(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . I Don't Want to Live an Algorithmic Life [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-01-02 I use Spotify to listen to podcasts largely because it used to have a very simple podcast interface. I told it that I wanted to see the most recent podcasts at the top of library every day and viola, at the top of my feed where the latest podcasts. But recently, that seems to have changed. Podcasts no longer seem to appear in the order of newest in at the top. Even the weird Updated Today category -- which should not exist because I told you I want to see the newest podcasts first -- shows me the podcast episodes I was most recently listening to. Spotify seems to be trying to surface the podcasts is thinks I want to listen to based on some algorithm. I have a wide variety of podcasts I listen to. Some -- like sports-based ones -- tend to be time sensitive. Others are not. Hence my decision to surface new podcast at the top of the list. After all, I wouldn't want to miss the latest discussion of precisely how terrible the Blackhawks are, now would I (So, so terrible is the answer)? There may be a way to fix this mess, but if there is, I have yet to find it. And I am maying for this service, which make it even more egregious that they would ignore my explicit instructions to them. All of this is part and parcel of the terrible new world our Silicon Finacial overlords are building for us. Twitter is now promising that if you pay for the little blue check mark or whatever psychedelic image Space Karen eventually settles on for the program, your tweets will get force fed to people's streams. Not recommended to them on the side, stuffed into their main feed. I left Facebook years ago, before the privacy and villainy became so widespread, in large part because they stopped showing me all the posts from people I choose to follow and threw in things I was most certainly not interested in seeing. The deal used to be that I gave up the information about how used the system so that the system could sell me ads. Everyone was basically happy. But that wasn't enough -- it only made the people running the companies filthy rich instead of obscenely rich, and it might mean they would have to work to keep me on their platform. So instead of ads and recommendations, some of which were likely influenced by money, on the side, they manipulated what I saw from who in an attempt to "engage" me. Annoying podcast visuals are one thing, but this can and has led to prioritizing genocidal content. We live in an online world that is actively working against us, in ways large and small, to keep us from experiencing that world in the way in which we desire to. Instead, we are forced to experience in the way they want us, with little respite. And that way is almost always smaller, meaner, and more vicious than the world we wish to experience. It should not be this way. At a minimum, personalized ads should be banned, and companies should be forced to allow you to see every post from the people you choose to follow in reverse chronological order. Those two items would disincentive the kinds of dark engagement patterns that lead to the worst abuses the platforms engage in and ensure that you can be the curator of your online experience. Companies could still sell ads, just not overly personalized, and they could still recommend and even sell recommendations, broadening your experiences. But they could no longer force you to see only what they and the people who pay them want you to see. We are likely to not get those changes in the near future. So maybe it is time to consciously fade away from social media. Seek out RSS feeds (mine is here and a good reader is here) or newsletters (my Substack -- and yes, I know Substack is problematic, but for now, it works as an easy newsletter -- is here) and cultivate the experience and find the new voices in the way you desire, not the way the money behind Silicon Valley desires. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/2/2144799/-I-Don-t-Want-to-Live-an-Algorithmic-Life Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/