The Computational Surfacing of Memories: Promoting the Memorable

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the processes of ranking that are a central part of the automatic production of memory. It shows how the taxonomisation of people’s memories provided not only the conditions by which to determine what counts as a memory and what does not, but also the conditions that enabled their ranking. This was the basis for how memories could be variously weighted and resurfaced within the throwback feature. As such, the processes of classification informed Facebook’s ranking algorithm, which afforded the targeting of certain memories to certain users at certain times. The chapter argues that the automatic production of memories is not only underpinned by the partitioning of the memorable, but also the promotion of the memorable. In this framework, rankings participate in ontologically promoting users’ past content into ‘memories’. As such, the promotion of content into memories actively generates novel kinds of encounters between the past and present, between individual users, and between users and the platform.