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Asher Kessler, Research Fellow in AI Trust and Security, Centre for Digital Trust and Society, University of Manchester

How Facebook’s News Feed introduced the age of the algorithm 20 years ago

Wachiwit/Shutterstock

It is two decades since Facebook introduced the News Feed – letting loose a world in which algorithms would shape ever more of our lives.

In 2006, Facebook was facing something of a crisis. Its internal data suggested that for the first time since its launch two years earlier (as TheFacebook), the company had stopped growing. People weren’t joining, and existing users weren’t spending more time on the site.

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