Facebook, Google and Kafka

Hmmm, what’s on Facebook today?

I will confess that this is a regularprompt for my curiousity these days. (Yes, I know Facebook is now Meta.But it will always be Facebook to me.) It is the only social media platformI actively participate in and I do enjoy what it offers.

I am intrigued about the algorithm that Facebookemploys. For those of you who may not know, this algorithm is a set of rulesthat evaluate and score each piece of content to identify the most relevantcontent for each user based on predefined factors. It applies these rules todetermine what your feed displays. Some of what is appearing in my feed thesedays makes sense:

Lots of wildlife photographs and naturevideo reels. This makes perfect sense as I regularly post photographs to nature-relatedFacebook groups.  

Posts for the television series NCIS.Makes sense as that show leans toward my demographic (the 60+ crowd). I do enjoythat series and the various spin-offs from it.

Excerpts from old comic strips like TheFarside and Peanuts (i.e. Charlie Brown & Snoopy). Makes senseas I am old enough to remember and enjoy those comic strips.

I am seeing lot of the “25 Most Embarrassing…”video reels – epic trips & falls and bonehead activities that end badly.Somehow the algorithm has figured out that these videos fall (no pun intended)into my guilty pleasures soft spot.

What is more intriguing, and a bit disconcerting, is that there is a clear connection between my Google search activity and what appears on my Facebook feed:

I had to buy a new smartphone andchecked out the Rogers website to get an idea which phone I might want. Facebooknow displays Rogers sponsored ads on my feed.

I am a Scotiabank customer andregularly access their website for online banking. Facebook now displaysScotiabank sponsored ads on my feed.

I check out the Toronto Maple Leafsgame schedule regularly. Facebook now displays posts from the MapleLeafs page in my feed.  

I cannot help but think that Facebookand Google have some sort of agreement to exchange information. Does Facebookknow all my Google search history and vice versa? These tech giantscooperating to track my digital footprint is too invasive for my liking.

Here is the really puzzling development.My feed recently included a link to an excerpt from Franz Kafka’s novella TheMetamorphosis. Kafka is a Czech novelist and short story writer from thelate 1800’s who wrote rather strange and highly metaphorical stories. TheMetamorphosis is about a man who wakes up one morning to discover he has turnedinto a large insect.

Why is this disconcerting? In my universitydays (40+ years ago), I took a course on Kafka and wrote on essay on his workincluding The Metamorphosis. Somehow the algorithm determined that TheMetaphor Guy has a latent interest in Kafka and that is very spooky!

~ Now Available Online from Amazon,Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: Hunting Muskie, Rites of Passage –Stories by Michael Robert Dyet

~ Michael Robert Dyet is also the author of Untilthe Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel (now out of print) which wasa double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’swebsite at www.mdyetmetaphor.com .

~ Subscribe to Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka That Make Me GoHmmm at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2 . Ifyou’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularlyto my page for postings once a week.