This article examines how ‘pleasing the algorithm’, or engaging with algorithms to gain rewards such as visibility for one’s content on digital platforms, is treated from a moral perspective. Drawing from Harré’s work on moral orders, our qualitative analysis of Reddit messages focused on social media content creation illustrates how so-called folk theories of algorithms are used for moral evaluations about the responsibilities and worthiness of different actors. Moral judgements of the actions of content creators encompass ideas of individuals and their agency in relation to algorithmic systems, and these ideas influence the assessment of algorithm-pleasing as an integral part of the craft, as condemnable behaviour, or as a necessary evil. In this way, the feedback loops that arrange people and code into algorithmic systems inevitably make theories about those systems also theories about humans and their behaviour and agency.

中文翻译：

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取悦算法的道德秩序


本文探讨了如何从道德角度对待“取悦算法”，或者通过算法获得奖励，例如数字平台上内容的可见度。借鉴哈雷关于道德秩序的工作，我们对专注于社交媒体内容创作的 Reddit 消息进行定性分析，说明了如何使用所谓的民间算法理论对不同参与者的责任和价值进行道德评估。对内容创建者行为的道德判断包含个人及其与算法系统相关的机构的想法，这些想法影响着对算法的评估，将其作为技术的组成部分、应受谴责的行为或必要的罪恶。这样，将人和代码安排到算法系统中的反馈循环不可避免地使有关这些系统的理论也成为有关人类及其行为和代理的理论。