Debates

Who Invited That Guy?

Plus: Algorithms 101

Team Citizens

Mar 30, 2025 — 4 min read

Photo: Getty Images

Dear Citizen,

Look, who hasn’t shared national security secrets with a journalist? It happens! This was the week Signal... entered the chat, sending the incels and fringe bros into a frenzy. But fear not! It’s also the week that friend-of-the-Citizens Tayna O’Carroll beat the tech bros, reaching a settlement with Meta to not use her data for targeted advertising. We can do this!

Here’s what to read, watch and do this week…

# THE BRAINS TRUST: IN THE DRIVER'S SEAT #

How, actually, do social media algorithmic feeds work? In a new paper for the Knight First Amendment Center at Columbia University, and this incredibly useful X thread, super smart Board member, researcher and former DoJ technologist Laura Edelson explains, using cars as an analogy…

Just as different vehicles are built for different environments and different purposes, social media companies’ business models drive the design decisions that algorithm designers make. Also, like cars, sometimes the best choices for safety aren’t the most profitable ones. But just like cars, and pharmaceuticals, and planes and all technology - we CAN make social media safer. And knowing how it works, and measuring it, is the first step.

Laura and her colleagues have developed a framework for measuring and explaining algorithms in this ambitious project, and created “feed cards” - illustrations that show how the leading platforms are using (or mis-using) algorithms. Dig in here:

# ONE CLICK: BOY OH BOY #

We knew the “manosphere” was bad. But in her column in the New York Times today, Rachel Louise Snyder digs into recent research from Dublin City University and finds that things are even worse -

In the report, researchers created sock-puppet accounts — fake accounts registered as teenage boys — to determine how quickly misogynistic videos show up in users’ TikTok and YouTube feeds. It took under nine minutes for TikTok to offer troubling content to their fake 16-year-old boys, which later included explicitly anti-feminist and anti-L.G.B.T.Q. videos. Much of the content blamed women and trans people for the standing they believe men have lost in the world. More extreme content appeared within 23 minutes. Male supremacy videos intersected with reactionary right-wing punditry within two or three hours.

It’s well beyond Tik Tok. “Phrases like “women are property” and “gay people are mentally ill” are no longer violations of conduct at Meta,” Synder writes. “The fringe went mainstream, and then became the U.S. government.”

It’s a sobering but important read:

# ONE ACTION: HANDS OFF! #

Got plans for April 5th? You do now. Across America, hundreds of rallies are planned, a National Day of Action to tell Donald Trump and Elon Musk “hands off” rights, essential services and more. Co-organized by some of the leading advocacy groups, next Saturday promises to be a big day to fight back.

Find or host an event here. Not in the US? Spread the word in solidarity here.