Back in 2008 You Tube's featured videos were selected by human editors based on creativity. Fast-forward 10 years and the featured videos have been replaced by a Trending section, which are selected by algorithms based on a "magic formula" made up view counts and how rapidly the video is generating views.
If museums and galleries still rely on human curation, why can't social media platforms do the same? The rise of algorithm curation based on post popularity has had to make creators change their approach to the platforms. We've seen the rise of "pods" or groups of people who like and comment on one another's posts in order to boost their favorability by the algorithm. It is estimated that in 2019, $1.3 billion was spent on buying fake followers. You Tube creators are constantly asking viewers to like and comment below.
Platforms like Netflix have slowly began to bring back in the human touch. In 2019, they launched their "Collections" section which features titles curated by their creative team. Tik Tok has done a great job at setting up an algorithm that suggests videos the user actually wants to see. Human curation can help create online communities that value quality over quantity of likes. This could also help rebuild a sense of trust between advertisers and these platforms and foster better earnings for creators. It will be interesting to see if we head back to a more human-led approach to content curation, let's stay tuned to see what happens...
Check out the full article @Wired
