It’s well-known at this point that social media feeds can create an echo chamber or filter bubble: your For You page of choice is going to feed you content that it “thinks” you’ll like, rather than posts that you might disagree with.

During election years, this subject crops up again and again, showing that one person’s FYP might look wholly alien to another’s. For example, a Bernie-bro feminist cat dad’s feed will differ significantly from a MAGA tradwife influencer’s daily scroll.

As a society, we’ve largely accepted that this is a fact of life — it is the user’s responsibility to break through the bubble and, crucially, not believe everything that they read on the internet.

But why have we surrendered to the all-powerful algorithm?

Why is this the responsibility of the individual, rather than the company?

Why don’t we demand more control, or at the very least a better understanding, of how it works?

How do social media companies like Meta and ByteDance offer explanations and control over algorithmic feeds?