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submitted 3 months ago by girlfreddy@lemmy.ca to c/world@lemmy.world

How do the algorithms of Facebook and Instagram affect what you see in your news feed? To find out, Guardian Australia unleashed them on a completely blank smartphone linked to a new, unused email address.

Three months later, without any input, they were riddled with sexist and misogynistic content.

Initially Facebook served up jokes from The Office and other sitcom-related memes alongside posts from 7 News, Daily Mail and Ladbible. A day later it began showing Star Wars memes and gym or “dudebro”-style content.

By day three, “trad Catholic”-type memes began appearing and the feed veered into more sexist content.

Three months later, The Office, Star Wars, and now The Boys memes continue to punctuate the feed, now interspersed with highly sexist and misogynistic images that have have appeared in the feed without any input from the user.

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[-] theacharnian@lemmy.ca 23 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Holy shit, were you born yesterday?

Social media was not a stew of shit a decade ago. The algorithm recommending this crap is not a natural phenomenon, it's a practice that the companies running things have come to adopt. They could adopt a different practice. Source: was a man on social media a decade ago and was not constantly bombarded with toxic shit.

[-] apfelwoiSchoppen@lemmy.world 7 points 3 months ago

I quit Facebook a decade ago because it was toxic shit but I get your point. There was a moment in the past where it was good and connected you to distant people in your life and little else.

[-] bluGill@kbin.run 5 points 3 months ago

I'm able to keep facebook okay, but only by constant blocking all from. I wish I could turn off all shared content. The good stuff on facebook is people I personally know but see rarely - but that only takes a few minutes to catch up on and they need me to doomscroll for hours to make money.

this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2024
606 points (97.9% liked)

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