Thanks for downloading the inquiry. This week, it's another chance to hear an episode we made earlier this year.

It got a big response and certainly blew our minds. And we thought that if you haven't heard it, you really should.

There's a place on the internet where almost two billion of us regularly go, many of us several times a day.

Facebook, the social networking site which Mark Zuckerberg started in his university dorm room,

and which has grown in little over a decade into one of the most valuable companies

in the world. Some people say it's the most powerful company that's ever existed because of the

way we let it into our lives, our biggest days, our smallest moments, the best times and the worst. It's a digital space where we can share

information and news, but one that's shaped and controlled by the technology giant and its powerful

computer code. I know I'm not alone in wondering just how much Facebook knows about me and what it's doing with that information. I'm not alone in wondering just how much Facebook knows about me and what it's doing with that

information. I'm Ruth Alexander and this is the inquiry and in this edition, first broadcast

in April, we want to know how powerful is Facebook's algorithm.

Part 1. The Secret Sauce.

What does the algorithm look like then? You have glanced at the code. What does it look like? It just looks like a lot of

computer code. I mean, it's really, you know, visually, it's pretty boring. Numbers letters.

Right, right.

Our first expert witness, Willa Rimas, a technology writer at Slate Magazine, is one of the very few to have glimpsed the Facebook algorithm.

It was a rare opportunity and the algorithm remains a very closely guarded secret

because it really is at the core of their company's value.

This is their secret sauce, so to speak. These are their trade secrets.

It's the computer code, the set of instructions that makes Facebook work.

The company let Willerimus in so he could write an article about it, but kept him on a tight leash.

At one point, I said that I needed to use the bathroom, and they said, oh, sure, no problem.

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