Absent Algorithm

If your medium is shaped by an algorithm, then what reason would you have to hide it? This article explores the topic of how the algorithmic shaping of communication on enterprise social media (ESM) is in turn communicated by platform developers to potential customer organizations. Specifically, the article analyzes how this topic is usually not discussed and why. As a case study, the author performs a qualitative analysis of the corporate communication surrounding the ESM Workplace from Meta, analyzing the 23 podcast episodes and 123 online videos produced by Meta on this topic. The case is selected due to the prolific discussion of algorithmic curation in other Meta products, and the presence of such algorithmic underpinnings on Workplace itself. Despite this, Meta’s emphasis is usually on more explicit examples of artificial intelligence in the form of communicative bots, and especially on how these may circumvent algorithmically curated or individualized communication patterns of employees. Drawing on critical management and organizational studies, the author discusses possible explanations relating to the distribution of power between organizations and platforms.