The most effective forms of control do not feel like control at all. They feel like a recommendation. On social media platforms, buttons such as “not interested” and engagement signals appear to grant users control over what content they’d like to see. Algorithms then simplify decision-making by learning what we like. But these systems do not merely respond to user preference; they train it, quietly shaping what users come to enjoy, value, or believe, while limiting the space for reflection. In this way, choice becomes increasingly passive. In this context, how can we claim to be self-curating our feed when so much of what we come across is pre-determined by an algorithm?
Feedback Loops
Degenerative Feedback Loops in Recommender Systems, was a 2019 case study created to analyze the feedback echo-chamber and filter bubble effect on users. The phenomenon of the feedback loop is the extensive use of machine learning in recommendation systems.”The decisions made by these systems can influence user beliefs and preferences, which in turn affect the feedback the learning system receives- thus creating a feedback loop.” Feedback loops do not simply reinforce user preference, but they also limit user encounters with opposing views and unprecedented media. On a broader spectrum, the curation of our feed alters the conditions to which we are naturally curious. For example, discovery once arose through accident, curiosity, or engagement with outside ideas. Now, algorithmic curation filters the world we engage with by only presenting ideas that are likely to resonate with us. By doing so, beliefs are reinforced before they are even tested, therefore the choice is not fully exercised, it’s shaped in advance by a machine. The claim here is not that users are seeing things they don’t wanna see, but when choice is anticipated in advance, and the chances of encountering the unexpected are designed out, users become a partial product of the algorithm. This raises a deeper question about what kind of freedom is actually being exercised in algorithmically curated environments.
Free-ish ?
Political PhilosopherIsaiah Berlin, presents the concept of freedom as unlimited options and contrasts it with the definition of freedom as self-direction. In the first sense of freedom, media platforms appear to facilitate unlimited options through endless content to engage with and the choice to disengage when you want. The content however, is recommended to you, pre-filtered, so familiarity is reinforced. Some may argue that the media you consume should be tailored to your liking, and I agree that personalization definitely makes content more engaging and enjoyable. But the personalization appeal masks how fully voluntary engagement is. In other words, tailoring users’ content limits self-direction. Freedom is not choosing among the options presented to you; it requires the ability to encounter unexpected ones. Similarly, in Harry G. Frankfurt’s work Freedom of the Will and the Concept of the Person, he argues that freedom requires a reflective endorsement of one’s desire. Both philosophers’ perspectives suggest that genuine freedom depends not only on the ability to choose, but also on the ability to reflect on the desires that inform those choices. Curated algorithms, by recommendations and anticipated preferences, fail to preserve these conditions. This is why feedback loops are inherently dangerous to the human mind, because they are trained to suppress the desire and reflection that freedom depends on.
Antidote to Passive Choices
Philosophically, freedom requires not just the availability of options but the reflection on the desires that drive those options. In our day-to-day, media-driven lives, we have little space for this type of self-reflection. Users comfortably become the media they consume and justify it based on familiarity or as the product of their own engagement. However, when engagement is ranged by design, and curated to your For You page, what might have been a conscious decision to engage instead becomes a passive choice. I encourage users, along with myself to go on a prolonged passivity with the media, to consume without interacting. The possibility to come across ideas we’ve never thought of, hear from communities we’ve never encountered, and be inspired by perspectives we’ve never seen would be an ideal antidote to algorithmic curation.
Delivered by Fatoumata Traore
