In a 2017 interview, Ev Williams (the founder of Twitter), said something that has stuck with me since: “the trouble with algorithms, is that it rewards extremes. Say you’re driving down the road and see a car crash. Of course you look. Everyone looks. The internet interprets behavior like this to mean everyone is asking for car crashes, so it trie... See more

For all the people on these platforms, every interaction, every moment of passive consumption, is mediated by algorithmic recommendations. Even if some users can opt out of an algorithmic feed, their participation contributes to the data that fuels other users’ recommendations. The dragnet is inescapable. Social networks and streaming services have

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