This is a question that all social media platforms will have asked themselves at one point or another.

Should platforms focus on getting more comments, reactions, and replies, or should they strive to build connections between their users? This is where the algorithm comes in.

There are countless articles and research papers showing that more divisive content is more engaging, so engagement-based algorithms feed you more of it. It’s easy to see this as negative, but engagement-based algorithms are helpful for content creators who need to understand what is popular to help their channels grow. So they do have their uses!

So what can be done to reduce the risk of polarisation, while still giving members an engaging platform and to help creators grow? It’s all down to how connected we feel on the platform.

As it turns out, algorithms focused on connection, called bridging-based ranking, have already been tested on platforms like Facebook and Xitter, just not in the main feed. They aim to promote content that people from diverse viewpoints can agree on, showing that they have something in common.

Jay Graber, owner of Xitter alternative Bluesky, even talks about algorithmic choice, or a marketplace for algorithms. The idea is that platforms built on Bluesky’s protocol could effectively share algorithms, enabling those platforms, and maybe one day their users, to pick and choose different methods of assigning value to content in their feeds.

https://atproto.com/

So, for this Thursday’s thoughts, how would you want a content-ranking algorithm to work? Would you prefer a rapidly-growing platform that presents you the most engaging content, or would you be happy with a quieter and slower-growing platform where you feel more connected? What would you tell Musk and Zuckerberg about how their platform feeds operate? (Keep it clean!)

Let us know what you think!