Ghosts in the Algorithmic System | Australian National University
Every scroll feels effortless. With a simple scroll, our screens are filled with an endless stream of user-generated content: TikTok videos, Twitter posts, and Instagram photos. The seemingly seamless delivery of such content from backend databases to users’ newsfeeds is often attributed to “the algorithm.” Drawing on long-term fieldwork inside a leading social media platform company in China, this talk shows that the algorithm is only one small node within a vast information infrastructure that sustains the circulation of digital content.