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In global, multi-billion dollar contest for attention, the algorithms are constantly “improved” to be more compelling; eventually, the most algorithmically juiced site of all, TikTok, emerged. [...]even when ethical, well-reported, fact-checked, and credible news organizations break through the noise, only a tiny number of those organizations’ stories emerge, and they’re not compensated for it. Major newspapers are covering these events daily, but most people never hear about them. Because the algorithms prioritize engagement, not credibility, people are exposed to extreme and polarizing content, including disinformation, false information and made-up AI slop.
Remember newspapers?
Or, more specifically, remember when everybody kept up with current events by reading newspapers and news magazines?
I started reading The New York Times every day when I was in college. The paper was usually delivered to my door by 10:30 pm the night before. Once I first started work as a journalist, I read three newspapers (one local, two national) and subscribed to five or so super high-quality print magazines (The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Economist, and others). I kept this up when I shifted into technology journalism, and added super-high-quality tech magazines — including Computerworld.
Most people read print newspapers back then, and the world was a much better place for it. People could argue about politics in a friendly way, because the debates came from a shared set of facts with information about the world from credible, fact-checked sources.
People also got news from TV, but people from both sides of the political spectrum watched the same shows. Reported news was presented separately from opinion columns, and people understood the difference.
One of the most under-appreciated features of newspaper reading was that it showed you a range of stories that you wouldn’t necessarily seek out or find yourself drawn to. Some readers would skim those headlines and move on, and others would read them regardless, just because they were in the newspaper.
People read local newspapers, and many cared much more about what was happening in their town and state than events taking place on the other side of the world.
Foreign news was well covered, though, and investigative journalism was widespread, active, and effective because news organizations had the money to pay for it all.
Then social networking happened.
Bad news
Online message boards were displaced by Friendster-like sites, which were later displaced by Facebook-like sites, and people used these to post pictures and status updates and to chat. Within three years after Facebook emerged, sites like YouTube and Twitter arrived, the iPhone was launched, and mobile apps came along a year later.
As Facebook, YouTube and Twitter got discovered by news organizations and users as places to share and promote news stories, those social sites also developed algorithms to favor more compelling posts and essentially censor others. The goal was to keep eyeballs glued to screens.
People increasingly used social apps on smartphones to get news. The algorithms worked, and swiping through algorithmically sorted posts proved vastly more compelling than reading a paper newspaper.
In global, multi-billion dollar contest for attention, the algorithms are constantly “improved” to be more compelling; eventually, the most algorithmically juiced site of all, TikTok, emerged.
As of this year, social media sites have become the top way Americans get news (54%). The biggest sources are Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and X, in that order.
These are very bad sources of news. Legitimate news organizations have to compete in the algorithmically determined attention game against demagogue bloggers, conspiracy theorists, foreign disinformation campaigns, AI-generated slop, fake news organizations, parody accounts, clickbait farms, memes, and influencer rants recorded in their cars.
And even when ethical, well-reported, fact-checked, and credible news organizations break through the noise, only a tiny number of those organizations’ stories emerge, and they’re not compensated for it.
The attraction of bad sources is eviscerating the businesses of good sources. Media organizations are cutting back, reducing spending on investigative and foreign coverage or closing altogether.
This is especially true of local newspapers. Some 40% of all newspapers in the US have shut down in the last 20 years. Millions of people simply don’t follow what’s happening locally anymore and instead are consumed all day by global events.
But not all global events. Only the events that the algorithms have found capture attention. For example, the “winner” in this contest is the conflict in Gaza. I travel all over the world, and in the past year more than half the graffiti in the world is based on this conflict, as is much of the political discussion online. The Ukraine conflict is high on the list as well, partly because both sides in the conflict churn out massive amounts of online articles about it.
So, while the algorithms have gotten everybody obsessing over these two conflicts, most don’t hear a word about the even larger conflicts and crises in Sudan, South Sudan, Syria, Myanmar, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ukraine, Afghanistan, and Burkina Faso. Major newspapers are covering these events daily, but most people never hear about them.
Because the algorithms prioritize engagement, not credibility, people are exposed to extreme and polarizing content, including disinformation, false information and made-up AI slop. Algorithm personalization has created “filter bubbles” and “echo chambers” where people form completely different understandings about the world.
It’s also messing with our heads. Algorithmically curated platforms exploit human psychology to maximize engagement, trapping users in toxic cycles of addiction, negativity, and isolation that undermine mental well-being.
Good news
In a global push during 2024 and 2025, decentralized platforms are using federated moderation to attack the problem. The top decentralized platforms utilizing federated moderation include Mastodon, Bluesky, Farcaster, Lemmy, PeerTube, and Bookwyrm.
My recommendation for everybody is to stop getting news from sources that use attention-maximizing algorithms to select the sources.
In other words, never get news from social sites. Instead, switch to high-quality news apps and sites. Here are the best ones I know about:
Google News. A week ago, I might not have recommended this source. But this week the app gained the ability for you to choose the news sources. The feature is called Preferred Sources.
Kagi News. (Disclosure: My son works at Kagi.) As a news source, Kagi News eliminates the infinity pool problem with online news. You can select how many stories in each category you get per day, and it updates news only once per day (4 a.m. PT, 7 a.m. ET). It’s a morning newspaper. The stories are cobbled together summaries built with AI from highly credible sources, and the sources are clearly surfaced so you can click through to the media organizations’ websites easily. Kagi News is great at news understanding. It isolates the issues and events in each story and presents a timeline of how things unfolded.
Sites (and apps) like NewsGuard and AllSides are doing great work educating the public about news, while also serving as great sources for news.
For professional news, of course, you’ll want to subscribe to and read publications like Computerworld or any of its sister publications to stay on top of tech information related to your career.
But for current events, never, ever get news from social media or video sites that use attention-grabbing algorithms. Instead, use one or more of the sites and apps I listed above for all your general news. Try to catch up once daily, then ignore the news for the rest of the day.
And finally, of course, you can subscribe to print versions of your favorite newspapers and magazines, even if that feels like old news.
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