, Columnist
A Chronological Feed Wouldn’t Fix Facebook
The social media platform has grown up on the assumption that we don’t want to hear from most of the “friends” in our networks.
Some friends we’d just as soon not hear from.
Photographer: Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty ImagesThis article is for subscribers only.
There’s been a lot of discussion, since the Facebook Files were leaked, about how to repair the social media platform. A lot of this talk centers on how algorithms manipulate the feeds, and how we users are profiled and fed exactly the content that arouses us to fits of hatred, conspiracy theorizing, and even domestic terrorism.
This is true and deeply problematic. But the fix offered by many, including some people in Congress, which is to offer users their content in chronological order, won’t work. Here’s why.