• Draconic NEO@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    7
    ·
    11 months ago

    When people say algorithms on social media they usually never refer to the simple everyday algorithms that are easy to understand, they always use that word to refer to the proprietary ones designed to feed you content based on machine learning and data fed to them by the company.

    Though yes sorting by new, or activity, or even by vote count is still in algorithm, just a much simpler one that almost never employs machine learning.

    • Corgana@startrek.website
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      11 months ago

      Yeah exactly, most people understand to some degree that they are being manipulated by ““The Algorithm”” and would like an alternative service. Responding to that sentiment with “actually all sorting is technically algorithmic” is not the way to make a new Mastodon convert.

    • Bobby Turkalino@lemmy.yachts
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      11 months ago

      I’m aware. my comment was more for the folks who don’t know that an algorithm is simply a set of steps to achieve something specific