• Captain Janeway@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      1 month ago

      The most generous assumption is that they use statistics to determine correlations like this (e.g., deleted selfies resulted in a high CTR for beauty ads so they made that a part of their algo). The least generous interpretation is exactly what you’re thinking: an asshole came up with it because it’s logical and effective.

      Either way, ethics needs to be a bigger part of the programmers education. And we, as a society, need to make algorithms more transparent (at least social media algorithms). Reddit’s trending algorithm used to be open source during the good ole days.

    • grumpasaurusrex@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Per Careless People, the recent memoir that this article pulls from & facebook has been trying to kill, this was one of the many unethical advertising schemes that ultimately traces back to Sheryl Sandberg. A woman who didn’t allow her own children to use fb because she knew she was making it a toxic capitalist hellscape.