"Algorithmically censored"... So... There's no magical black-box algorithm, it's easily viewable and adjustable, making Facebook not a platform but a publisher?
I did a job interview with them for a data science role and one of the questions was about a leader wanting to derank sharing articles because they felt it lowered engagement. (Versus posting original content) The question was how would you verify that claim, and after implementation test that the change was effective at increasing engagement. They definitely do this shit routinely. My response was to ask if engagement was inherently good and to question the premise of the original request. Needless to say I did not get the job!
You're absolutely correct, I couldn't have worked there anyway, I hate their business model. I was just interviewing for practice or a possible counter offer from my then-employer. They headhunted me so might as well try it out. They've since come back to me a couple more times for other roles but I just tell them not interested in Meta now.
"Algorithmically censored"... So... There's no magical black-box algorithm, it's easily viewable and adjustable, making Facebook not a platform but a publisher?
I did a job interview with them for a data science role and one of the questions was about a leader wanting to derank sharing articles because they felt it lowered engagement. (Versus posting original content) The question was how would you verify that claim, and after implementation test that the change was effective at increasing engagement. They definitely do this shit routinely. My response was to ask if engagement was inherently good and to question the premise of the original request. Needless to say I did not get the job!
Engagement for their platform means more eyeballs on ads. Eyeballs on ads means more money. The goal of every business is to make money.
The answer they were probably looking for was something like: "I would publish under a feature flag so that I could test on A/B populations."
You're absolutely correct, I couldn't have worked there anyway, I hate their business model. I was just interviewing for practice or a possible counter offer from my then-employer. They headhunted me so might as well try it out. They've since come back to me a couple more times for other roles but I just tell them not interested in Meta now.