Could social media algorithms bring more real news to our feeds?

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If you’re reading this article, it’s probably because an algorithm picked it for you. Facebook, for instance, factors in thousands of variables to determine what content will show up on your news feed. It’s an extraordinarily nuanced—not to mention largely top-secret—process. At its core, however, the algorithm of the social network aims to show you updates you’ll like based on the ones you’ve liked in the past.

On the surface, this makes sense. Mark Zuckerberg wanted the platform to be “the perfect personalized newspaper for every person in the world.” There’s just one problem: newspapers aren’t really meant to be personalized. In fact, in some ways, that may defeat the point altogether.

The role of “fake news”— much of it disseminated on social media platforms —has justifiably received a lot of attention in recent months. This is a plague and a serious one, but overlooked and intertwined with this is an equally worrying issue with our social news sources. As algorithms mature, growing more complex and pulling from a deeper graph of our past behavior, we increasingly see only what we want to see.

Beating back fake news

Hard-to-believe and salacious news is nothing new. The National Enquirer has long been blaring racy headlines at us from supermarket checkout lines. The difference is that in the past we knew to take tabloids with a grain of salt. By contrast, when stories about the Pope endorsing Trump or Hillary Clinton selling weapons to ISIS circulate on social media, all too often these headlines are taken at face value, especially by those inclined to believe them.

For many people, separating reliable sources from bunk isn’t as easy as it once was. The kinds of media we’re exposed to  and the multiplicity of channels we have access to  have, in many ways, outpaced our own media savvy.

Here’s where Facebook and its algorithm may have a role to play. To be clear, this role isn’t as a fact-checker or content gatekeeper. In fact, Facebook vetting what constitutes real news brings with it its own set of problems.

But the social network can use its vast data resources to gauge the authority of a news update’s source. Articles from news sites that are patently fake or suspicious could be devalued accordingly, ensuring that they don’t show up in as many people’s feeds to begin with, and that they don’t spread if they do.

This concept of assessing domain authority is nothing new. It comes from the SEO world, where sites are ranked, often on a 0-to-100 scale, based on everything from their longevity to how many other pages link back. While this may sound technical, in practice, domain authority is a useful proxy for reliability.

The New York Times has a domain authority of 99.79/100, according to one measure. In short, it’s trusted. Ending the Fed, by contrast, the source of some of the most widely shared fake news stories during the election, has a domain authority of 44.90/100, at the time of writing. That disparity should speak for itself.

It would seem that for Facebook to factor this into its algorithm would be neither technically difficult nor especially controversial. The concept is tried and true. It’s in many respects impartial and requires minimal human meddling. And the immediate benefit is that we’ll see less fake news and more of the real thing, an outcome that should please all users no matter their political persuasion.

Overcoming our confirmation bias

More dangerous than fake news, however, is all the real news that we don’t see. For many people, Facebook, Twitter, and other channels are the primary— if not the only —place they get their news. By design, network algorithms ensure you receive more and more stories and posts that confirm your existing impression of the world and fewer that challenge it. If you think certain political views are unfounded and others are valid, your networks will generally show updates that strengthen that perspective.

To be clear, these algorithms don’t have any sinister objective: the overriding goal is merely to filter through the universe of content we could see and select the updates we’re most likely to engage with. With time, however, we end up seeing an ever thinner slice of the world: the one we’re most comfortable with. This isn’t necessarily an issue if we’re just talking about updates from friends.

Seeing the world in full view