You and the Algorithm: It Takes Two to Tango | by Nick Clegg | Mar, 2021 | Medium

That said, despite curation’s advantages the two biggest content players of all — Google and Facebook — are pure algorithmic plays. Google News has always been algorithmically driven, but the more important tool for content is Google search itself, which uses the most valuable algorithm in the world to not only find content but to rank it as well. ... See more

While social platforms are proving effective at pressure testing and gauging the customer response for new ideas, sometimes the general public isn’t the best curator for what’s next. It’s not just about the critical mass (how many people like something), it’s also about the credible mass ( who likes something). As algorithms mature, I suspect socia... See more

The introduction of the “feed” in modern social media has been controversial. At its core, “algorithmic curation is ultimately about power — about who controls what we see and how we see it.” As our lawmakers now discuss this question on Capitol Hill, most of the discussion is centered around how we can “fix” the feed. However, our political and te... See more

“We need to open up and be transparent around how our algorithms work and how they’re used, and maybe even enable people to choose their own algorithms to rank the content or to create their own algorithms, to rank it. To be that open, I think, would be pretty incredible.”

It’s not just that we are being mined for information. I believe this algorithmic catering to our private desires only serves to make us trust each other less. We live in a self-perpetuating social cycle where the more time we spend as isolated individuals consuming algorithmically-curated culture, the more we trust algorithms over each other.

Moreover, I’m excited about the real user benefit that can come from balancing algorithms and curation: while Facebook and Google rightly focus on algorithms only, most content is best delivered by a mixture; getting that mixture right will likely prove to be both massively popular and massively valuable.

It’s been endlessly argued that algorithms influence too much of what we watch, listen to, read, and even think. Personal taste erodes while decision-making is outsourced to the platform.