Algorithms promoting fake news on social media?

Paris, July 14

At the heart of the spread of fake news are the algorithms used by search engines, websites and social media that are often accused of pushing false or manipulated information regardless of consequences.

Algorithms are the invisible but essential computer programmes and formulas that increasingly run modern life, designed to repeatedly solve recurrent problems or to make decisions on their own.

Other algorithms charged with the most complex and sensitive tasks can be opaque “black boxes” that develop their own artificial intelligence based on our data.

“Algorithms can help us find our way through the huge amount of information on the internet,” said Margrethe Vestager, the European commissioner for competition. In organising your online content, algorithms also tend to create “filter bubbles”, insulating us from opposing points of view.

Algorithms also tend to make extreme opinions “and fringe views more visible than ever”, according to Berlin-based Lorena Jaume-Palasi, founder of the Algorithm Watch group. Social media algorithms tend to push the most viewed content without checking if it is true or not, which is why they magnify the impact of fake news. On YouTube in particular, conspiracy theory videos get a great deal more traffic than accurate and properly sourced ones, said Guillaume Chaslot, Google-owned platform’s ex-engineer. — AFP

What are algorithms

• These are invisible but essential computer programmes and formulas that help us find our way through massive load of information on the internet
• They run Google searches, Facebook newsfeed, recommend articles, videos to us and often censor questionable content 
• But problem is we only see what these algorithms — and companies that use them — choose to show us

Trump’s ‘poll link’

During US Prez poll in 2016, Facebook was accused of helping Donald Trump by allowing often false info about his rival Hillary Clinton to circulate online, closing people into a news bubble.