Social Media and the Content You See

Social media companies rely on algorithms to determine what users see in their main social media feed. These algorithms may evaluate the entirety of the potential “inventory” of posts that might appear for a particular user (posts from friends and connections, promotional brand posts based on things they’ve liked in the past, etc.). Then the algorithm reviews previous meaningful interactions (including likes, reactions, replies, shares, and engagement rate), makes predictions based on this past behavior, and scores each post to evaluate whether and where it should appear in the news feed. These companies, therefore, have a great deal of control over what you see, and even how you feel.