Namaste, Welcome to SAM-VAD (Together In Conversation). More than a week ago I shared a story titled – ‘The Frogs that rode Snakeback’ from the book ‘The Panćatantra’ tradition ascribes this fabulous work to Vişņu Śarma (“Preserver of Bliss”), prompted by a thought ‘what are we riding on?’. Now, SAM-VAD (Together In Conversation) to the ones paying heed, is where we try to draw your attention to things that matter and the importance of your attention, and that is because, ‘Our life’s experience would ultimately amount to whatever we had paid attention to’.

Attention: is as fundamental as food; and we go blundering about, seeking ways to assuage the craving, instead of learning how to provide ourselves with what we need, sensibly and calmly. Once our attention is drawn to the mechanism of why and what we give attention to, it is as if a veil has been stripped off and we become freer in our action and choices. And that is our endavour.

This week I bring to your attention an excerpt titled – ‘Gatekeepers and Our Perception’ from an article titled ‘Algorithmic Gatekeepers’ by Shawn Fuller.

But before we go on to the excerpt here is what Dr. Robert Ornstein had pointed out in his book – Meditation and Modern Psychology (https://malorbooks.com/titles/meditation-and-modern-psychology-robert-ornstein/)

That the two major ways in which we “Make Sense” is:

First, we use our sensory systems to discard and to simplify the incoming information.
Second, we further sort the amount of information that does come in along a very limited number of dimensions, out of which we construct our awareness.

Gatekeepers and Our Perception

What happens when the social media algorithms become the gatekeepers of our information ecosystem? In her talk, the internet’s original sin, Renée DiResta observes that the information ecosystem that was built for advertisers is also remarkably effective for propagandists. The recommendation algorithms prioritize what is popular and engaging over what is true.

Some of the major newspapers, like the New York Times and the Washington Post, use their own algorithms to analyze story content and combine this with measures of how well the stories perform on Facebook, to decide which future stories to recommend on their Facebook pages.

Mainstream news editors will apply a number of criteria to decide what is newsworthy, but they boil down to whether the story has societal significance. What criteria do Facebook’s algorithms use? The media scientist, Michael Ann DeVito analyzed Facebook newsroom and Notes blogs, as well as patent filings, and securities and exchange commission filings to determine which values the algorithms follow in selecting stories for your news feed. For Facebook they boil down to personal significance. Your friend relationships are the single biggest decider of what stories you see.

Excerpt from ‘Algorithmic Gatekeepers’ by Shawn Fuller.

I am sure that you will enjoy reading this article, to read it you can click on the following link:

https://humanjourney.us/development/our-digital-world/algorithmic-gatekeepers

Enjoy reading it with your family, friends and near and dear one’s.

Namaste!

Gatekeepers and Our perception