The February 2017 issue of Wired Magazine

My work Facebook Demetricator was discussed in the February 2017 issue of Wired Magazine. The article it’s a part of is titled “The Social Medium is the Message,” by Clive Thompson. In the wake of the US presidential election, Thompson writes about the cultural implications of social networks in the ways that they produce filter bubbles, enable fake news, and consolidate information access. When talking about tweaks that could be made to systems like Facebook, Thompson writes:

Let your imagination go wild and you can concoct even more aggressive, more ambitious reforms. Imagine if you got rid of all the markers of virality: no counts of likes on Facebook, retweets on Twitter, or upvotes on Reddit! Artist Ben Grosser created a playful browser plug-in called the Facebook Demetricator that does precisely this. It’s fascinating to try: Suddenly social media stops being a popularity contest. You start assessing posts based on what they say instead of because they racked up 23,000 reposts.

I recommend the full article! You can read the online version here.