Do you get your news from social media?
Have you ever thought about the way platforms like Facebook, Instagram and X filter and sort the content that appears on your newsfeed?
Algorithms – those rules and calculations that do the filtering and sorting – can be both friend and foe. They help you discover content that matches your interests, but they also create an echo chamber (or filter bubble), bolstering bias and potentially fuelling disinformation.
We see these negative effects locally. Think, for example, about Facebook posts by political party supporters containing false claims about anti-corruption activists – these posts go viral because they appeal to a partisan mindset, which through users’ ‘liked’ pages, interactions and so on, is tuning the algorithm. Pre-social media, we blamed the ONE/NET polarity of Maltese television. Now we don’t even have to manually select a channel. The content reaches us through a simple tap on our social media apps – and it reaches us everywhere, at any time.
We see these effects in online comment sections. But we also see them in our elections, our conversations, and our relationships. Algorithms aren’t only influencing our newsfeeds – they are also influencing us.
To generate conversation about how social media shapes the way we see the world, the (EDMO) is running the ‘Be Online Smart’ campaign throughout May through its hubs across Europe. The University of Malta’s Department of Media & Communications is leading local efforts as a partner of the (MedDMO). You may have come across a blue postcard around campus – if not, just visit the .
By Megan Mallia, Research Support Officer, Department of Media & Communications.
