The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Imagine a town with two widget merchants. Customers prefer cheaper widgets, so the merchants must compete to set the lowest price.

"If you randomly follow the algorithm, you probably would consume less radical content using YouTube as you typically do!" So says Manoel Ribeiro, co-author of a new paper on YouTube's recommendation ...

Social media algorithms, in their commonly known form, are now 15 years old. They were born with Facebook’s introduction of ranked, personalised news feeds in 2009 and have transformed how we interact ...

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Aarushi Bhandari does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond ...