Open a news app on a phone. The list of posts it shows you is called a feed. Nobody at a newspaper chose that list. A program did. It gave every post a score, in the moment you opened the app, and put the highest scores at the top.
A careful piece on housing20 seconds
An angry post about a celebrity90 seconds
Seconds readers like you spent on each. Illustrative.
The program can only use what it can measure. It measures behaviour. How long you paused on a post. Whether you tapped it, shared it, or came back for more. It cannot measure whether a post was true. It cannot measure whether the post mattered. Nothing in a pause tells it either of those.
A careful piece on housing20 seconds
An angry post about a celebrity90 seconds
Seconds readers like you spent on each. Illustrative.
The feed can show one of two posts first: a careful piece on housing, or an angry post about a celebrity. What decides which goes first?
Which one is more important.
Not yet. Importance is not something a program can measure. It reads seconds and taps, and the celebrity post has more of both.
Which one people like you paused on and shared.
Right. The program has one kind of information: what you did, and what people who behave like you did. It ranks by that, because that is all it can see.
Which one was published first.
Not yet. The old front page put the newest stories first. A feed does not look at the time. It guesses what you will pause on.
'shameful', 'disgusting', 'evil'shared more
vsvs
A post that only says what happenedshared less
Over half a million posts, counted.
Angry words hold attention. A study looked at over half a million posts. It counted words like shameful, disgusting and evil. The more of those words a post had, the more it was shared. The program did not choose anger. It measured that angry posts get shared more, and it shows more of what gets shared.
In that study, each extra word like that raised the chance of a share by about how much?
Pick one. Nothing is scored.
No such words100
One120
Two144
Three173
Relative chance of being shared.
About 20%.For each such word, and they add up. Three of them and the post is nearly twice as likely to be shared. A post that only says what happened has none of them.
Rank: calm wording, no friends shared it30
Rank: furious wording, ten friends shared it100
How much it matters, both times50
Out of 100. Illustrative.
Two things push a post up the feed. Angry wording is one. Friends who already shared it is the other. How much the post matters does not push it anywhere, because the program has no way to see that. The numbers here are made up.
The numbers are made up. Set how emotional a post's wording is, and how many of your friends have already shared it.
How high the feed ranks it30
How much it actually matters50
Illustrative.
Emotion in the wording: Calm · Friends who already shared it: 0
Calm wording, 0 friends already shared it: the feed ranks it 30 out of 100. How much it matters: unchanged.
How high the feed ranks it40
How much it actually matters50
Illustrative.
Emotion in the wording: Calm · Friends who already shared it: 2
Calm wording, 2 friends already shared it: the feed ranks it 40 out of 100. How much it matters: unchanged.
How high the feed ranks it50
How much it actually matters50
Illustrative.
Emotion in the wording: Calm · Friends who already shared it: 10
Calm wording, 10 friends already shared it: the feed ranks it 50 out of 100. How much it matters: unchanged.
How high the feed ranks it55
How much it actually matters50
Illustrative.
Emotion in the wording: Sharp · Friends who already shared it: 0
Sharp wording, 0 friends already shared it: the feed ranks it 55 out of 100. How much it matters: unchanged.
How high the feed ranks it65
How much it actually matters50
Illustrative.
Emotion in the wording: Sharp · Friends who already shared it: 2
Sharp wording, 2 friends already shared it: the feed ranks it 65 out of 100. How much it matters: unchanged.
How high the feed ranks it75
How much it actually matters50
Illustrative.
Emotion in the wording: Sharp · Friends who already shared it: 10
Sharp wording, 10 friends already shared it: the feed ranks it 75 out of 100. How much it matters: unchanged.
How high the feed ranks it80
How much it actually matters50
Illustrative.
Emotion in the wording: Furious · Friends who already shared it: 0
Furious wording, 0 friends already shared it: the feed ranks it 80 out of 100. How much it matters: unchanged.
How high the feed ranks it90
How much it actually matters50
Illustrative.
Emotion in the wording: Furious · Friends who already shared it: 2
Furious wording, 2 friends already shared it: the feed ranks it 90 out of 100. How much it matters: unchanged.
How high the feed ranks it100
How much it actually matters50
Illustrative.
Emotion in the wording: Furious · Friends who already shared it: 10
Furious wording, 10 friends already shared it: the feed ranks it 100 out of 100. How much it matters: unchanged.
What moved the rank?
The wording and the friends. Never how much it matters.
Right. The second bar never moved in any frame. The first climbed with anger and with company, which are the two things a feed can count.
How much it matters, mostly.
Not yet. Slide anything: the importance bar stays at 50. It is not an input, because a feed has no way to measure it.
The friends, only.
Not yet. Friends add ten or twenty. Wording alone runs from thirty to eighty. Both move it. Neither is about the story.
Move both controls.
What can a feed measure about a story, and what can it not?
One card at a time. Tap the pile it belongs to.
Card 1 of 6
How long you paused on it
Whether it was true
Whether you shared it
Whether it changed your mind
Whether you came back the next day
Whether you needed to know it
How long you paused on it → It can measure
Not yet. The feed can measure this. Every second you stay on a post is counted, and that count is what it learns from.
Whether it was true → It cannot
Not yet. The feed cannot measure this. Truth leaves no mark on your screen, so the program never sees it.
Whether you shared it → It can measure
Not yet. The feed can measure this. A share is a tap, and every tap goes straight into the program.
Whether it changed your mind → It cannot
Not yet. The feed cannot measure this. A changed mind happens inside your head, where no program can look.
Whether you came back the next day → It can measure
Not yet. The feed can measure this. Opening the app again is a mark it reads, and one it works hard to earn.
Whether you needed to know it → It cannot
Not yet. The feed cannot measure this. What you needed is not a tap or a pause, so the program has no way to count it.
Paused, tapped, shared, came backit can measure
vsvs
True? Mattered? Changed your mind?it cannot
Right. The first column is behaviour, and behaviour is all the program sees. The second column is what news is for, and none of it leaves a mark the program can read.
You pause on a post→The program notes it→It shows you more like it→You pause more→Your feed narrows
This runs every day. You pause on a post. The program notes it. It shows you more like it. You pause more. Nobody set out to build a feed full of outrage. A feed that learns what you pause on turns into one by itself.
The numbers are made up. A feed built to keep you on it, learning about you for longer and longer. Change how long it has been learning.
Share of your feed that is outrage20%
Share that is what changed today40%
Illustrative.
Days of learning: 1 day
Day 1: about 20% of your feed is outrage and about 40% is what actually changed today.
Share of your feed that is outrage35%
Share that is what changed today30%
Illustrative.
Days of learning: 30 days
Day 30: about 35% of your feed is outrage and about 30% is what actually changed today.
Share of your feed that is outrage50%
Share that is what changed today20%
Illustrative.
Days of learning: 90 days
Day 90: about 50% of your feed is outrage and about 20% is what actually changed today.
Share of your feed that is outrage65%
Share that is what changed today12%
Illustrative.
Days of learning: 365 days
Day 365: about 65% of your feed is outrage and about 12% is what actually changed today.
What does a feed built to keep you on it drift towards?
Whatever holds attention, which is rarely what changed today.
Right. The two bars cross and keep going. Nobody chose this. The program keeps what you paused on, and what changed today is not usually what you paused on.
A balanced picture of the day.
Not yet. The day is the falling bar. Balance is not something the program measures, so it is not something it can aim for.
What you say you want.
Not yet. It never asked. It watched. What you say you want and what you pause on are different things, and it can only see one of them.
Move the control.
Stories two readers of one paper had in common100%
Stories two feeds had in common0%
Illustrative.
Two people in the same town open the same app on the same morning and see no story in common. What has replaced the front page?
The same stories in a different order.
Not yet. Not the same stories. Each feed pulled from millions of posts and kept what its reader pauses on, and the two readers pause on different things.
Censorship: someone removed stories.
Not yet. Nothing was removed. Everything was ranked, separately for each of them, and the two rankings never met.
A ranking made for each person, so there is no shared 'what happened today'.
Right. A front page was one list. Everyone who bought the paper argued about the same twelve things. A feed is a list per reader, and the two neighbours no longer have a day in common.
Lesson complete
A feed measures what you paused on, never whether it was true or mattered.