#algorithmic-feeds

#algorithmic-feeds

Charlie Warzel opens with what it means to live in 2026, when our phones can drop us into graphic, real-time violence without warning-and when documenting that violence can be both traumatizing and politically consequential. Using recent footage out of Minneapolis as a lens, he explores the uneasy collision of algorithmic feeds, misinformation, and the moral weight of witnessing. Charlie also traces how viral documentation can puncture official narratives, pushing stories beyond political circles and even into "apolitical" corners of the internet.

The internet you experience daily-endless scrolling, algorithmic feeds serving content you didn't ask for, AI-generated slop clogging search results-isn't the only internet available. It's just the one that's easiest to stumble into. You're not stuck with the internet that has evolved alongside the rise of hegemonic platforms. We're 20-plus years into the social internet, and the winners of the last round of audience capture have made clear they're shifting to optimize for social broadcasting instead of networking, to maximize market share and market cap.

As we descend towards slop-based social media, where the videos are fake and the people are bots, we might be rounding up our time with algorithmically generated feeds. For Financial Times, John Burn-Murdoch shows time spent on social media over the past decade. The key signal seems to be in young people's usage. It looks like usage plateaued for 16- to 24-year-olds and has been inching its way down. Although usage over two and a half hours per day is still a lot. Also when