You are the algorithm

On the Social Web (also known as The Fediverse or Mastodon), the saying goes that “you are the algorithm”, usually to mean that, because the software that connects you with other people is not profiling you, it’s your active contributions, the posts you share to your followers, that helps propagate information. But recently, I’ve come to understand this phrase quite differently.

When you create an account on Mastodon (or any Social Web platform like Peertube or GoToSocial), you will get an empty feed. Contrary to commercial social media that are quickly going to try to figure out what you like, what you prefer to see and import your list of contacts in the software to connect you to your network, Mastodon (and the likes) will wait for you to actively search and connect with the things or people you came there to see. It can be confusing at first to not be fed anything. It can be frustrating also. But people coming the Social Web also appreciate not being profiled to then be served ads or “content you might like”.

That also means that the propagation of good stuff, like in the old days, relies on people deciding to share or give a boost to that stuff they like. On private corporate surveillance tech, you’re constantly watched. You spend 3 microseconds longer looking at an image, that means it sparked your interest. You read the image description, you expanded the comments section, you favored a post,… all these subtle change in your behavior are signals for the platform that means this particular thing you were just presented might be interesting for someone else with the same profile as you. And that post will then be presented in their feed. That’s how the “engagement” machine works.

None of that happens on the Social Web (at least not yet). So the only way to get good stuff, is to actively search for good stuff, find good people to follow and then share the good info you find to propagate it across the network. That’s what “you are the algorithm” means. Is it better than the other method? People will find this more genuine and authentic, instead of “you are the product” or “you are being watched”. But it’s also more demanding. You need to be much more pro-active and attentive. You need to look for stuff, pass the friction points of having nothing good to look at until you’ve done quite a bit of work finding the good sources.

After 9 years using Mastodon, I’ve come to have a good list of people that I follow. Some of them post excellent stuff. But all that started to become a bit of a fire hose. I was getting too much stuff in my feed. I would sometimes prune the list of accounts that I was following. But I would also keep adding more sources. And then, while I know this all should feel human curated, it felt more and more like a random list of things that just kept me scrolling indefinitely, as if this was all algorithmically generated. And I started to come less often to view my Mastodon feed, leaving days sometimes without connecting.

Until I read this (french) article, Les médias sociaux n’en sont plus, which cites, translates and reviews an article by Danah Boyd called Social Media is Now Parasocial Media. I recommend you read either of these. They basically point out that social media is not what it used to be and is probably a misnomer. These tools used to be made to connect people and are now mostly driven by algorithms. People spending time on “social media” are more consumers of algorithmic (and more and more synthetic) content than actually engaging in human interactions. There is nothing social in social media anymore.

I’m not saying that it’s the case with the Social Web, but I did start to question what I was doing on Mastodon. Was I just there to consume what all the people I was following were sharing or was I really interacting with anyone? I know the content selection is not driven by an algorithm, but when you follow 500 different accounts and barely interact with anyone, is that any different?

So I decided to take some drastic measures and test a new approach. I set myself to drastically reduce the number of people I follow and to only follow people I directly know and have interacted with outside of the platform. That means it’s people I either have their email or phone number. I’ve talked to them outside of Mastodon. They would not be so surprised if I emailed them. And I would not hesitate to write them and ask for something if I thought they could help me in any way.

Right now, that has reduced my number of followings to 131 people, which, funny or not, is right under the Dunbar number. And I’m loving it so far. First, it has reduced the amount of new stuff I look at on Mastodon to about 10 things a day. So no more doom scrolling. I’m also paying a bit more attention to what they share. I actually know these people so I feel that it’s somewhat important I pay attention to what they spend time sharing with their followers.

I don’t know how long I’ll run this experiment. If I’ll even keep enjoying this for longer than a few months. Mastodon is certainly not my main source of information. Nor I think it ever was. I still keep an RSS Reader fully updated as my go to source for info. But this slower and more connected version of social media already feels better. I don’t have the feeling I’m getting served an endless feed of news that I would scroll for hours every day. I can put a face on every message that is being put in my feed. At least, I know who boosted it. I don’t think it has made me comment more under those posts or interact more with those friends I follow. That’s maybe something that comes later. But I’m glad this feels more like the kind of algorithm I want to be.