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1. Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Wednesday, 11-Jan-2023 05:00:05 JST Aral Balkan

   in reply to

   • Mariya Delano
   • Clive Thompson

   @mariyadelano @clive I guess “an attempt to manipulate your behaviour based on the intimate knowledge we’ve gathered about you” doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue :)

   • Mariya Delano (mariyadelano@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 11-Jan-2023 05:00:06 JST Mariya Delano

     in reply to

     • Clive Thompson

     @clive wow I have never seen a recommendation algorithm described as “a mathematical version of your taste” before.

     I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to describe it in any other way now!

   • Clive Thompson (clive@saturation.social)'s status on Wednesday, 11-Jan-2023 05:00:12 JST Clive Thompson

     People write about TikTok's "for you" recommendations as "eerily good", "mind reading", "spooky" -- and it does seem considerably better than its social-media rivals

     But odds are there's nothing remarkable about the algorithm itself

     Recommender systems are pretty mature -- it's unlikely (though not impossible) Bytedance found some new concept nobody else knows

     No, the secret ingredient is more likely ...

     ... the UI:

     My essay: https://medium.com/@clivethompson/maybe-tiktoks-algorithm-isn-t-particularly-remarkable-after-all-712a5d2bae40

     "Friend" link: https://clivethompson.medium.com/maybe-tiktoks-algorithm-isn-t-particularly-remarkable-after-all-712a5d2bae40?sk=3ffbf858464e3462fb3d5a84259d27de