Citizen Media

“Twitter vs. Facebook as a news source: Ferguson shows the downsides of an algorithmic filter” was particularly interesting because I have read a lot about how the algorithmic filters effect our information flow on Facebook. Facebook filters our news feeds by tracking what we click on every day. This makes it so that we have a limited view. However, twitter does not have this filter. Twitter is better when you want to track something live, like the Boston Marathon or in the article’s case; we’re talking about Ferguson. Ferguson was huge on twitter, but not so much on Facebook. I remember this specifically – like the article mentioned the ALS bucket challenge was the only thing you were seeing on Facebook while all this important stuff was happening with Ferguson. Because if you click on one ALS bucket challenge that’s all your feed is going to be flooded with. Another way we can get more information from twitter is because you don’t have to be ‘friends’ with someone to see their profile and what they’re saying, unless their account is user protected. But we can follow everyone from John Stewart to Beyoncé to Michael Brown’s best friend on twitter even if they don’t ‘follow’ us back. All in all, this article is making the point that Facebook is better for looking at faces. It’s better for keeping track of your friend’s lives than keeping up with the news. I like this quote comparing Facebook to newspapers: “In a sense, Facebook has become like a digital version of a newspaper, an information gatekeeper that dispense the news it believes users or readers need to know, rather than allowing those readers to decide for themselves.”