layout/activity feed/suggested content/notifications to do that -> online communication problems.
For example, Facebook controls the algorithm that decides which posts appear in your news feed, the order of them, the real name policy, which other users see your posts, and when you receive notifications; Reddit controls which content appears on the front page, the ease of sign-up, and the default subs; Youtube controls which video auto-plays next, and the content and ordering of videos on the homepage, and so on.
All of them also have hired moderators, reporting mechanisms, automatic spam filtering; and policies on things like bots, how bans work, what sort of content is allowed/banned, pornography, hate speech, copyright infringement, and so on.
So for example, in the pursuit of growth and engagement, companies might turn a blind eye to thousands of bots propping up their user numbers; or promote content that made people angry or mislead them; if doing so produced the best engagement metrics.
There's also the problem of funded by advertising -> incentivised to improve ad targeting -> incentivised to push the boundaries on user privacy. I think we're only beginning to see the consequences of this.
Funded by advertising -> commercially incentivised to get as many users as possible and keep them on the site as long as possible -> optimise structure/design/layout/activity feed/suggested content/notifications to do that -> online communication problems.
For example, Facebook controls the algorithm that decides which posts appear in your news feed, the order of them, the real name policy, which other users see your posts, and when you receive notifications; Reddit controls which content appears on the front page, the ease of sign-up, and the default subs; Youtube controls which video auto-plays next, and the content and ordering of videos on the homepage, and so on.
All of them also have hired moderators, reporting mechanisms, automatic spam filtering; and policies on things like bots, how bans work, what sort of content is allowed/banned, pornography, hate speech, copyright infringement, and so on.
So for example, in the pursuit of growth and engagement, companies might turn a blind eye to thousands of bots propping up their user numbers; or promote content that made people angry or mislead them; if doing so produced the best engagement metrics.
There's also the problem of funded by advertising -> incentivised to improve ad targeting -> incentivised to push the boundaries on user privacy. I think we're only beginning to see the consequences of this.