The Invisible Editor (10 min)
Every time you open TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube, you aren't seeing "the world". You are seeing a tiny slice of it, curated by a mathematical formula (an Algorithm).
🎯 The Goal of the Algorithm
Recommendation algorithms are built to maximise engagement — watch time, clicks, shares — because that is what the platform's business model rewards.
Engagement is not the same thing as true, helpful, or kind — and internal documents released by whistleblowers (for example the 2021 Facebook Papers) showed platforms knew engagement-ranking can amplify outrage. That is a documented tendency, not a law: platforms also demote some content, and the exact rules are secret. Your audit task is to look for the pattern yourself.
The Engagement Trap
(It makes you angry/scared)
(Comment, Share, or just Watch longer)
"Show them more of this!"
Result: high-arousal content can be amplified because it drives attention. Treat that as a claim to test, not a universal law.
Key Concepts (15 min)
🫧 The Filter Bubble
When the algorithm only shows you opinions you already agree with. You start to think everyone thinks like you.
🕳️ The Rabbit Hole
When you click one video on a topic (e.g., "Earth is flat?") and the app keeps serving you more increasingly extreme videos.
Protecting Attention and Wellbeing (10 min)
🛡️ Cultural integrity and digital care
Kaitiakitanga is a relational responsibility grounded in whakapapa, people, and place; this lesson does not redefine it as a slogan for individual screen habits. Ākonga can still examine the responsibility platforms and users carry for the information spaces they shape.
If a feed repeatedly serves hate, fear, or misinformation, users can protect their attention and seek support. The burden is not only individual: platform design, moderation, and ownership also matter.
- Curate: Mute or unfollow accounts that repeatedly cause harm.
- Diversify: Deliberately follow people who disagree with you (respectfully).
- Disconnect: Put the phone down to reconnect with the physical world (Taiao).
Mahi: Audit Your Feed (20 min)
Compare two teacher-provided, de-identified search-result sets or two school-approved logged-out searches. Personal accounts, feeds, and phones are optional and never required. Record the first five results from each set.
📋 Teacher Planning Snapshot
Pacing (55 min): The Invisible Editor 10 · Key Concepts 15 · Protecting Attention 10 · Audit Your Feed mahi 20.
Ngā Whāinga Ako — Learning Intentions
Students will explain that a feed is curated rather than neutral, compare two result sets for patterns of amplification and absence, and adapt a campaign strategy to platform power.
Ngā Paearu Angitū — Success Criteria
- ✅ I can explain an engagement loop using evidence from the lesson model.
- ✅ I can compare two result sets and name an amplified voice, a missing voice, and a possible design cause.
- ✅ I can add one platform-risk and one counter-strategy to my campaign notes.
Differentiation & Inclusion
Scaffold support: Provide printed result sets with five rows already numbered. Extension learners change one variable and explain why that makes their comparison stronger or weaker.
ELL / ESOL: Pre-teach algorithm, curate, amplify, suppress, moderation, filter bubble, and evidence. Use arrows and annotated screenshots before prose.
Inclusion: Personal devices and accounts are never required. Avoid searches likely to surface graphic or hateful material; pre-screen all examples and provide an offline route.
Mātauranga Māori and tikanga boundary: Do not redefine kaitiakitanga as individual digital self-care. If local mātauranga informs discussion of collective responsibility, the source and authority remain named.
Prior knowledge: Best used after foundational social studies and civics concepts. Benefits from prior exposure to media literacy.
Curriculum alignment
This lesson supplies the platform-power analysis used in the campaign assessment and supports responsible persuasive production. See the curriculum companion for the two exact audited Phase 4 statements anchoring the unit.