As a mid-gen millennial I had the good fortune of being old enough to experience internet 1.0. I was around 10 years old when my parents let me create my first AOL account. Through the early aughts, I agonized over AIM away messages, learned how to HTML code on Myspace, signed up for Facebook (after they dropped the .edu requirement), and Valencia filtered every Instagram post through college. After experiencing the evolution of Being Online for a quarter-century, I have to say, it’s weird in these internet streets. It’s impossible to ignore that, on today’s internet, there are increasingly fewer places where I am in control of what comes across my screen. The novelty of the internet in its infancy was its seemingly unlimited potential to create spaces – along with the freedom to navigate those spaces. Today, social media specifically is undergoing a massive transition of control. And while the internet is much bigger than social media, nearly 70% of the world’s population use it – spending around a third of their waking moments either scrolling or watching videos. Through algorithms, the feeds we scroll every day are progressively being modified and policed to the extent that they have become a hall of fun house mirrors. Knowing how these algorithms influence the content we see and whose interests they serve is a self-defense skill.
Facebook was the first platform to shift away from a purely chronological feed back in 2009 instead using an engagement based algorithm to rank posts (this is around the time I stopped using it). Instagram and Twitter followed a few years later in 2016 debuting their own engagement based feeds – incidentally this was also the year “fake news” became ubiquitous in the public lexicon thanks to Trump and his presidential campaign. I hated the change on Instagram so much I took a step back from the app. Instead of posting I shifted to the stories feature but scrolling the feed became irritating. Posts from friends I regularly engaged with were gone, replaced by influencers, musicians, or actors I followed, and when I did see my friends, the posts were weeks old. Here’s an excerpt from Instagram’s official statement announcing the change which was deleted from their site, but saved here (emphasis mine):
“To improve your experience, your feed will soon be ordered to show the moments we believe you will care about the most. The order of photos and videos in your feed will be based on the likelihood you’ll be interested in the content, your relationship with the person posting and the timeliness of the post.”
Despite Instagram’s claims, the accounts I interacted with the most would not show up on my feed (at least in the first 5 minutes of scrolling which was all the time I had to give). My posting tapered off until 2023 when I fully uninstalled the app from my phone and I haven’t posted since. Now I only log in from a browser every couple months to check my messages and the brief seconds I scroll by my feed are always a jump scare – AI is everywhere on that app. In 2024 Meta first publicly announced that it would be integrating AI generated content into both Facebook and Instagram’s feeds at their annual developer’s conference. Now, according to platform data, just 7% of Instagram’s feed shows content from accounts users follow. Recommended content, creator posts, and reels from accounts you don’t follow are prioritized over followed accounts. I don’t regret leaving.
When Twitter rolled out their engagement based algorithm, political content was prioritized (favoring right-leaning accounts). Unlike Instagram, Twitter didn’t immediately default their feed to a non-chronological order, it was optional. The most annoying change was the insertion of accounts into the home feed that I did not follow – this could not be opted out of until 2018 when they relented to user complaints. Twitter’s most damaging changes wouldn’t come until Elon stepped into the picture in 2022. The default home feed was changed to a “For You” algorithmic feed filled with ads, accounts I did not follow, along with people paying for a blue check mark that used to mean the user was genuinely who they claimed to be. Because of the spread of its user base, there is no other app that has the ability to connect people with up to the second news from all over the world the way Twitter does – no matter how much Elon is trying to break it. A number of conversations that started on Twitter were significant enough to trigger social movements and influence government policy – Black Lives Matter, Me Too, the Arab Spring just to name a few. It’s not a stretch to conclude this was done intentionally to clutter the platform and disconnect users to control conversations.
A lot of my friends that filled the app with insightful hilarious commentary left in the mass exodus of users after Elon’s arrival. I decided to stay and aggressively curate my feed with blocking, muting, and custom lists. Now I primarily use Twitter (it will never be “X” to me) for news updates. Most of the independent journalists I follow are still there – even so, it’s undeniable the Twitter I knew is gone. After selling off his original app for slaughter, Jack Dorsey offered a liberal alternative – BlueSky. Zuckerberg, continuing his trend of social media theft, rolled out his own Twitter knock off under Instagram – Threads. The introduction of these bootleg Twitters only serve to splinter users into siloed platforms that prioritize particular political leanings (BlueSky) or offer Meta’s version of default algorithmic control that regulates what conversations have reach regardless of engagement.
TikTok was the only platform where I genuinely enjoyed the For You page – obviously this was before the forced sale to Oracle and UAE funded investment firms. My Chinese spy knew how to keep me on that app. It was during COVID lockdown when I first signed up mainly out of boredom, and it was fun – there were dances, sourdough starter tutorials, hot men splitting wood. Then the genocide started. TikTok was the first place I got to know Palestinians as regular people and see first hand how they were trying to survive the relentless bombardment. Journalists who got no coverage in Western media were able to post videos showing the gruesome reality of state sanctioned mass murder. Then the journalists were assassinated one by one.
It’s impossible to quantify the impact those videos had on me. The ability to hear directly from Palestinians and see the uncensored violence inflicted upon them fundamentally changed my relationship with America. It’s not surprising ownership of the algorithm quickly became a priority for the American government. Despite Trump issuing an executive order in 2020 requiring ByteDance to sell TikTok to American owners, it was ignored after the election of Biden that November. The issue only resurfaced after October 7th. The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act was passed in April 2024 – the sale was completed in January of this year. The government knows how to get shit done when they have a vested interest.
Over the summer it became obvious TikTok’s algorithm was being manipulated. Videos that were being served to me were weeks old, creators I followed who regularly came up on my FYP disappeared, and graphic AI generated cartoon porn ads were now a thing. Now the only way I can get a halfway decent algorithm is if I use a VPN through another country. Another strange change were the comment sections which now appear to be filled with bots and people pushing particular discourse – transphobia, leftist infighting, racism are the most frequent. There’s a general air of CIA psyop on the app which makes sense given Oracle’s involvement (the CIA was their first customer after all).
Engagement based algorithms are designed to keep users on a platform as long as possible however, they are also increasingly being used by corporations and state agents to repress conversations that challenge the status quo, promote culture war discourse, desensitize us to state violence, and convince us to buy things. You may use social media as a diversionary escape or a way to stay in touch with your friends and family, not as your primary source of news like me, but the conversations you’re being served on these platforms are more likely to be promoted by an algorithm and not organically generated from the list of people you follow. Whether you curate your feed or not, control over the content you see will only become more difficult. Question why you’re seeing what’s on your For You Page, be discerning with the type of content you give your time to, find supporting sources for claims, seek out the creators you enjoy. Relying on an algorithm to feed you what it wants in the year of our lord 2026 is surrendering your curiosity to a code designed by psychopaths. The literacy crisis we’re living through extends to media literacy. What AI chatbots are doing to reading comprehension, algorithms are doing to social interaction. Your discernment is how you fight back.
