From Hacker News to TikTok - How Algorithms Learned to Hook Us

2026-03-02

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Corey told me about his AI cat reel problem. He found these AI-genearted cat videos hilarious. Who makes these? He kept sending them to his wife. Then he tried to stop watching and he couldn't. So I went down the rabbit hole of how social media algorithms actually work. It starts simple. Upvote, downvote, sort by time. But by 2017 Facebook has a metric that quietly reshapes what two billion people see. Then a leaked playbook lands, and a CEO takes the stand in Los Angeles. Today is an investigation into what happens when the...

Corey told me about his AI cat reel problem. He found these AI-genearted cat videos hilarious. Who makes these? He kept sending them to his wife. Then he tried to stop watching and he couldn't.

So I went down the rabbit hole of how social media algorithms actually work. It starts simple. Upvote, downvote, sort by time. But by 2017 Facebook has a metric that quietly reshapes what two billion people see. Then a leaked playbook lands, and a CEO takes the stand in Los Angeles.

Today is an investigation into what happens when the algorithm knows you better than you know yourself.

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