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Of the influence of algorithms
Have you ever wondered why one result comes ahead of another in a search? Or why your social network information feed was arranged in that order?
At work are algorithms. To make the service work, they evaluate, according to more or less clear criteria, what needs to be highlighted. And this power to sort information is crucial: what happens on or after the second page is often ignored due to time constraints. Of course it’s not deleted, of course whoever wants to find it will find it. But at the societal level, it is statistics that matter. And statistics show that it is the first information that counts.
Some information is outdated for everyone, which is statistically similar to censorship, but not really so. Others are put forward for everyone, which is similar to propaganda, but not really either. Yet it is the same as manipulating information, which will influence public opinion, and in democracies, it is the same as manipulating nations.
However, these algorithms are controlled by private companies. Do they share the interests of their users?