The book 1.0

I’d describe my time from 2015-2020 (when the book will be published) in three distinct phases:

• Phase I: 2015-2016: Discovery, exploration, initial research, hypothesis generation (funded by the Ford Foundation)


• Phase II: 2016-2018: Experience, experimenting, hypothesis testing (working at GitHub)


• Phase III: 2018-2020: Refining, summarizing,

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A few years ago, a user by the name of IlluminatiPirate published Dead Internet Theory: Most of the Internet is Fake on the online forum Agora Road’s Macintosh Cafe.1 The theory proposes that the majority of the content with which we engage online is algorithmically generated by bots, all in an effort to control what we believe. I feel obligated to... See more

In my new book, I came up with the word “Filterworld” to describe our interwoven environment of algorithms. These equations have become inescapable, influencing the vast majority of what we consume online — and thus what kinds of culture we consume, period. I use “filter” because algorithmic recommendations are ultimately filters that sort content.... See more

way of reaching understandings of what is going on , i.e. the foundations of world models and cultures in general.

Whoever controls infrastructure determines the future. If you doubt that, consider that in Europe we’re still using roads and living in towns and cities the Roman Empire mapped out 2,000 years ago.

My secret, cynical theory is that we are so completely numbed and overwhelmed by information these days that we simply don’t think in these more abstract terms anymore (and I think it’s that numbness that I want to capture in this piece somehow). Or maybe we still do, but it all gets lost in idle musings on Twitter or in group chats or messages to

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Not a day passes that I’m not reminded of these words from Ric Sluiter, art director of LILO & STITCH. https://t.co/illJ76a41j https://t.co/7jGUzcdLUa

Digital networks have become the dominant cultural logic, profoundly transforming not only culture but also the economy, public sphere, and even people’s subjectivity. In contrast to digital culture, network culture makes information less the outcome of discrete processing units and more of the result of the networked relations between them, of... See more