Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture

by Kyle Chayka

Our feeds under a dramatically reformed Section 230 would look very different. Social networks would be forced to take responsibility for each piece of content on their sites that receives algorithmic promotion. Perhaps they would adapt by putting most content outside the reach of recommendations, meaning that users would have to intentionally follow or search for a given subject. The content that still receives algorithmic promotion would have to be vetted to ensure that it is wholly anodyne—clips of cute pet antics and feel-good news stories. The selection would be subject to a collective perception of what constituted acceptable, or neutral, news. (Such content would still be filtered, in a way, by having a singular filter imposed on it.) TikTok’s wide range of niche recommendations, for example, would be impossible. One could imagine a TikTok feed made up of only clips that would fit in the anodyne TV show America’s Funniest Home Videos. It would still be amusing, but hardly addictive or manipulative. Content moderation would have to be much stricter. Changing the balance to emphasize linear, opt-in content over automated recommendations might be a good thing, if it can limit the possible exposure of harmful material online. But this would be a much more sanitized, and by necessity slower, Internet. The problem comes down to determining which kinds of content should be able to travel so quickly and frictionlessly across Filterworld, and which should be slowed down or s...