Margarita Noriega

Dec 4, 2024 | niemanlab.org | Margarita Noriega

For younger colleagues, auto-generated feeds may be all that internet culture has ever offered — especially on apps that order posts based on engagement. But there was a time when social media was mostly all in reverse chronological order. It was…unpleasant, but it was free. Feed algorithms were introduced to address what sounds like a quantum physics problem: What’s the difference between when an event occurs and its relevance?