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Whether it's Facebook's News Feed or TikTok's For You page, social media algorithms are constantly making behind-the-scenes decisions to boost certain content giving rise to the "curated" feeds we've all become accustomed to.

But does anyone actually know how these algorithms work? And, more importantly, is there a way to "game" them to see more of the content you want?

In broader computing terms, an algorithm is simply a set of rules that specifies a particular computational procedure.

In a social media context, algorithms (specifically "recommender algorithms") determine everything from what you're likely to read, to whom you're likely to follow, to whether a specific post appears in front of you.

Their main goal is tosustain your attentionfor as long as possible, in a process called "optimising for engagement". The more you engage with content on a platform, the more effectively that platform can commodify your attention and target you with ads: its main revenue source.

One of the earliest social mediafeed algorithmscame from Facebook in the mid-2000s. It can be summarised in one sentence:

Sort all of the user's friend updates including photos, statuses and more in reverse chronological order (newer posts first).

Since then, algorithms have become much more powerful and nuanced. They now take myriad factors into consideration to determine how content is promoted. For instance, Twitter's "For You" recommendation algorithm is based on a neural network that usesabout 48 million parameters!

Imagine a hypothetical user named Basil who follows users and pages that primarily discussspace,dog memesandcooking. Social media algorithms might give Basil recommendations for T-shirts featuring puppies dressed as astronauts.

Although this might seem simple, algorithms are typically "black boxes" that have their inner workings hidden. It's in the interests of tech companies to keep the recipe for their "secret sauce", well, a secret.

Trying to "game" an algorithm is like trying to solve a 3D box puzzle without any instructions and without being able to peer inside. You can only use trial-and-error manipulating the pieces you see on the outside, and gauging the effects on the overall state of the box.

Even when an algorithm's code is revealed to the public such aswhen Twitter releasedthe source code for its recommender algorithm in March it's not enough to bend them to one's will.

Between the sheer complexity of the code, constant tweaks by developers, and the presence of arbitrary design choices (such asexplicitly trackingElon Musk's tweets), any claims of being able to perfectly "game" an algorithm should be taken with a pinch of salt.

TikTok's algorithm, in particular, is notoriously powerful yet opaque. A Wall Street Journal investigation found it uses "subtle cues, such as how long you linger on a video" to predict what you'relikely to engage with.

That said, there are some ways you can try to curate your social media to serve you better.

Since algorithms are powered by your data and social media habits, a good first step is to change these habits and data or at least understand how they may be shaping your online experience.

Regardless of the kind of feed you want to create, it's important to follow reliable sources. Basil, who is fascinated by space, knows they would do well to follow NASA and steer clear of users who believe the Moon is made of cheese.

Think critically about the accounts and pages you follow, askingquestions such asWho is the author of this content? Do they have authority in this topic? Might they have a bias, or an agenda?

The higher the quality of the content you engage with, the more likely it is that you'll be recommended similarly valuable content (rather than fake news or nonsense).

Also, you can play to the ethos of "optimising for engagement" by engaging more (and for longer) with the kind of content you want to be recommended. That means liking and sharing it, and actively seeking out similar posts.

Secondly, you can be parsimonious in providing your data to platforms. Social media companies know more about you than you think from your location, to your perceived interests, to your activities outside the app, and even the activities and interests of your social circle!

If you limit the information you provide about yourself, you limit the extent to which the algorithm can target you. It helps to keep your different social media accounts unlinked, and to avoid using the "Login with Facebook" or "Login with Google" options when signing up for a new account.

Adjusting yourprivacy and personalisation settingswill further help you avoid being microtargeted through your feed.

The "Off-Facebook Activity"settingallows you to break the link between your Facebook account and your activities outside of Facebook. Similar options exist forTikTokandTwitter.

Ad blockers and privacy-enhancing browser add-ons can also help. These tools, such as the open-sourceuBlock OriginandPrivacy Badger, help prevent cookies and marketing pixels from "following" your browsing habits as you move between social media and other websites.

A final piece of advice is to simply disengage with content you don't want in your feed. This means:

So, hypothetically, could Basil unfollow all users and pages unrelated tospace,dog memesandcookingto ultimately starve the recommender algorithm of potential ways to distract them?

Well, not exactly. Even if they do this, the algorithm won't necessarily "forget" all their data: it might still exist in caches or backups. Because of how complex and pervasive algorithms are, you can't guarantee control over them.

Nonetheless, you shouldn't let tech giants' bottom line dictate how you engage with social media. By being aware of how algorithms work, what they're capable of and what their purpose is, you can make the shift from being a sitting duck for advertisers to an active curator of your own feeds.

Marc Cheong is a Senior Lecturer of Information Systems in theSchool of Computing and Information Systems; and (Honorary) Senior Fellow at Melbourne Law School at the University of Melbourne. This piece first appeared on The Conversation.

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Four ways to take control of social media algorithms and get the content you actually want - ABC News

NBCUniversal global advertising chief Linda Yaccarino has resigned to join Twitter as its next chief executive.

Twitter owner Elon Musk confirmed the hire in a tweet Friday.

"I am excited to welcome Linda Yaccarino as the new CEO of Twitter!" Musk tweeted. He said she "will focus primarily on business operations, while I focus on product design & new technology."

He added, "Looking forward to working with Linda to transform this platform into X, the everything app."

The announcement comes a day after Musk said via Twitter that he would step down from the role and that there would be a new CEO of the social media website, although he didn't name the new person. Musk said in his tweet the person would start in about six weeks.

Yaccarino joined NBCUniversal in 2011 and had risen to the top of the company's global advertising business. On Monday, the ad chief was slated to take part in NBCUniversal's Upfront event at Radio City in New York the sales presentation the company, along with its media peers, makes to the advertising industry every year in May.

The longtime ad executive brings a wealth of relationships with top chief marketing officers and other advertising executives to Twitter at a time when the platform has seen advertisers flee therefore losing billions of dollars after Musk's takeover last year.

Musk completed his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter in October of last year. Soon after, he fired the company's top brass and laid off thousands of employees.

Many companies halted their ad spending on the platform since Twitter has seen an increase in offensive speech and rhetoric, as several advocacy groups have documented. In an attempt to make up for the loss of ad revenue, Musk created a new subscription service, Twitter Blue, which offers features such as the ability to compose longer tweets.

Yaccarino and Musk sat together in a keynote interview at a marketing conference in Florida in mid-April. During the conversation, the two discussed the role marketers play in the future of Twitter, as well as its position in the cultural conversation.

During the conference, Musk reportedly tried to reassure advertisers that Twitter was a respectable place for their brands.

Yaccarino's exit from NBCUniversal comes weeks after Jeff Shell was ousted as the company's CEO after admitting to an inappropriate relationship with an employee. Rather than replacing Shell, NBCUniversal's top executives will report to Mike Cavanagh, president of parent company Comcast.

On Friday, NBCUniversal said Yaccarino would leave the company, effective immediately, and Mark Marshall, the current president of advertising sales and client partnerships would become interim chairman of the company's advertising and partnerships group.

Marshall will report to Mark Lazarus, chairman of NBCUniversal Television and Streaming. Lazarus and Marshall are likely to take part in NBCUniversal's Upfront presentation on Monday, CNBC's David Faber and Julia Boorstin reported Friday.

Disclosure: NBCUniversal is the parent company of CNBC.

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Elon Musk hires ex-NBCUniversal ad chief Linda Yaccarino to be Twitter's CEO - CNBC

While we know the opponents for each team heading into the next season before the official NFL schedule release, knowing the particular dates allows fans to plan their trips and, let's be honest, to see a battle of the social media/marketing teams of all 30 squads.

The Los Angeles Chargers are well regarded as one of the better social teams, and they created an anime that fans loved.

The Carolina Panthers released a 5+ minute video of a mocked-up behind-the-scenes grand production.

In a way, this is the social media squads' Super Bowl, and only one can be the winner.

There's one team that took the cake, doing something far less intense budget-wise and much more straightforward--walk up to fans, display the logos of their opponents, and allow them to, well, attemptto name the team associated with each.

As you'd expect, every fan got every team correct!Oh, wait, no, that's not true, but the results are hysterical. Behold, the hilarious Tennessee Titans schedule release video that has almost 20 million views and counting.

After stepping out onto the streets of Broadway, as you'll see in the video, the Titans social/marketing team brought a video recording device (based on the minimalism, we wouldn't be shocked if it was an iPhone), a mini microphone, and the glowing personalities of those passing by.

OK, now that you've watched it, what are your favorites?

Some of our favorites include:

OK, OK, you get the point; we're starting to list every response because they're all golden. The video ends, of course, with everyone getting the Tennessee Titans correct. Certainly not staged at all!

As mentioned, though, some NFL teams took these responses personally.

At the time of this writing, four teams have acknowledged this video.

The Browns tweeted a screenshot of the video and said, "tbh, we're good with this @Titans."

The Panthers also tweeted a screenshot posing the question, "What does a North Carolina Tiger even look like" with a "thinking" emoji. They also asked their followers to draw one in the responses.

Of the fan responses, we saw screenshots of Joe Exotic, but there was also this epic drawing that prompted us to hope for the Panthers actually to become the North Carolina Tigers.

The Colts changed their Twitter name to "Not the Cowboys." This seems to be a common mistake made by casual/non-NFL fans. And finally, the Falcons changed their name to "Red Stallions" and changed their bio to "rawr."

This just goes to show you that you don't need a multi-million dollar budget to create compelling, engaging, and funny content. Well done, Titans.

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The Titans' Schedule Release Video is the Funniest Thing on the Internet - Fanbuzz

About six months ago, after Elon Musk took charge at Twitter and sacked most of its staff, many users went looking for alternative Twitter-like platforms.

But although networks like Mastodon and Hive Social received a bump in user numbers, none went truly mainstream. They proved either too small, too poorly managed, or too complicated to use.

Twitter, meanwhile, appears to be (still) slowly dying, with an increase in outages and bugs, the withdrawal of major news outlets, an uptick in neo-Nazis on the platform, and signs of a decline in user traffic.

Now, a new "Twitter-alternative" has emerged, backed by Jack Dorsey, who co-founded Twitter 17 years ago.

Named Bluesky, the platform looks almost exactly the same as Twitter on the outside, but with one important difference under the bonnet.

Launched on app stores in February, Bluesky at first could only be joined via invitationfrom its developers.

Two weeks ago,they opened that upsoexisting users couldissue invites. Word quickly spread. User numbers are now about 50,000, with more than a million on the waiting list.

These figures are tiny compared withTwitter's network of hundreds of millions,but the challenger has momentum, with glowing media coverage andhigh popularity rankings on the app stores.

The platformitself is almost identical in functionality to Twitter. Users can do theequivalent of post, retweet and like. The ability to send direct messages andupload videos are to be added.

Rami Mandow, an astrophysicist in Sydney, is one of the relatively few Australians who have scored an invite.

Like many, he says Bluesky reminds him of "early Twitter",full of people cracking jokes and starting quirky memes, but without the polarisation and anger that's become so common on the Musk-owned platform.

"The vibe on there is bloody fantastic," he said.

"There'snone of the trolls or the far right wing, it'sa nice group of people all interacting, sharingthe things they love doing."

The big question now is, can it last?

Part of the answer to this lies with a piece of technology that could change the way we use social media, and undermine the dominance of thebig platforms, like Facebook and Twitter.

The authenticated transfer protocolor "AT protocol" is the networking technology that powers Bluesky.

Before your eyes glaze over, think of it as a way for servers to speak to one another.

In a typical social network, this communication is controlled by a central authority, which then harvests users' data and curates what content they see.

But Bluesky is decentralised, meaning it's possible to have a social network that isn't owned by one organisation.

Such networks aren't entirely new (the Mastodon platform, for instance, is a decentralised network), but the AT protocol comes with an extra innovation.

It allows users to "port" their accounts between different platforms using the AT protocol. That is, you can create an identity for yourself in Bluesky, and then migrate that identity (including its network of followers) to any social platform that builds upon the AT protocol.

That may sound dry, but it has big implications.Since the start of social media, building a platform has meant assembling a network of users from scratch. As a result, established platforms hold an advantage over start-up competitors, as they already have the network.

For users, this has meant a lack of true choice.Want more moderation on Twitter or less video on Instagram? Tough luck. Quitting the platform would mean exiting the platform's network, and losing the profile you've created, as well as the connections you've made in that network (for example, the list of followers).

But the AT protocol decouples the social network from the social platform, allowing multiple, independentplatforms to be built upon one common network.

Each platform still hasto convince users to download their app or sign on, but the pool of potential userswill have already beencreated, through all the other platformsalready using the AT protocol.

This could threaten the dominance of the big platforms,said Daniel Angus, a professor of digital communication at Queensland University of Technology.

"Bluesky is the first app using this protocol but the idea is there'll be other apps," he said.

"The idea is that you're aunique person and should be able to maintain your own identity online which connects with people you value hearing from and value hearing from you."

Introducing users to the AT protocol, Professor Angus said, was the reason Bluesky looked so much like Twitter. It's the familiar and unthreateningon-ramp.

"It's a stripped-back version of Twitter that'sgoing to appeal to people," he said.

"It's a seamless entry into this new style protocol."

To keep the vibe "fantastic" for Rami and others on Bluesky, the platform operators need to address one of the enduring problems of large social networks: moderation.

Under the AT protocol, moderation is performed at the platform level, rather than the network one.

The idea is that AT protocol platforms that fail to properly moderate (or moderate in a way users like) will be abandonedfor their competitors.

Bluesky's strategy here is a work in progress. It says it will giveusers more control over what appears in their feeds, byallowing them to choose the algorithm that curates what they see.

It's also working on"composable moderation", which itsays will giveusers more control over what gets filtered out or labelled. Essentially, it delegates some of the decisions around what content gets labelled or blockedto users, groups of users, and third-party moderation providers.

This, too, is still being developed. For the moment, the platform is relying onautomated filtering, like other platforms.

So far, moderation hasn't been much of an issue due to low user numbers.Bluesky CEO Jay Graber says the platform won't be opened to the public until itsmoderation features are ready.

For Rami in Sydney, the hope that Bluesky will be different is shadowed bytheknowledge of how it could go wrong.This gives the current good times a bittersweet quality.

"I'm old enough to know whatwill always happen regardless of whatever platform you build or whatever tools you build," he said.

"There's always a way for nastiness to leak in and grow and fester.Once they open the gates up, there'sno way of stopping that."

For some, Bluesky's promise of change and renewal is just another example of groundlesstech hype.

Bluesky (which was originally developed by Twitter, before going independent last year) was meant to fix Twitter's mistakes. Instead, it appears to be repeating them.

Twitter became a place of violence and abusebecause of its functionality, they argue. Failurewasbaked into its design.

The metric of "likes"encourage people to post inflammatory content, which the algorithm will promote as engaging. Quote tweets encourage users to ridicule a poster before the user's own audience of followers, rather than replying to the original poster.

Those critical of Bluesky havealso pointed out that trendy socialapps quickly fade into obscurity. The internet loves novelty, but quickly tires.

Two years ago, social audio app Clubhousewas getting a lot of buzz, with an invitation-only viral marketing campaign. It's since gone into decline, and recently laid off half its workforce.

For others, the excitement around Blueskyspeaks to people's wish for a viable Twitter alternative, for a place of text-based conversation, debate, gossip, humour and ideas, without hate and abuse.

With no sign Twitter will fix its problems, that alternative will have to arrive eventually, Professor Angus said.

"As soon as a viable alternative comesalong, I do think people will be looking to leave Twitter," he said.

"There are a million social media apps developed every year, the fact we're talking about this one means they'redoing something right."

This article contains content that is only available in the web version.

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What is the Bluesky social media app and can it replace Elon Musk's Twitter? - ABC News

The fight against fentanyl continues as law enforcement officials Tuesday announced a dozen new federal cases targeting fentanyl dealers

During Tuesday's announcement federal authorities, joined by local law enforcement leaders from Torrance, Long Beach and Santa Monica to name a few, discussed their ongoing efforts to combat the proliferation of fentanyl. The extremely powerful synthetic opioid is found in many illicit drugs, killing approximately 70,000 Americans every year.

"We are fully committed to combating the fentanyl crisis, which is wreaking so much destruction across this nation," said United States Attorney Martin Estrada. "Those who traffic in fentanyl should be on notice that our office will hold you accountable and the consequences will be severe."

Accessibility and deception lead to the reasons why fentanyl kills so many. "Social media platforms have made fentanyl widely available to anyone with a smartphone and made every neighborhood an open-air drug market. The deceptive marketing tactics used by the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels have created a vast pool of victims who unknowingly ingested fentanyl and did not make a choice to be harmed or die," said Bill Bodner, DEA Los Angeles special agent in charge.

"Through the DEA Overdose Justice Task Force we continue to send a strong message to individuals who engage in drug trafficking resulting in death or great bodily injury that selling even one fentanyl pill will have significant consequences in the federal criminal justice system."

The 12 new cases, charging 13 defendants, announced Tuesday are a result of the ongoing efforts of the Overdose Justice Task Force, a DEA-led project designed to investigate fatal fentanyl poisonings and identify the individuals who provided the fentanyl that directly caused the deaths.

A few cases that stand out include a 22-year-old Jefferson Park man, Adrian Benavides-Schorgi sold fentanyl-laced pills to two 15-year-old Santa Monica girls who thought they were buying ecstasy. The two suffered life-threatening overdoses.

A 22-year-old man from Ontario, Javier Carlos "Juvy" Cruz, is charged with selling fentanyl to another 26-year-old Ontario man who died the following day. A DEA search of the supplier found 1,500 counterfeit oxycodone pills containing fentanyl.

Pushing pills at a Valencia mall and park was how Dominick Kingdiamond Alvarado, 22, of Tarzana, allegedly sold fentanyl. Alvarado faces charges of distributing fentanyl in the form of fake Percocet pills that caused the deaths of an 18-year-old man and a 17-year-old girl.

Two days later, an 18-year-old Santa Clarita resident was found dead by his brother. Alvarado allegedly sold fake pills containing fentanyl to another group of teenagers at the same mall in Valencia where the prior transaction took place. Following this second sale, a 17-year-old girl died of fentanyl poisoning after ingesting the narcotics and suffering an overdose in a Santa Clarita Park.

The KCAL News Staff is a group of experienced journalists who bring you the content on KCALNews.com and CBSLA.com.

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Crackdown on fentanyl dealers: Federal and local authorities announce 12 new cases filed - CBS News