Fighting the Algorithm
Don't become the stream.
We are all part of the algorithm whether we like it or not. If you engage in anything online, you’re part of the stream, embedded in the matrix, a found identifier in order to sell you something — an idea, a soda pop, or even a political idea.
How do fight against this mysterious algorithm that has now become an ongoing part of our lives?
All the major social media services know more about you and your habits than your closest family members know about you; and that’s an uncomfortable fact that few of us realize.
One interesting and clear example is what’s happening with TikTok…
TikTok has been banned in the USA, yet it stays. Its death sentence — and proprietary Chinese algorithm — keeps getting pushed back from the brink of the city on the edge of forever.
What I have noticed in this “on and off” existential life of TikTok is how often the algorithm keeps getting reset.
Accounts I have blocked suddenly reappear with a curious regularity. Accounts that I interact with every day disappear and cannot be found. Then, some declaration about the future of TikTok makes the news and the whole process is reversed.
Yes, we’re seeing the manipulation of us — what we are automatically presented — in real time with these “stream changes” with these obvious “algorithm changes” masquerading as our taste and intent. Taste and intent in which we really have no control over because we are being verified and algorithmized to see the advertising standard of the company keeping us company.
So, how do we not become part of the algorithm? Sure, we can disconnect and not participate, but does that really solve the problem or just disengage us from the shared moments we seek to enjoy together?
Sure, we could anonymize online. Use VPN. Have different accounts. Use different computers. Opt out of what we are allowed to opt out of. Create our own cookies. Yeah, well none of that is really possible.
The only way to fake out the algorithm defining us is to freak it out. Change your style. Redefine your interests. Be unpredictable. Delete all cookies and tracerts that have been attached to you by removing them as best you can.
Disengage. Obfuscate. Confuse. Be unpredictable. Take another way home. Change your habits. Click on that instead of this. Be unique every day. Find a different pathway. Never let them see you sweep.
Reinvention!
Algorithms like predicability and practicality. Know that. Change that. Challenge them to try to define you in their system against your will and opposite of your moral set of beliefs. Don’t give them the reward of knowing precisely who you are every moment of the day. Be creative in your disillusion. Be wonky in your evading merit. Turn around and walk forward into the backward beyond the horizon.