This is how stupid Facebook's algorithm is

It isn't artificial intelligence. It's real ignorance.

Entrance to Facebook Menlo Park campus

You didn’t have to watch the congressional testimony of former Facebook product manager Frances Haugen yesterday to understand how stupid Facebook’s vaunted “engagement based” algorithm is.  All you have to do is buy something on the internet.

I bought a new coffee maker recently from a German company called Tchibo.  We love it:  Grinds beans, makes three sizes of individual cups of coffee – each complete with a frosting of real honest-to-god crema! – deposits a little disk of used coffee in an easy-to-dump tray, and you’re through.  I even love the coffee they sell – strong and dark and not at all acidic, it’s like the best cup of regular black coffee or espresso you ever had – and right in your own kitchen.

Facebook took note of my recent purchase, and two or three months later, they haven’t let up.  I get at least six ads every damn hour for coffee makers, French presses, coffee beans, ground coffee, pour-over gourmet drip coffee filters, but mainly electric coffee makers like I just bought. 

So that’s their algorithm in a nutshell.  You buy a coffee maker, and their algorithm figures you’re a prime target for another of the bloody things, and they flood your newsfeed with ads.  The algorithm is so smart from all the “artificial intelligence” it’s been primed with that it started filling my Facebook page with ads for coffee makers before the damn thing had even arrived and Facebook has kept it up for months.

You see where I’m going with this?  What kind of incredibly stupid “intelligence”  concludes that immediately after someone buys a coffee maker you’re likely to be in the market for another one? 

The same thing happened with other stuff I ordered online.  I made the mistake of buying a couple of long-sleeved men’s shirts recently.  Have you heard of “Billy Reid,” or “Taylor Stitch,” or “Criquet?”  I hadn’t either, but I’ve heard of them now.  And what were they advertising?  Why, nothing less than men’s long sleeved shirts, because according to the “artificial intelligence” Facebook is so proud of, anybody who buys a couple of long sleeved men’s shirts is a prime target for – why of course! – more long sleeved men’s shirts.

Same for the sheets and comforter and duvet cover we recently bought from a company called Tuft & Needle.  If I see an ad for another product from Tuft & Needle, I’m going to puke.  Not to mention ads for sheets and comforters and duvet covers from a dozen other home goods companies.  

And let’s not even talk about the portable battery power station I bought from Jackery after the last hurricane blew through here.  It’s a wonderful thing, actually – a little larger than a car battery with a handle and two 100 watt solar panels to recharge the thing – it will power lights, a TV, even a refrigerator for quite a few hours if the power goes down.  Lord knows, it wasn’t cheap, but apparently Facebook’s algorithm has decided that we already need another one, because they’ve flooded my newsfeed with ads for the things.  Look at this one!  It’s got three 110 volt plug-ins, and six USB recharging slots!  This one’s even better!  It’s got four plug-ins and eight USB outlets! 

You would think that Facebook would figure out that advertising the same shit somebody just bought to them over and over and over again isn’t exactly the best strategy to get them to click on an ad, not to mention buy another goddamned set of sheets or coffee maker or back-up power station right after they spent a bunch of money to buy the things, but nooooooo!  The geniuses out there at the “campus” in Menlo Park, California haven’t developed an algorithm that does anything more than key on shit you’ve clicked on and then feed it to you again and again and again.

Congress treats every subject having to do with what they call “tech” like it’s the most complicated thing in the world.  My goodness, they have to learn terms like “engagement-based ranking” and “meaningful social interactions”! 

What a boatload of total bullshit.  For “engagement-based ranking,” you can substitute “keywords.”  For “meaningful social interactions” you can substitute looking at the same thing over and over again.  “Artificial intelligence?”  How complicated is it to come up with a computer program – because that’s what an algorithm is – that looks for “men’s long sleeved shirt” and then feeds you links to the same thing about every sixth entry on your Facebook page?  Same thing with subjects political and otherwise.  Click on a story about Democrats, and they flood you with fund-raising crap from Democratic candidates.  Click on something about camping, and you’re flooded with ads for tents and camp stoves and hammocks and sleeping bags.  Make the life-threatening mistake of clicking on something about men’s watches, and look out for the landslide of pricey timepieces!   

According to the whistleblower who appeared yesterday before the Senate subcommittee, Facebook is sitting on thousands of pages of internal research that the Congress should subpoena.  I’ll save them the trouble.  All that so-called “research” is going to show is the dumbness of “artificial intelligence” that takes keywords from your cellphone or laptop and “analyzes” them and then feeds you oceans of shit that’s basically the same thing.  Use the word “Breitbart” and you’ll be flooded with right-wing bullshit.  Use the words “Planned Parenthood” and you’ll be flooded with pro-abortion stories and appeals for money.  Use the words “fetal heartbeat” and you’ll be buried in conservative crap about saving “babies” from the “murder” of abortion.

The truly incredible thing about the utter stupidity of Facebook’s “intelligent” algorithm is this:  it works.  If they don’t have to be any more clever than feeding you ads for the same crap you just bought, and that makes money for them, why should they go about giving you anything outside of the narrow scope of your interests when it comes to politics or sports or anything else?  The real mystery of the Facebook business model is that it works.  Other companies have to give you something new and different, like new car models or changes in clothing styles or TV’s with flat screens or even cereals that use different grains and taste different.  Facebook just has to do the same thing over and over again, giving you what you already have the same way you got it the first time.

Moreover, could Facebook actually do things any differently?  Once you understand that all their “algorithm” does is use keywords, what makes you think they could go beyond them?  You would think that when it comes to advertising, they could come up with a program that took note that you bought, say, a man’s long sleeved shirt and then feed you ads for ties and sportscoats, or they could take your purchase of some blue sheets and try to get you to buy some matching blue towels for your bathroom.  But they don’t.  The question is, why?

I’m sitting here in my study, and I’m thinking up these kinds of connections, and they can’t?  The answer is that the whole Facebook model depends on “clicks.”  If you don’t click on a product or a subject, they can’t go looking around for something new for you to click on, because that’s the limit of their machine creativity. I seem to dimly remember a phrase from my very, very distant study of the early days of computer programming:  Monkey see, monkey do.

I heard it when I was unsuccessfully feeding IBM cards into an early room-sized IBM 360 computer in the basement of the engineering department at West Point.  From listening to the testimony of the Facebook whistleblower yesterday on Capitol Hill, it appears we haven’t moved very much past that primitive truism about computing.  Zuckerberg’s “genius,” if it can be called that, was to figure out how to monetize behavior that harkens back to the beginnings of human existence.  Way to go, Mark.  Now that you’ve mastered the marketing of bananas to monkeys, maybe you can move on to selling beer to football fans.  There’s a challenge for you.

This column’s take on Facebook is a good example of what I try to do with this newsletter every day. You’re not going to get a regurgitation of talking heads babble on cable or the sold-out takes of “experts” on op-ed pages. My approach to politics and the culture is mine alone. That’s what you get for your $60 a year or $5 a month: A column a day that will make you think or laugh or get mad or even get up and take a stand a do something.