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Jan 2024
36m 4s

Inside Facebook: A Conversation with Jef...

NPR
About this episode
After covering the 2016 U.S. presidential election, reporter Jeff Horwitz knew that "something really weird was going on," that social media sites, especially Facebook, had played a role in shaping the election. But how — exactly? In his new book, "Broken Code: Inside Facebook and the Fight to Expose Its Harmful Secrets," Horwitz details his chase to crack open this notoriously secretive black box that is Facebook. Host Maiken Scott talks to Horwitz about the powerful algorithms that favored engagement above all else, that not just amplified specific content, but started to shape everything from what we see, to what we post, to how politicians design their campaigns. Horwitz covers technology for The Wall Street Journal and was one of the reporters on the award-winning series "The Facebook Files."

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