The meme page admin who insisted engagement was all that mattered

I got into it with a guy who runs a local meme page in Columbus about how he decides what to boost. He told me straight up that he doesn't care if something is true or even funny, he only looks at the first hour retention rate and shares. I pushed back because I've seen his page push a fake story about a school closing that got thousands of likes but wrecked parents' mornings for no reason. He just shrugged and said the algorithm rewards reactions, not accuracy, and that's the game. It stuck with me because my students repeat stuff they see on his page like it's gospel, and we end up spending half a class untangling a rumor. I guess my question is, for folks who run pages or channels, where do you draw the line between playing the algorithm and not making things worse? Has anyone actually turned down a viral boost because the content felt too harmful?

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troychen1mo ago

I turned down a paid boost once because the content was a lie, and my page lost followers, but at least I could sleep at night.

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