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"Filter bubbles are certainly at work online around any big political event, agreed the panel. "Within your network - Twitter or Facebook or LinkedIn - you're probably within your own bubble of opinion," said Aiken."

"So if we put those three findings together, what do we get? * Small groups of * ageing * right-wingers * on their desktop computers (because this study wasn't-couldn't be-carried out on mobile, only desktop) ..get their information from unreliable, partisan news sites. The study doesn't say whether they then go on to share it on Facebook or on their Twitter account grumpyboomer032945231, but it's not hard to imagine that's what happens. This isn't to let the search algorithms off the hook either, but does go to show that the real problem, as ever, lies with the humans."

"To create Discover Weekly, there are three main types of recommendation models that Spotify employs: Collaborative Filtering models (i.e. the ones that Last.fm originally used), which analyze both your behavior and others' behaviors. Natural Language Processing (NLP) models, which analyze text. Audio models, which analyze the raw audio tracks themselves."

"To demonstrate how reality may differ for different Facebook users, The Wall Street Journal created two feeds, one "blue" and the other "red." If a source appears in the red feed, a majority of the articles shared from the source were classified as "very conservatively aligned" in a large 2015 Facebook study. For the blue feed, a majority of each source's articles aligned "very liberal." These aren't intended to resemble actual individual news feeds. Instead, they are rare side-by-side looks at real conversations from different perspectives. "

"Are Jews evil? How do you want that question answered? This is our internet. Not Google's. Not Facebook's. Not rightwing propagandists. And we're the only ones who can reclaim it."

"And now, 10 years later, the impact of reckless, subjective and inflammatory misinformation served up on the web is being felt like never before in the digital era."

"Facebook enables advertisers to promote content to nearly 900,000 people interested in "vaccine controversies", the Guardian has found. Other groups of people that advertisers can pay to reach on Facebook include those interested in "Dr Tenpenny on Vaccines", which refers to anti-vaccine activist Sherri Tenpenny, and "informed consent", which is language that anti-vaccine propagandists have adopted to fight vaccination laws."

"Algorithms steer us back to similar content in echo chambers that inhibit both critical and creative thinking. Platforms incentivized to keep users scrolling discourage long-looking and render users as passive consumers, rather than active seekers of inspiration. They aren't a space for productive feedback, either: Art takes on a different tone when it's surrounded by dog GIFs, political memes, and your cousin's baby photos."

"But there is another set of Facebook stories that shines even more glaring light on the company's mismatch of power and responsibility. A good place to start is Sri Lanka: one of many countries where "fake news" is not the slightly jokey notion regularly played up by Trump, but sometimes a matter of life and death."

"But today that universe seeks and surrounds you. When you first join Facebook you make a few choices of your own. But soon the algorithm starts narrowing your options and deciding what further choices to present to you. Because many of us rely on a limited number of news sources that populate our social media feeds, our information universe becomes more and more niche. For Trump supporters, that universe is often paramilitary."

"That algorithm can make the app powerfully addictive and fun, but like other social media platforms, it may also be cutting out whole swaths of content that you'll never get to see. I ran an experiment by creating two fresh accounts on TikTok. With these accounts, the only bias they start with is knowing my location - Toronto - which brings up content made near me."

"Yet despite much of the content appearing to break TikTok's rules, which explicitly ban misogyny and copycat accounts, the platform appears to have done little to limit Tate's spread or ban the accounts responsible. Instead, it has propelled him into the mainstream - allowing clips of him to proliferate, and actively promoting them to young users."