What’s the truth about Facebook and Twitter’s algorithm riddle?

Algorithms dictate what we do – and don’t – see online. On Twitter and Facebook, they determine what posts do well and which ones get buried. Yet how they actually work is shrouded in secrecy. Elon Musk, who agreed a £34.5 billion takeover bid with Twitter’s board last month, has voiced his concern about algorithms: ‘I’m worried about (a) de facto bias in ‘the Twitter algorithm’ having a major effect on public discourse. How do we know what’s really happening?’ He is right to be alarmed. 

‘Before you decide whether to publish, you have to think whether it will please the algorithm,’ says an anonymous social media editor who works at a 24-hour news channel. ‘If it doesn’t, it won’t perform well’.

Rather than serve content chronologically to people, social media companies deploy algorithms which prioritise or suppress content based on various factors. How many comments, shares and ‘likes’ a post receives can determine how well something is promoted on Twitter or Facebook.