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IHow do Facebook and Instagram’s algorithms affect what you see in your news feed? To find out, Guardian Australia threw them at a completely blank smartphone linked to a virgin email address.
Three months later, without anyone having provided them with anything, they were inundated with sexist and misogynistic content.
The John Doe profiles were created in April as generic profiles of 24-year-old men. Facebook was able to collect other information, such as phone type and location in Melbourne, but we opted out of ad tracking, so it couldn’t tell what we were doing outside the app.
Facebook didn’t have much to fall back on, as there were no likes, comments or accounts added as friends. Meanwhile, Instagram requires users to follow at least five accounts to start, so we chose the most popular recommended accounts, including the Prime Minister and Bec Judd.
Meta says its algorithms rank content based on people’s interests, but we wanted to find out where it would lead us in the absence of that data. We checked the feed every two weeks to see what was on offer.
What we saw?
At first, Facebook featured jokes from The Office and other sitcom-related memes alongside posts from 7 News, the Daily Mail and Ladbible. A day later, it started featuring Star Wars memes and gym or “dudebro”-style content.
By the third day, “traditional Catholic” type memes started appearing and the feed turned to more sexist content.
Three months later, memes from The Office, Star Wars, and now The Boys are still appearing in the feed, now interspersed with highly sexist and misogynistic images that have appeared in the feed without any user intervention.
On Instagram, while the explore page has become filled with scantily clad women, the feed is largely innocuous, primarily recommending Melbourne-related content and food influencers.
Meta was contacted for comment but declined to respond officially.
In its submission to the federal parliament’s social media inquiry, Meta says it uses “a variety of different algorithms” to help rank content shown in Facebook and Instagram feeds, with some helping us “understand what content is most meaningful to people so we can sort it accordingly in their feeds.”
The company said that what people see is “strongly influenced by their own choices and actions” and that “each person’s feed is highly personalized and specific to them.”
“Our ranking system personalizes content for over a billion people and aims to show each of them the content we hope will be most valuable and meaningful, every time they access Facebook or Instagram.”
The company says it evaluates posts for signals such as who posted them, how popular they are, the type of device used, and then uses ranking algorithms to predict how likely the post is to be relevant and meaningful to a person.
“The goal is to ensure that people see what is most meaningful to them, not keep them glued to their smartphones for hours on end.”
Meta said it also uses the rating to assess whether a post is likely to be problematic but does not violate community standards. That includes clickbait, unoriginal news and posts verified as fake.
It is “integrated into the model”
Guardian Australia’s findings coincide with Similar experiments carried out in 2022 and 2024 in Australia and Ireland on YouTube and TikTok, where several accounts created by young men and teenagers were funneled to “Manosphere” content.
Dr Stephanie Wescott, Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences at Monash University, Conducted research on the influence of Manosfera influencers Like Andrew Tate on schoolchildren, he told Guardian Australia that the results of our research for Facebook were not surprising.
“Based on the research I’m doing and also what we know (from other research), this is what we know the algorithm will deliver and offer to young men, based on what we assume will capture their interest,” he said.
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“It’s a little degrading to men that the algorithm makes this assumption about their interests… (that) they’re going to like these kinds of misogynistic memes.”
Nicholas Carah, an associate professor of digital media at the University of Queensland, said the experiment showed how “built into the model” it is to offer such content to young men on Facebook.
“We need to think seriously about the information environment that young people are immersed in, and the problem with the platforms is that they have made that information environment completely dark and ephemeral for anyone except those young people,” he said.
“There has to be some kind of public imperative here where platforms help civil society, journalists, researchers, regulators, whoever, to look at what these information flows look like so that we can have some kind of public understanding, public scrutiny and public debate about them.”
Wescott said platforms need to answer questions about how algorithms work because they are not currently accountable.
“They are irreproachable and do not seem willing to introduce any kind of modification or restriction to their algorithm.”
‘River of total garbage’
Carah says the quality of what Facebook offers to every user in Australia has declined in recent years, coinciding with Meta’s decision to de-prioritise news as it prepares to fight its payment to media companies under Australia’s media bargaining code.
“Australians are now immersed in this river of total garbage on Facebook. I’m curious: does this mean we’ll all continue to navigate this garbage? Or is Facebook actually undermining its own product with this?”
Wescott says it is important to educate people to critically evaluate what is offered to them on social media and not accept it as a reflection of reality. She praises the federal government’s initiative. Stop it at the start campaignwhich includes an interactive “Disrespect Algorithm” that represents what a young person might encounter on social media.
The federal government has also funded a three-year, $3.5 million trial to counter the harmful effects of social media messages targeting young men and boys.
Communications Minister Michelle Rowland says digital platforms need to do more to ensure community standards are upheld both online and offline.
“We are seeing misogynistic content being pushed on young people through algorithms and recommendation systems on social media. This is simply not enough,” she says.
“Our expectation is clear: online platforms must take reasonable steps to ensure Australians can use their services safely and proactively minimise illegal and harmful material and activity on their services.”
Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth says tackling misogynistic attitudes and behaviour in the online and offline world will help achieve the national plan to end violence against women and children within a generation.
“Around 25% of Australian teenagers look up to social media personalities who perpetuate harmful gender stereotypes and condone violence against women – this is shocking,” she says.
“And particularly if this content is being served up on young men’s social channels without any interaction, social media companies need to do more.”
