Life in the Algorithm

- "the concrete practices of the tech industry now structure identity and individuality in ways that support its own hegemony. While it presents endless avenues for expression, it sees us as wholly reducible to market logic, where we are real to the degree that our consumption habits are rational. This vision of selfhood promotes uniformity and bou... See more

Social media’s combination of global reach,

performance metrics, platform design, content

format, and algorithmic interference have changed

how creators make for others, and how others

perceive and interact with creators' work.

The results are an eternal presence, persistent

feedback, an unrealistic expectation of virality,

harmful social comparison, crea

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“The villain here is not necessarily the internet, or even the idea of social media,” she writes. “It is the invasive logic of  commercial  social media, and its financial incentive to keep us in a profitable state of anxiety, envy, and distraction.” The business model of platforms like this — which rely on advertising and clicks and “en

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In the post-hipster era, you listened to what Spotify told you to listen to. If you read a book, it was because the precise pattern of blobby pastel-coloured shapes on its cover contained coded instructions to TikTok’s algorithm that sent it zooming to the top of your feed. Your tastes and preferences were decided for you by vast crystalline machin... See more