Kill your Feeds – Stop letting algorithms dictate what you think • Hacker News Board

Re: Kill your Feeds – Stop letting algorithms dictate what you think

#121

Post by intrasight » Sat, Mar 08, 2025, 8:15 PM UTC

r0p3 wrote: post #114

For the past year or so I've only been watching YouTube in private browser windows to avoid getting too stuck in an algo niche. Sometimes I'll have the window open for a few days at a time and build up different interests in the recommendations. Eventually either an unplanned restart or intentionally closing the window makes me start from scratch. Its especially interesting recently as Youtube encourages you to searc…

YouTube for me as a search results never a destination. And my search browser is anonymous. It clears all data when I exit. If I could "like" content without logging in I would - but I can't.

Re: Kill your Feeds – Stop letting algorithms dictate what you think

#122

Post by heavensteeth » Sat, Mar 08, 2025, 8:16 PM UTC

stego-tech wrote: post #40

lysace wrote: post #31

Reddit is unfortunately a major thing in my life. There's an eternal battle between left and right politics in my small European country's relevant subreddits. Not very healthy - it's like a never ending feed of "someone is wrong on the Internet". For the record: "right" here is roughly equivalent with the political position of the US Democratic party. Unfortunately these subreddits are not very balanced, so when I d…

What finally helped me break out of those bad habits was reframing who I was trying to convince of an argument. Let's face it, it's highly unlikely you're going to ever convince someone you're directly arguing with online just by the simple fact you're arguing, which often suggests some sort of impasse . Instead, argue as if you're trying to convince the bored reader who has climbed down through the comments (for som…

I try to keep a few things in mind whenever I'm arguing with somebody that I think are helpful (hopefully):

1. Most arguments come down to defining words, even if you may not realise it.

2. Don't follow rabbitholes. Don't deviate from arguing your core premise.

3. You're not trying to prove the other person wrong, you're trying to find the truth.

On #1 for example; I watched a video of a conservative arguing liberals (or something) about a few premises, including "gay marriage does not exist". It was immediately clear to me, but apparently not to the people in the video, that this guy has a different definition of "marriage" to me. That's the breadth of the disagreement. That's all people should've argued with him about. But not one person did. Even when he described his definition of marriage, and how his premise comes about from that definition, everybody immediately became sidetracked. There's just no chance of finding common ground behaving like that.

Re: Kill your Feeds – Stop letting algorithms dictate what you think

#123

Post by daniel_reetz » Sat, Mar 08, 2025, 8:19 PM UTC

lolinder wrote: post #19

The author sort of (but not really) acknowledges this midway through, but this is basically a summary of the most recent Technology Connections video, Algorithms are breaking how we think : https://youtu.be/QEJpZjg8GuA I'd rather they acknowledge Alec as the inspiration/source for this post at the beginning and explicitly, rather than just mentioning the video in passing midway through, but at least they do link to i…

Since they already reference Technology Connections in the article, and since this is a great essay but not new ideas, let's also call out other important voices - in particular Shoshana Zuboff's "Surveillance Capitalism", Cory Doctorow, and the many others who have put their backs into helping us understand how these sick systems work.

Re: Kill your Feeds – Stop letting algorithms dictate what you think

#124

Post by markus_zhang » Sat, Mar 08, 2025, 8:20 PM UTC

Maybe just don't use social media in general. I do have an X account which I want to delete. Other than that I don't have FB, Instagram, Tiktok or anything similar.

Social media is a cancer. It only benefits those who have the money to power the algorithms.

Re: Kill your Feeds – Stop letting algorithms dictate what you think

#125

Post by alpinisme » Sat, Mar 08, 2025, 8:21 PM UTC

jasode wrote: post #101

tom_usher wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was definitely influenced to write this by Alec's excellent video which I recommend everyone watch. I'd hoped it would be a way to share my own opinions on it, summarise my own personal concerns, as well as adding my own recommendations - but totally appreciate if you feel it is derivative, and I appreciate the call out. As a big Technology Connections fan I certainly don't intend to steal his work. It's also inten…

>by Alec's excellent video which I recommend everyone watch. I get what your advice is about but to add some nuance which didn't cover... you should consider that I learned of Alec's Technology Connections channel 9 years ago because the Youtube algorithm suggested it to me . Why did Youtube do that? It was because I had watched Ben's Applied Science excellent video showing vinyl grooves under an electron microscope:…

One point to observe here is that there’s a difference between a “related content” section when viewing specific content and the more general algorithmic feed that is designed to be the primary mode of discovery and interaction.

Re: Kill your Feeds – Stop letting algorithms dictate what you think

#126

Post by Terr_ » Sat, Mar 08, 2025, 8:21 PM UTC

jasode wrote: post #101

tom_usher wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was definitely influenced to write this by Alec's excellent video which I recommend everyone watch. I'd hoped it would be a way to share my own opinions on it, summarise my own personal concerns, as well as adding my own recommendations - but totally appreciate if you feel it is derivative, and I appreciate the call out. As a big Technology Connections fan I certainly don't intend to steal his work. It's also inten…

>by Alec's excellent video which I recommend everyone watch. I get what your advice is about but to add some nuance which didn't cover... you should consider that I learned of Alec's Technology Connections channel 9 years ago because the Youtube algorithm suggested it to me . Why did Youtube do that? It was because I had watched Ben's Applied Science excellent video showing vinyl grooves under an electron microscope:…

Yeah, pro/anti "algorithms" is too reductive, especially since the old status-quo was also an algorithm of people and processes.

I'd rather use a lens more like all the open-source/free-software concerns about controlling your own computer:

1. Can I see how the recommendation algorithm is intended to work? The site-owner says it works for my benefit, but what if they're mistaken, or lying?

2. What has it recorded about my interests, and how can I fix bad records that don't represent them?

3. When it's not working well--or harmfully exploiting my baser weaknesses--how can I change to a different one?

Re: Kill your Feeds – Stop letting algorithms dictate what you think

#127

Post by crabmusket » Sat, Mar 08, 2025, 8:21 PM UTC

martythemaniak wrote: post #111

crystal_revenge wrote: post #109

I remember years ago someone talking about the idea of "open algorithms" in the sense that for any given platform the sort algorithm itself could theoretically be made available for users to submit and share their own custom sorting implementations. A company could just release some DSL of config setup that would make it possible to tweak your own feed. Even if this was tricky, you can image users that were more tech…

Bluesky is pretty much that?

Yes and no. One of Bluesky's goals was enabling custom feeds, and they're definitely working on the app. I really enjoy the Quiet Posters feed.

On the other hand, making a custom feed involves hosting your own server, not writing config in Bluesky itself: https://docs.bsky.app/docs/starter-templates/custom-feeds

Re: Kill your Feeds – Stop letting algorithms dictate what you think

#128

Post by allenu » Sat, Mar 08, 2025, 8:23 PM UTC

I agree with the sentiment that algorithms do affect what we see in our feeds and often the things we see are chosen because they are deemed more engaging by said algorithm, but I also think we're overstating the effects of the algorithms and putting too much blame on them. I think we need to recognize that the technology we've built is inherently addictive and also making human connections more impersonal.

If you took away the algorithms, I don't think you'd necessarily have a relaxing social media feed. You'd still have people sharing so-called "engaging" material and you'd still have to deal with "context collapse" and disagreeable discussions. I think the anonymous nature of online connections inherently make them more impersonal compared with actual face to face ones. And being constantly connected to other human beings digitally (even strangers) is incredibly addictive.

Re: Kill your Feeds – Stop letting algorithms dictate what you think

#129

Post by ddq » Sat, Mar 08, 2025, 8:23 PM UTC

icepat wrote: post #20

ph4evers wrote: post #2

Yes totally! I like Reddit because you can pick your own subreddits but even that can be flooded by ragebait/clickbait

Reddit, in my opinion, is the absolute worst platform for this. It's incredibly easy to manipulate the appearance of consensus opinion. Also, the degree of power the individual moderators have on shaping conversations means instead of an algorithm choosing what you see, someone who spends up to 8 hours a day on Reddit chooses what you see. Lots of these moderators are not the sort of people who should have any place…

Absolutely. The known ease with which voting manipulation is possible and the lucrative incentives for motivated actors and organizations to do so, and the fundamentally flawed moderation structure are the two key issues that, unless they are radically changed, systemically compromise the integrity of the entire platform. This is the natural, inevitable state of a system such designed.

I wish Aaron Swartz were still here. Such an absolute injustice.

Re: Kill your Feeds – Stop letting algorithms dictate what you think

#130

Post by OisinMoran » Sat, Mar 08, 2025, 8:28 PM UTC

I've actually been working on something tackling exactly this for a little while now. It's a social network where you post to your own curated tags, and people can follow any subset of those. So you can post both your "local small town history" and also "important cs papers", and those interested in either or both can follow as they choose. It's alts by default. And to start, it's focused on links.

Reverse chronological is sacrosanct and it will always remain ad free to keep incentives aligned with it being a place I like to spend time. Every tag also has its own RSS feed.

It's still invite-only, but anyone reading this page is obviously a great fit so here's an invite link: https://lynkmi.com/accounts/signup/?invite_code=333ee833-e3d...