this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2024
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Asklemmy

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[–] AdamEatsAss 29 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Lemmy 100% has an algorithm. It's not a complicated one but any method for determining what content shows up is an algorithm.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 6 months ago (1 children)

No the commenter but I think it’s one of those language things where algorithm (at least in the context of social media) has come to mean a personalized feed, like two people have different all feeds versus an algorithm like sorting by hot or active posts that every has the same posts. To your point both are algorithms but it’s one of those thing where the word has taken on its own meaning

[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Precisely. The colloquial use of algorithm indicates a form of targeted content delivery where your personal preferences are weaponized against you (aka TikTok)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

Yeah pretty much exactly what I was thinking about. I like being able to curate and have some legitimate control over what I'm seeing

[–] TORFdot0 9 points 6 months ago (1 children)

An open source algorithm that the user base can see and understand how it works is different than a closed source algorithm that serves to benefit advertisers more than users

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

That always comes with a double edged sword. An open source algorithm can be gamed more easily. IIRC, that's why Reddit moved to closed source for theirs originally, spammers were specifically targeting it. I don't think Lemmy's big enough yet to attract that sort of detailed inspection, but it happened in the past. I'm not saying Lemmy should close source its algorithm, of course. Though maybe a pluggable algorithm would be a good idea, to make it so that people could use a diverse set of algorithms that would be more difficult to target as a whole?

[–] kbotc 0 points 6 months ago

Yep, Trump’s campaign figured out how to game Reddit’s algorithm. Sticky a post and essentially tell anyone in the subreddit to upvote any stickied post on any visit which would quickly drive the stickied post to the top of all quickly.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Fair enough, but I'd say the other commenters have articulated what I meant pretty well