Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture

by Kyle Chayka

Should the human fashion editor tell you what to like or should it be the algorithmic machine, in the form of the Amazon bookstore, Spotify feed, or Netflix home page? That is the central dilemma of culture in Filterworld. The former option is mercurial and driven by elite gatekeepers, a powerful group built up over a century of modern cultural industries, riddled with their own blind spots and biases including those of gender and race. (That group includes not just the mostly white fashion magazine editors of New York City but also Hollywood producers, record-label executives, and museum curators.) Yet the human flaws may become even more dramatic in an algorithmic ecosystem when the actions of mass audiences dictate what can easily be seen. Racism, sexism, and other forms of bias are a de facto part of that equation.