Ryan explains, because as he speculates, accumulated likes on big, important pages are more likely to show up on other people’s news feeds.
Taking care of personal online communication in this optimized and strategic manner takes a lot of time and energy. Indeed, algorithms act as atention gatekeepers of sorts that users need to “crack” or play along with in order to increase their chance to get their message across. As the public discourse around the Twiter and Instagram algorithmic timeline suggests, algorithms are seen as powerbrokers that you either play with or play against. Part of the reason Ryan thinks it is a big mistake that Twiter and Instagram are “using algorithms” on a large scale is that it “will change what people post and change how people use the platform, and they won’t use it the same way as they used to.” For Ryan, the diference between a service such as Snapchat and Facebook is that the former “takes less thinking time.” As he elaborates:
But, with Facebook, there are so many things going on there, so I have to plan out strategically what I am saying, how I am posting it, when I post it, all that stuf. Just to make sure that everyone I want to see it actually sees that.51
The notion of strategically planning what to say is just another side of “clicking consciously,” a way of being oriented toward the operational logics of platforms. For Ryan, the problem with Twiter rolling out an algorithmic logic on a much greater scale than before is not so much about the algorithm in and of itself but the consequences it entails for practical engagement with the platform. So, if Twiter were to “start with an algorithm, you really have to start thinking about what you’re posting,” Ryan suggests.
While users often need play along with the algorithm if they want to get noticed, there are also the inverse eforts of not making oneself “algorithmically recognizable.” Indeed, as the personal algorithm stories atest, avoiding or undermining the algorithm requires people to pay atention to the workings of the platform. Louis, a respondent from the Philippines, says he is deeply fascinated by the Facebook algorithm; yet, he thinks of it as a trap. For Louis, users have various options to counteract the logic of algorithms. Indeed, as Hill argues, “resistance cannot merely be about opting out, but about participating in unpredictable ways” (2012: 121). As Louis sees it, “privacy online does not really exist. So, why not just confuse those who are actually looking at your intimate information? That way, it misleads them.”52 Others, too, reported engaging in activities of data obfuscation, whether explicitly or implicitly. Lena has been trying to “manipulate content” with which she interacts in order to “control the suggestions” Facebook gives her, while Jessa atempted to confuse the algorithm by liking contradictory things.
Whether or not people try to make themselves algorithmically recognizable or not, the responses suggest that playful learning on the part of users should be thought of as a mode of knowing that is geared toward an active exploration of unknown objects.53 In many ways, the various ways in which users orient themselves toward the platform’s operational logic is not that diferent from the ways in which I tried to “reverse engineer” Facebook’s news feed algorithm in the previous chapter. While we might not know the exact workings of algorithms, their consequences are often both observable and felt. According to Eleanor Gibson, “the active exploration of objects, leading to observable consequences and more specialized exploratory activities, has important results for learning about what an object afords, what can be done with it, its functional possibilities and uses” (1988: 24). Not only does the playful exploration of algorithms that some (albeit quite reflexive and knowledgeable) users engage in result in users learning more about what systems aford and what can be done with them, these activities also have the power to shape the very algorithms that perpetuate these responses in the first place.
112
IF . . . THEN