Digital surveillance happens right under our nose: every time we open a social media app, every click, pause and like on a post is tracked. Sprout Social describes social media algorithms as “rules, signals and data that govern the platform’s operation. These algorithms determine how content is filtered, ranked, selected and recommended to users. In some ways, algorithms influence our choices and what we see on social media.”
For example, the TikTok’s recommendation algorithm tailors “For You” page content to every user by their individual interests, viewing behaviors and preferences. Behaviors like saves and shares indicate stronger engagement than likes, and TikTok uses these signals to identify your preferences and recommend similar content. Beyond engagement, TikTok also considers user interactions like accounts followed, content created and level of interest in a topic to fully understand each user’s preferences over time. It then uses this data to show content that aligns with what users actively choose to consume and create. Users have the option to click “not interested” on videos to see less of certain content.
However, in a video with The Wall Street Journal, Guillaume Chaslot — a former Google engineer who worked on YouTube’s algorithm — remarked, “The algorithm is able to find the piece of content that you’re vulnerable to, that will make you click, that will make you watch but it doesn’t mean you really like it and that it’s the content that you enjoy the most. It’s just the content that’s the most likely to make you stay on the platform.” What is purported to be a personalized experience is actually a controlled one, where algorithms have the ability to determine what we can see or like in the first place.
As algorithms personalize content to match user behavior, they also limit exposure to differing perspectives, creating what is known as a “filter bubble.” Because content is recommended to users based on what will keep them engaged and entertained, it is often not contradictory to users’ existing personal perspectives. Author and activist Eli Pariser coined the term and describes a filter bubble as “your own personal, unique universe of information that you live in online. And what’s in your filter bubble depends on who you are, and it depends on what you do. But the thing is that you don’t decide what gets in. And more importantly, you don’t actually see what gets edited out.” This filtering of information leads to echo chambers of information online, which can lead to misinformation being spread and reduces crucial viewpoint diversity necessary for critical thinking. Often, content personalization narrows perspectives rather than widening them.
While algorithmic personalization is convenient for entertainment, it is also part of a much larger system built on tracking and control. Scholar and activist Shoshana Zuboff defines this system as “surveillance capitalism,” a “new economic order” that turns personal experience into data used to predict and influence behavior. Companies like Google and Facebook have built their business models around collecting vast amounts of user data, often without fully informed consent, in order to sell what Zuboff calls “certainty” to advertisers, or guarantees about what users will do next. This means that every click, pause and interaction is shaping your feed, but also being used to shape you. What feels like harmless entertainment is actually designed to keep users engaged for as long as possible, regardless of the consequences. Zuboff goes as far as to call this system an “assault on human autonomy,” where users are subtly pushed toward certain behaviors without realizing it. In this sense, personalization is a business model that profits off of attention, often at the expense of privacy, independence and informed decision-making.
While social media is an outlet for connection, entertainment and community, it is important that people are aware of the ways in which their information is being collected and used and how that could influence their beliefs and behaviors. This can be achieved through mass education on media literacy which gives people the ability to “decode media messages (including the systems in which they exist); assess the influence of those messages on thoughts, feelings and behaviors; and create media thoughtfully and conscientiously.” Ultimately, the issue is not whether digital technologies should exist, but how consciously we choose to engage with them.
With people sharing increasingly more personal information online, it is important for the public to be informed on how social media sites track, use and disseminate personal data, as well as be aware of the effect echo chambers have in the content we consume online. As algorithms continue to shape what we see, think and interact with, developing a critical awareness of these systems and what they gain from your use will be essential to maintaining autonomy. Without that awareness, people risk becoming passive participants in a system that profits from their attention, rather than individuals making actively informed choices about the information and content they consume.
