On 9 February 2009, a button appeared that would change the internet forever. Billed as an "easy way to let people know that you enjoy it", the Facebook 'Like' feature brought an end to the digital scrapbooked timeline and introduced an algorithm-driven machine that no longer delivered content chronologically.
Posts were instead prioritised by popularity rather than recency, paving the way for terms like 'viral', 'content creator' and 'influencer'. People's feeds soon shifted from pictures of friends and family and their pets, to those of celebrities, brands and topic pages. It marked the end of social networks, and the beginning of social media.
Other platforms like Instagram and Twitter eventually followed this approach, before TikTok supercharged the paradigm with its 'For You' feed, which is widely considered to be the most aggressively optimised system for user engagement.
The results have been devastating. The cracks became clear in 2016, when military-linked accounts in Myanmar began spreading hate speech on Facebook against the Rohingya minority in the country. A UN investigator later said that the company's algorithm acted as a "beast" that fueled ethnic cleansing on a massive scale.
The algorithm became a tool to monetise, divide and radicalise. A leaked internal Facebook study from 2016 found that more than half of people who joined extremist groups on the site did so because the algorithm recommended them. Movements like QAnon and antivaxxers thrived on the algorithm's core drive to keep people clicking, while vulnerable individuals have fallen into despair-filled feeds that have cost them their lives.
In a report last year, titled 'Dragged into the Rabbit Hole', Amnesty International found that children as young as 13 were being plunged into a "toxic cycle" of mental health-related content by TikTok's algorithm within just five minutes of joining the app.
The investigation found that accounts were shown increasingly sad videos with themes of loneliness or depression. Within 45 minutes there was suicide-related content on their feed.
It has led to class action lawsuits from families hoping to hold these apps accountable for the deterioration of their children's mental and physical health. Countries around the world are considering social media bans for children, with Australia becoming the first nation to enforce a total ban for people under 16 last year. The UK, France and others could soon follow.
Some hope the ban on engagement-based algorithms will extend to people of all ages. The idea, supported by groups like the Center for Humane Technology, would be to "reset tech" in a way that would allow the apps to continue operating, but outlaw the exploitative business models behind them.
When Facebook introduced its algorithmic feed in 2009, there were calls for a boycott. There was similar uproar when Twitter and Instagram followed later – though the platforms' popularity kept growing.
The algorithms sucked people in and they stayed. As Facebook's former chief technology officer Bret Taylor said at the time: "It was always the thing that people said that they didn't want, but demonstrated that they did by every conceivable metric."
It will never be in the companies' interest to get rid of the algorithms. But it is in our interest to restore social networks, and once again prioritise connection over content.
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