And to be extra clear, "only show posts from people I follow, in chronological order" is an algorithm.

We're also using an algorithm right now on HN, to sort comments and posts by freshness, votes, and reply count (plus manual moderation fairy dust sprinkled by dang and friends). Some people have even criticized it or dislike it, because everyone has different criteria for things they want to see.

It's easy to forget there's a gray area between "unsorted feed of all posts" and "nothing but insane rage-bait to maximize ad views".

Funny enough, depending on your exact definition of 'algorithm' either essentially everything you can do on a computer is an algorithm or there some weird and annoying exceptions.

For example many definitions include the requirement that an algorithm has to terminate for every input. And I suspect that there are probably some bugs lurking somewhere in the HN codebase that make it go into the occasional infinite loop. So technically it's not an algorithm by definition.

(And even weirder, because I just suspect it might have those bugs, but I don't know for sure, I have to admit that I don't know whether HN is powered by an algorithm.)

I agree with you that for practical definitions we can go by a definition that's essentially: 'by algorithm we just mean "computer program", but we want to focus on the abstract things it's doing, and not details of the concrete implementation.'

In the context of social media, algorithms specifically mean recommendation algorithms that try to curtail the feed for end users. It is much more specific than the abstract definition of algorithms.

Using neural networks IMHO falls outside of the definition of an algorithm, because then it becomes something that not even its authors are able to inspect (understand/explain). (Which in some contexts is a legal requirement.)

Which definition of algorithm are you using here?

The formal definition of algorithm doesn't really require that a human can inspect them, nor understand nor explain, or does it?

> (Which in some contexts is a legal requirement.)

That's another can of worms. Which contexts are you talking about?

Yeah this is a more nuanced view that I find quiet true. Any algorithm has emergent properties that can make the resulting feed be healthy to consume or not. The issue is that these objectives simply don't align with the objectives of these companies. HN deliberately tries to avoid this kind of feed which is why it mostly works.

And from my personal Mastodon experience, "unsorted feed of all posts" also tends to collapse towards ragebait when reposts / retweets / boosts exist.

Instead of having an explicit algorithm to do the work of surfacing ragebait posts, that work is done by the users themselves.

What is notable, though, is that things don't necessarily have to be that way, in my experience, the Polish Mastodon community does far less of this than the English one.

In common usage, there is a distinction between "an algorithm" and "the algorithm". The latter is often shortened to "the algo".

I’ve never heard this before in my 20+ years of software engineering. Perhaps this is within the context of a conversation.

Yes this is in the context of normal human beings talking about their lives on social networks, not engineers.

Like when people get a random post or video served to them they found interesting they'll say "the algo decided I should see this today"

Content creators will discuss what they need to create for "the algo" to like and promote them.

That's so true. Could we then use a new word, say malgorithm to denote algorithms that don't work in the interests of users? Just as with we did with malware?

btw: The Malgorithm does actually exist, and ironically is the name of a electronic music device that applies bit-crushing (undersampling and/or bit resolution reduction) effect to audio signals, that is, it mostly makes the signal sound worse although it can be used creatively, which however occurs very rarely in pop music.

I think the "user-uncontrolled" or possibly "user-oblivious" algorithm (if you believe that the mere controllability is not enough) is a clear enough term.

I'm sorry but your comment comes across as very pedantic. In the context of social media, people mean highly optimized algorithms for maximum retention.

I respectfully disagree, I think it makes sense to stress the distinction. Along the lines of: let's reclaim 'algorithm' from the entities that made the word into a bad thing for so many.

It is indeed a bad thing when the algorithm's objective is to manipulate the end user. It's dangerous and can (and has) lead to abuse. Also, there's no need to "reclaim" anything. I don't think anyone mistakes criticisms of algorithms in social media to the ones doing sorting in Excel.

It would be nice to make the term more neutral again. Many people feel like they have no control over the rules of an algorithm they interact with. I like how Bluesky gives complete control back to the user. First step in changing how people feel about the term is showing how it can provide a more pleasant experience and be less of a scary black box.

You expressed it perfectly in word which i couldn't. People's hate for algorithm is so weird . Without the algorithm they can never find quality or content they are interest in .

The hate is for algorithms which fill your feed with useless shit that you didn't ask for, at the expense of things you did ask for, and which is intended to manufacture rage to get you commenting and arguing with others so the social network can shove an ad in your face.

That's the only kind of algorithm people have been exposed to, so they hate the term.

Absolutey rock hard disagree. I'm old enough to remember when twitter and facebook used to both have a chronological feed without algorithmic sorting. Facebook (trash today of course) was an incredibly useful way to find out what your friends were doing on a given day by just reading the chronological feed. You could also trivially see which events were going on in your locality and which friends were attending. At the same time (2005 - 2012) Twitter was an incredible resource for real time news and reactions to what was happening. Without clickbait, commercial promotion or flame (culture) wars. The web pre-agorithm was gradually being subsumed by feed readers like Google Reader, where you'd browse longform articles and blog posts from people you'd found or been recommended by friends. There was no shortage of content. What was absent was 'brainrot', engagement bait, and all the vapid fluff that the 'algorithms' (tweaked entirely and completely to maximise engagement and advertising consumption - not to your preference) provide.

I also remember when Facebook originally added their algorithmic timeline.

At the time everyone was complaining that Facebook was just "people posting their lunches" and from that PoV I thought it was a great addition to promote the things people found important in their lives instead of the noise.

Of course that didn't last long.

I was in college at the time, and the wall went from incredible social affordance to spambait advertising platform essentially overnight. It's likely that the 'people posting their lunches' weren't leveraging the platform to its best utility. Either way the change literally made the kind of passive socialising use I've described above impossible. No replacement has emerged in the years since, which really surprises me. Since location aware social networks existed in the mid-2000s, which is now, checks notes - twenty years ago.

To quote the sibling content:

"And to be extra clear, "only show posts from people I follow, in chronological order" is an algorithm."

Apparently people understand different things by "algorithm". I also use the general one and not "algorithm" as a special algorithm that tries to find things I might like based on my past interactions, but mainly tailored to keep my engagement high so I watch more ads"

I would like the possibility of creating and tweaking my own algorithm for my feed.

Yes, algorithm (as used today) has different meaning in different contexts.

People here are wilfully ignoring the proper context and meaning of the term as used, even though no one has any trouble understanding what is meant. You even spelt it out perfectly, demonstrating that there isn't any genuine miscommunication happening:

> "algorithm" as a special algorithm that tries to find things I might like based on my past interactions, but mainly tailored to keep my engagement high so I watch more ads".

Treat the word algorithm as a "magic black box". Because that's what it is, 90% of the time. It could be that chronological sort. It could be a rage engagement sort. People don't know. It's not a consistent thing either, since pretty much every social site out there that people use is constantly tweaking it, A/B testing it, or having it modify itself to an extent (that is, I assume randomness is built in).

I do think the internet would be a better place with more openness about those magic black boxes, even if it's just an ability to tweak it yourself without having to do some arcane incantations and rituals (ever gotten your YouTube recommendations completely fucked? How do you unfuck them?).

You've missed two key points

> I would like the possibility of creating and tweaking my own algorithm for my feed.

This would be really useful, and I think actually should be a right - like data portability. However it doesn't address the issue with the default view not being linear, and hence breaking the utility of such services as a public or community notice board.

> "And to be extra clear, "only show posts from people I follow, in chronological order" is an algorithm."

An algorithm is being used to serve content in that context, but content is not being removed, substituted, inserted or filtered by an algorithm in (the platonic version) of displaying a linear chronological feed. The are the issues which 'the algorithm' has been criticised for in the modern context. If we can acknowledge that's the intended usage here then we can move beyond semantics.

What happened on Facebook in 2012 is that Facebooks product changed from being one that served the affordance 'connecting people', to one that effectively divided people and charged to connect them in more limited ways. The impact of that one change (on FB and mirrored on other services) in creating the sensitisation and polarisation which followed, as well as removing the one major utility of social networks beyond pure entertainment, cannot be overstated.

That seems like wilfully ignoring what people are upset about by insisting on a superficial and literal reading of their complaints.

The hate isn’t weird, it is earned!

One of the most important algorithms, google search, has become crap. Social media algorithms have become crap.

Average people hate “the algorithm” because it was a trusted friend(ly tool) ands it has become crap and betrayed them!

If we, technologists, want people to love and use algorithms, we have a duty to avoid making them become horrible or useless for people.