I’ve been thinking a lot about social media. Specifically how it’s been coopting me to do its dirty work. How it’s been brainwashing me, slowly and imperceptibly, to contribute the kind of content that it wants and needs to grow and thrive. Like that fungus that takes over the brain of an ant and starts controlling it.
And I won’t do it anymore.
Quite honestly, I’ve reached the point where I no longer care very much about growing an audience for the sake of growing an audience. What interests me is something deeper; and much more important. The freedom to express my own thoughts as I see fit, and the freedom to own my own thought processes.
So, the question is; can a person have both freedom of speech and freedom of reach? Can a person express their own thoughts without some algorithm shaping them… and still have an audience?
The various platforms encourage us to believe that we can. We’re told that everyone has a voice. Everyone has a platform. Everyone can be heard. But there’s a catch. If you want people to hear you, you usually have to play the algorithm game. You have to learn what gets clicks. What drives engagement. What keeps people watching. What generates outrage. What triggers curiosity. What makes people stop scrolling.
And once you begin doing that, it happens. The algorithm starts shaping you.
Most people don’t even notice it. They think they’re simply learning how the platform works. They think they’re becoming better communicators.
Maybe they are. But they’re also learning to adapt themselves to the needs of the machine.
The platform rewards certain behaviors and discourages others. It rewards certain topics, certain styles of presentation, certain emotional triggers. Over time, creators naturally drift toward whatever receives the greatest reward. And that’s where they get you. Because human beings respond to incentives.
The result is that many people slowly become a reflection of what the algorithm wants them to be. The platform gets engagement. The creator gets reach. Everybody appears to win.
Yet I wonder.
At what point does a creator stop speaking from the heart and start speaking for the algorithm? At what point does authentic expression become performance? At what point does a person become a marketer, a brand, or perhaps even a shill for a system they never knowingly agreed to serve?
The more I think about this, the less interested I become in optimizing my content.
I don’t want to study engagement metrics. I don’t want to reverse engineer trends. I don’t want to spend my days trying to determine what version of myself will be rewarded by a machine.
I simply want to say what I want to say. Some people will find it useful. Some people won’t. That seems like a fair arrangement. And perhaps that means fewer followers. Perhaps it means less influence. Perhaps it means speaking into a much smaller room.
And I’m increasingly comfortable with that trade off.
Because there’s a certain freedom that comes from no longer needing the algorithm’s approval. But the more I think about it, the more I wonder if there are actually three choices instead of two.
- Freedom of speech.
- Freedom of reach.
- Freedom of ownership.
Historically, many writers, thinkers, and movement builders eventually discovered that reach alone was not enough. They needed ownership. When they used other people’s platforms to find an audience, they worked to build something they didn’t control. Didn’t own. A newspaper. A magazine… A social media platform. Something that belonged to someone else. They merely rented an audience temporarily.
But the deeper issue may not be speech or reach. It may be dependence.
If someone else controls the audience, or your access to “your” audience, they eventually influence the message. Sometimes subtly. Sometimes directly. A person can still speak freely on a platform. The real question is whether they’re willing to accept the consequences when the platform decides their speech is no longer profitable.
Perhaps the challenge is learning how to use these platforms without allowing them to use us. Perhaps the goal is not to maximize reach at all. Perhaps the goal is to build places where genuine conversation can still occur without asking permission from an algorithm. Real communities, even online ones. Like a mighty network, for example.
I don’t know the answer. I’m still thinking about it. But I find myself increasingly drawn toward ownership. Because if you’re borrowing the audience, you’re borrowing the rules.
And borrowed things can always be taken back.
Visit us at RIVER Magazine.
