The influence of Algorithm on Social Media Platform’s Functionality and Emergent Issues
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Social Media Algorithm
Institution
Social Media Algorithm
his essay explores the profound impact of social media platforms on communication, emphasizing the rise of a participatory culture where users both consume and produce content. It delves into the concept of datafication, highlighting how user behaviors and interactions are converted into big data, ...
The influence of Algorithm on Social Media Platform’s Functionality and Emergent Issues
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Introduction
The emergence and development of social media platforms has revolutionized
communication profoundly promoting a participatory culture that allows users to not only
communicate but also collaborate and interact. Social media platforms allow users to engage and
interact both as consumers and producers which has ultimately led to the proliferation of user-
generated content. The advent of social media also ushered in the era of big data whereby users’
behaviours, interactions and experiences are converted to large volumes of data. Although
largely invisible, datafication has far-reaching implications as private and government actors rely
heavily on users’ data to gain insights into human behaviour and undertake data-driven decision-
making. However, social media platforms incorporate algorithms to decide which content is
visible to users. Algorithms are basically “a process or set of rules to be followed in calculations
or other problem-solving operations, especially by a computer” (Neyland 2019: 1). As such,
algorithms influence social media functionality significantly as it prioritizes certain content,
particularly content that support the dominant ideology as well as advertisers’ demands to enable
social media companies to generate revenue. This erodes democratic participation and freedom
of expression as social media algorithms determine content users view. It is worth noting that
social media platforms commodify users whereby they sell their content and data as commodities
to private and public actors. Although algorithms shape social media functionality profoundly as
they determine content prioritization and visibility to promote user engagement, they raise
serious issues such as algorithmic bias, censorship, misinformation and privacy concerns.
Algorithms play an important and integral role in facilitating user engagement and
interactivity on social media platforms. In particular, social media algorithms suggest relevant
content that meets users' interests and past social media behaviour. Algorithms are powerful tools
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