Do you know what an algorithm is?
We are being shown biased news by algorithms…
—or rather, we are choosing to see it.
Because algorithms are “good guys.”
They ask us:
“Do you like this?”
“Would you like some more?”
Is the “news” you are reading now truly news—
something new?
Or is it merely your favourites?
When you look at the timeline of someone obsessed with conspiracy theories, it overflows with conspiracy theories.
When you look at the timeline of someone terrified of the next pandemic, it is filled with viruses and outbreaks.
But is the algorithm really an AI—an intelligence external to ourselves?
Your preferences are part of your history.
Perhaps the algorithm is simply telling you:
“This is who you are.”
Some people say:
“Things were better before.
Back then, there were no algorithms. News was fair.”
But was it?
Perhaps old television news was merely the producer’s algorithm.
During a thirty-minute news program,
we may have simply been watching the producer’s carefully selected full-course meal from the next table over.
