Most people understand that the Facebook algorithm decides what people see on their newsfeed, but what most people don’t know is that allegedly the algorithm gives five points to posts with emojis including ‘angry and sad’ and only one for those that received likes.
The five five new emojis – ‘love,’ ‘haha,’ ‘wow,’ ‘sad’ and ‘angry’ were launched on Facebook five years ago. These give users another way to react to content aside from just the ‘like’ button.
These leaked documents now suggest that the algorithm was allegedly programmed to use the reaction emoji as a sign to push more provocative content, where emoji reactions were treated as five times more valuable than ‘likes’.
The reason behind this was that high numbers of reaction emojis on posts were keeping users more engaged.
This was important for Facebook’s business model, mainly so people would be more engaged and emotional about paid content.
But the downside of this is that it possibly creates more arguments and controversy
Facebooks own researchers and scientists found that posts prompting angry reactions were far more likely to include misinformation and low-quality news.
But does it promote more online hate? The jury is still out on that one!
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