Let's Not Have a Bunch of Posturing Politicians Decide How Online Algorithms Should Work
The latest bill to “fight big tech” could turn your online experience into a miserable slog.
A handful of lawmakers are pushing a bill that would make it harder for online search algorithms to give you what you want—yet another example of why it's bad to give politicians power over tech policy.
A bipartisan pack of senators and congressmen led by Sen. John Thune (R–S.D.) have introduced what they're calling the Filter Bubble Transparency Act. The legislation essentially aims to stop major platforms and search engines from algorithmically determining what they show you based on information you did not purposefully give them. It refers to these as "opaque algorithms," because you as a user may not know exactly what factors are contributing to these search results or information displays. The theory is that platforms are secretly manipulating what you see in order to sell you things, conceal controversial content, and give priority to certain goods or services or sources of information.
It may sound good in theory to forbid sites from using secret data to decide what to show you. But this bill will be a disaster if it passes.
Some of the information that algorithms use that you don't know about isn't actually data you're trying to keep secret or private. It's just data about what you're doing that helps it show you what you want to see. Over at TechDirt, Michael Masnick notes the far-reaching implications of clamping down on this. For example, that data would include such basic information as whether you're accessing a page on a laptop or a mobile device. Remember the days of trying to look at an entire web page on your phone? Nobody wants that.
Masnick further explains that the bill doesn't do what the legislators think it will do—and that, to the extent that there is a legitimate concern here, social media feeds have already given users control over what they see: "even if the bill were clarified in a bill-of-attainder fashion to make it clear it only applies to social media news feeds, it still won't do much good. Both Facebook and Twitter already let you set up a chronological feed if you want it." (Of note, though: Some Facebook users report that the feed keeps reverting to the default "top stories" algorithmic curation.)
There's nothing new about lawmakers being completely out of grip in reality with their tech regulation proposals. One of the bill's co-sponsors Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), last seen going after Amazon for having the temerity to sell its own brand of products on its site, something nearly every major retail chain does. About this particular piece of legislation, he tells Axios:
Facebook and other dominant platforms manipulate their users through opaque algorithms that prioritize growth and profit over everything else. And due to these platforms' monopoly power and dominance, users are stuck with few alternatives to this exploitative business model, whether it is in their social media feed, on paid advertisements, or in their search results.
The lawmaker's ignorance here is not unlike his insistence that Amazon is using its own brand to create a monopoly on goods on its own site and concealing competitors, when simply searching any product on the site will show that's just not true.
We don't need a bunch of lawmakers who don't even know how social media functions to tell tech companies how algorithms should be implemented. As Masnick puts it, "It seems like the only purpose this legislation actually serves to accomplish is to let these politicians stand up in front of the news media and claim they're 'taking on big tech!' and smile disingenuously."
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post comments
Washington. Stop spending money you don’t have!
and controlling things you don’t own!
Seriously I don’t know why more people haven’t tried this, I work two shifts, 2 hours in the day and 2 in the evening… i get surly a check of $12600 what’s awesome is I m working from home so I get more time with my kids.
Try it, you won’t regret it…. . Visit Here
Seriously I don’t know why more people haven’t tried this, I work two shifts, 2 hours in the day and 2 in the evening…Flh And i get surly a check of $12600 what’s awesome is I m working from home so I get more time with my kids.
Try it, you won’t regret it……..CASHAPP NOW
Start earning today from $600 to $754 easily by working online from home. Last month i have generate and received $19663 from this job by giving this only maximum 2 hours a day of my life. Easiest job in the world and earning from this job are just awesome.SGv Everybody can now get this job and start earning cash online right now by just follow instructions click on this site and visit tabs( Home, Media, Tech )
For more details…………..Pays24
+10000000 both comments
These are 2 pay checks $78367 and $87367. that i received in last 2 months. I am very happy that i can make thousands in my part time and now i am enjoying my life. Everybody can do this and earn lots of dollars from home in very short time period.DXq Your Success is one step away Click Below Webpage…..
Just visit this website now………….PAYBUZZ
And don’t know and couldn’t possibly rub two brain cells together to comprehend.
They’re not, they’re spending money I have.
You mean, the money you had
And purchasing power you should have had if the money supply were not expanded beyond the available supply of goods and services in the economy. Try not to think too much about it or you’ll blow a fuse bad.
Too true. That is why I like Ron Paul’s comment that you are actually being taxed when the government spends money. It either ends up taxing you directly or through inflation to pay for it.
I need to be told what to think, and I’m sure everyone else feels the same way.
And if they don’t, we shouldn’t allow them into hospitals.
You mean if so being autosent to the mobile versions of web pages? That sounds fantastic.
Once again, this is looking a lot like Microsoft in the 90s. The algorithm fuckery is already turning people to other sources. I’ve slowly moved to DuckDuckGo as a general search engine because I’ve done what amount to be hundreds of side-by-side tests, and it gives me something much closer to what I ask for than google. Google on anything remotely political that is within 10,000 miles of a hotbutton topic will give you Orthodox links in an attempt to steer you towards a narrative, when what you actually asked for either doesn’t show up or is on page 6 of the search results. Whereas DDgo will give me what I ask for usually in the first hit– kind of how Google used to work.
The point of the “algorithm” is two fold. First to tailor it to your history (ei. the bubble you create), and second, for advertisers. The second is problematic, but it is the way Google makes money off of a free service. Free web searches, free email, free this, free that, doesn’t come for free.
What DuckDuckGo does is to search without cookies. It actually uses Google underneath, just without the cookies to tailor everything for the searcher. You can actually get close to the same results just by clearing all your cookies every morning.
What you call the “orthodox” links are just the most popular links. Expecting unorthodox results to show up first can’t happen without a bubble.
What you call the “orthodox” links are just the most popular links. Expecting unorthodox results to show up first can’t happen without a bubble.
What I’m calling “heterodox” is something that matches what I’m looking for but Alphabet/youtube/google/facebook doesn’t want me to see.
For instance, when Tulsi Gabbard became the most searched topic on youtube after the DNC debates after she curb-stomped Kamala Harris, the fact that you couldn’t find anything on Youtube unless you geolocated yourself in a foreign country wasn’t just the accident of cookies, that result was the same for everyone trying during that one week period.
Youtube’s internal search function can be downright terrible if I search for a thing and it gives me critiques of that thing. This is not cookies or “most popular”, this is steering me towards a narrative.
The problem with all of this is, you can neither prove that it is the most popular nor can I prove its not. But people are noticing something fishy in the search results that didn’t seem to happen ten years ago. And because these companies keep their search algorithms secret (and they have good reason to do so) all we can do (unfortunately) is speculate.
For the record, I’m absolutely against federal interference in algorithms. But based on leaks, whistleblowers and code-reveals, we know that all of these companies are butting a heavier and heavier thumb on the scale to make sure that heterodox opinions are down-ranked, ghosted or just plain eliminated (in the most extreme cases) from search terms.
For instance, the original reason Google kept their algorithm secret was for a good reason: Because clever website operators would occasionally find ways to game the system and up-rank their links artificially. So Google was in a cat-and-mouse game to try to stay ahead of that.
And this shit has shown up in all kinds of subtle ways. I remember a few years ago doing a search for a person who was embroiled in a string of #MeToo incidents who had some nude photos on the internet. Very hard to find on google, very easy to find on duckduckgo. The suspicion was that google was “protecting” this person’s image by limiting access and hits to these photos.
Bottom line, I simply don’t trust Google on anything that has strong political divisions, but I still use it almost exclusively for technical content.
So Tulsi Gabbard become the most searched for thing on YouTube, but you couldn’t find Tulsi Gabbard on YouTube? Huh. I know I did.
But regardless, this is no reason to put Elizabeth Warren in charge of Google. Jeepers!
Duckduckgo is just using Bing as its results display
As an aside – search.fuckoffgoogle.net uses searx (a metasearch engine) and anonymizers so that not only are you not tracked, the search phrases aren’t tracked either.
I’ve found that the SmartNews app does a fairly good job at giving both news and commentary from a variety of perspectives. And you can also erase the search history and set new preferences. Also it has more results per page, plus visuals accompanying the news story. Something worth adding, and I rarely add apps, since too often they drain my battery power.
I feel like this bill would lead to a “Peck maneuver” (TM -Overt) at some point.
The real surprise to me is the Democrats have seemingly abandoned “net neutrality” as their trojan horse narrative for regulating the internet.
Maybe it will neigh again with the new appointments to the FCC, but I suspect Democrats are afraid of the progressive twits on the right (Hawley, et al) stealing their thunder by attacking corporations qua corporations, so they want to use a more belligerent narrative than net neutrality to try to seize control over the internet.
I’m sure you’d much prefer that they collude in backroom deals to deplatform the enemies of the marxist left. Sorry, but the fascism you and the rest of Reason embrace isn’t a viable choice for liberty in the long run.
But the current algorithms make Josh Hawley and his twin sister Elizabeth Warren sad! Something must be done! If people knowledgeable about computers and shit can’t do it, then the Senate has to!
Those knowledgeable people you are talking about are not knowledgeable in the RIGHT way. We need to get the government involved to tell them the right way to be knowledgeable.
Plus we need to give the government more overt control over big tech so they have more leverage points for covert control. We are really killing two birds with one stone.
They’re only sad because they masturbate to online porn all the time.
Just like we did with Santorum, we need an internet campaign to irrevocably tie Hawley and Warren to something inappropriate. Every time someone googles Hawley or Warren they should be greeted with images of butt plugs.
Every time someone googles Hawley or Warren, they should be offered counseling.
Hence the butt plugs.
If Santorum’s name was associated with lube and fecal matter, then a Warren is a prolific case of lice, crabs, and a cocktail of STDs, and a Hawley is a failed orgasm, followed by de-erection. with a droopy trombone fart,
>>Facebook and other dominant platforms manipulate their users through opaque algorithms that prioritize growth and profit over everything else.
Congress manipulates its funders through opaque promises to prioritize growth and give things to everyone else
I work in tech. I’m not going to say much more than that, except that my employer has a relationship with multiple millions of domains (including reason.com) and that I am a dev working on my company’s core product. I read the law, and I’m not convinced it is necessarily a good thing, but there are substantial errors in this article (and in Mike Masnik’s analysis). I’m also not convinced it is a bad thing.
Yes, the “age appropriate content filters” portion of the bill is at odds with the rest of the bill (and likely unworkable), but the idea that, as Masnik puts it, “no site can automatically determine you’re visiting with a mobile device and format the page accordingly” is bullshit. There is no need to INFER anything about the device that sent the request to know whether it is a mobile device, assuming a properly created user agent. You don’t need to infer if something is a mobile device when the user agent explicitly tells you it is “Mobile”. A properly formed user agent explicitly tells you what the device is. If not, then the app/device developer should probably fix their user agent when pages stop displaying properly. Some user agents don’t include device information because the apps that create those user agents ARE NOT BROWSERS. You aren’t going to use the Netflix app on your TV to browse the internet – that’s what a browser is for.
The real downside is that this would *potentially* make it harder to detect ad fraud and that content creators who provide x number of requests for content for free by doing nothing other than dropping a cookie will have to do something else.
Keep in mind that laws and regulations like CCPA apply only to selling or sharing of personal data from one company to another. They do nothing to prevent a company from gathering as much data as they want and using that data for internal decision making – like what prices to display for an item offered for sale or what articles or search results to offer, which comments/reviews to show or hide, etc. Those sorts of decisions ARE being made based on data they have gleaned from you.
Quoting BrandyBuck: “You can actually get close to the same results just by clearing all your cookies every morning.”
Oh, my sweet summer child.
Yeah this is a pretty piss poor article. And some of the comments are hilarious as well. Some of the usual ‘I’m an expert on this subject I’m not an expert in’ suspects spouting nonsense as fact.
“The latest bill to “fight big tech” could turn your online experience into a miserable slog.”
Sorry, nothing the democrats can do will affect my social media experience.
The rest of you deserve what you get; you sold your soul.
The internet was a mistake.
I blame Al Gore.
Hmmm. Al Gore. Algorithm.
Coincidence? I think not.
Let’s Not Have a Bunch of Posturing Politicians Decide How Online Algorithms Should Work
Yeah, ’cause everybody knows that Al Gore doesn’t have any rhythm.
The latest bill to “fight big tech” could turn your online experience into a miserable slog.
Government can’t stop city sidewalks from being a miserable slog, so anything they do to the InterToobz is a foregone conclusion.
And the Constitutional Authority for this is where?????
“Facebook and other dominant platforms manipulate their users through opaque algorithms that prioritize growth and profit over everything else.”
How dare they? Why don’t they prioritize decline and loss? Then everyone will like them
Except they’ve proven time and again they will take some amount of losses if the upside is pushing their preferred narratives.
“Remember the days of trying to look at an entire web page on your phone? Nobody wants that.”
Lol, funniest line of this terrible article. Nobody is going to get that.
“Nice info!”
“Amazing write-up!”