Algorhythmia

How do we get social media's irregular heart beat back into shape?

The path of the 21st century has been defined by just a few dysfunctional algorithms.

It’s easy to feel despondent. It’s easy to feel out of control. So I offer this post as a little ray of hope on an otherwise rather gloomy horizon.

Human culture has been suffering a kind of ‘algorhythmia’ of late. I believe, despite everything nasty you read about in the news, our culture is about to get the jolt it needs to knock it back into a more rational rhythm.

The curse of the algorithm

I have written before about how susceptible our brains are to conditioning, how predictive keyboards simplify our own internal voice and GPS reduces our cognitive spacial capacity.

In the same way that our brain relinquishes spacial autonomy to GPS or linguistic autonomy to our iPhone keyboards — social media algorithms demand that we relinquish autonomy over what interests us, who to interact with and what to believe.

And I’m sorry: you cannot pretend that social media algorithms don’t effect you — even if you’re not on social media.

The algorithm is the beating heart of our 24h news culture and — whether you pay direct attention or not — the rules of the algo drive the way we speak and the civility with which we all interact. The algorithm creates the rules for a good headline, for political discourse and the tone our politicians must take to get attention.

Our culture reflects the algorithm. It’s not the other way around.

Can they all be all bad?

There are of course half a dozen sizeable social media companies and technically they don’t act in concert: they compete. But they each amplify each other’s impact because in the end it is incentives that define outcomes.

The incentive of most social media companies is to sell your attention to advertisers.

Everything else is irrelevant. And if Facebook causes genocide in Myanmar or YouTube propagates riots in Germany who really cares?

Indeed, big systems are never more complicated than looking at the incentives:

• Food producers exist to sell food. This has created an obesity & health crisis.

• Oil companies exist to sell oil. This is leading us to towards climate collapse.

• Social media companies exist to sell you. This is collapsing our pluralistic culture.

So while social media companies are each different, they share a common incentive: to get you addicted to their platform so that they can sell your attention to advertisers.

It there light on the horizon?

Yes. In short, I believe there is.

In July 2024, Twitter’s algorithm seems to have been intentionally changed to over-promote Musk and Republican talking points above all else. The obvious intended consequence of this was, presumably, to put Trump back in the White House.

There has been an unintended consequence of this manipulation however. 20 million people are now using a Twitter alternative: Bluesky.

Sure, Bluesky looks and feels very similar to Twitter but there are some important fundamental differences. The most important of which is this:

You choose your algorithm … or you build your own.

The real differences of Bluesky are worthy of a whole’nother post — they are important too — but the most fundamental thing is that, for the first time in human history, we have a thriving, open source, federated¹ social media network, already attracting newspapers, journalists, senators and congresswomen … without onerous centralisation and without the divisive commercial incentives that have, hitherto, warped the conversations of the public square.

Does this actually change anything?

Yes.

Remember: incentives define outcomes.

The incentive to drive advertising revenue through social media has driven our social construct towards the precipice. Algorithms that feed on our attention degrade our ability to think for ourselves and drive all conversations to the extreme.

By letting the user chose their own “feed”, Bluesky offers you the opportunity to define and control your own experience, to shape the algorithm around you.

You can focus on Science or Art or Gardening … you can just see what’s interesting to your friends, to those of a common cultural background, those who don’t say that much or just those who like cats.

And you can block out what you don’t want to see just as easily. Block trolls and fake accounts, even block out politics and news altogether. Moderation is up to you.

Of course there are challenges ahead — no system is perfect and so far the platform does not attract the same audience that Twitter currently clings onto (partly because the moderation tools are so effective that trolls can’t find a voice) so of course it’s politically a little lopsided… but this is not about that.

I’m not advocating for apolitical social media, nor do I think it’s a great idea for the wings of politics to come to rest on different platforms — in different silos — because that presents all sorts of different problems.

What is different — what is at stake here — is a question of choice.

Do we want to live in a world where our culture is just a reflection of some weird billionaires manipulative algorithm? I don’t. I want to live in a world where our media reflects our culture, not the other way around.

The only way we do that is to get out from under the algorithm. Stop following the little blue line on your GPS, stop using predictive text and for pity’s sake … delete Facebook (and Instagram), Twitter and TikTok.

And if you have to socialise online at all … do it somewhere you have some control.

Oh! .. and you can follow me on Bluesky here: @jim.chat

1. Federated: it means that anyone can create a new part of the network. The network is not owned or controlled by Bluesky. The tech is open source. The user is not locked in.