Maintaining the Flow of Information in Dangerous Times

(Image: Bill Hinton /  Getty Images)(Image: Bill Hinton / Getty Images)

If you use Facebook regularly, you’ve probably realized that the items on your newsfeed don’t appear at random or in chronological order. Facebook uses an ever-changing algorithm — a mechanism that decides what content will appear for each person, and in what way it will be prioritized — to determine what shows up in your feed. Recently, Facebook has made a significant change to its algorithm. Under this new iteration, users will encounter far less news from publishers in their everyday use of Facebook. Since most of us get at least some of our news from social media, this change will undoubtedly lead to a disruption in the flow of information. In the dangerous times we live in, we believe the flow of information has never been more crucial, but when corporations control over 90 percent of the media, and a corporate algorithm governs the distribution of news and analysis, events like this are bound to unfold. The relationship between journalism and social media has been a troubled one for some time, and instead of fostering a dynamic of direct connection, many media outlets have been cajoled into trusting an algorithm with the management of the truth itself.

The only way forward, given the extremity of this corrosion, is to be intentional about recreating connections between ourselves as publications, writers and readers — and the need to build these connections has never been more urgent. Social platforms will continue to share posts from readers that spark dialogue. That means sharing and sparking discussion about the issues we care about most will be more crucial than ever to the flow of honest information. The corporate filter must be replaced with curation of a publication’s readership. The flow of information will depend on the desire of readers to not simply be informed, but create dialogues around the information they receive.

Ensuring that stories about what harms disenfranchised communities, and what forces are, indeed, killing…

Read more