Algorithms are designed to be customized. Because news is an important pillar of consumption, it is included in everyone's personally tailored algorithm and is an integral part of the media umbrella that plays a role in most people's daily routine. So when people's algorithms start to shift, heads are bound to turn.
TikTok was scheduled to shut down on Jan. 19, and ended up being blocked the day before. The reason for the ban was based on national security threats from its ties to China, but users argued that the benefits of the platform outweighed the downfalls — it provided financial security, discovery of art and a source of connection for its users.
READ MORE: TikTok's battle for survival: The app's ban and Trump's new order
12 hours after its fateful goodbye, TikTok reemerged, but not in a way that users expected.
As Trump's inauguration had aligned with TikTok's shutdown, a flurry of political protests happened in the streets — not only in America but around the world. Despite this bout of activism, Americans' TikTok feeds were oddly silent.
TikTok isn't just a place to practice activism — it's a place to consume it. Americans not being able to see what their fellow citizens are doing is a form of censorship.
But this is only the beginning, as some speculate online. Some users found they were automatically following the new White House staff once the positions had been replaced, something that occurred last presidency switch, and some even claimed that they had to try to unfollow multiple times to ensure the switch.
Some even claimed that phrases like "Free Luigi" and "Free Palestine" were banned since TikTok's quick rise and fall.
Many TikTok users have resorted to regaining control over their feeds.
"I noticed a lot of people talk about how they aren't following certain political leaders that they were beforehand — they had to go in and follow and block and restrict certain people so that they would have a better algorithm," said Emily Pavan Carranza, a sophomore studying emergency management and homeland security. "With the shutdown, it was kind of an eye-opener of the power and control we have in our state and economy."
Users have also had to come up with new code words to speak about issues described by words that are censored. When immigration-related words started to become censored as ICE deportations increased, "cute winter boots" became a euphemism for discussing, questioning, documenting and providing resources for planned raids on undocumented immigrants by the U.S. Department of Immigration.
The algorithm reconstruction isn't a new concept — it's just been made even more extreme.
We are already sucked into echo chambers of information on social media where we are constantly fed what we want, never getting exposure to other perspectives, instead being assimilated into a very polarized world. TikTok is the perfect catalyst to produce this effect.
"(Social media) provides us with things that we may not have seen or thought about before ... it can (also) be very limiting in terms of what we're actually learning," said Marcella Gemelli, a teaching associate professor and Online Graduate Program director of sociology at The Sanford School.
Social media's addictive nature stems from how personalized our feeds are. TikTok is a double-edged sword: We get sucked into unhealthy patterns of doomscrolling because our feeds are cleverly designed to keep us coming back for more.
Seeing the same information again and again limits people from getting access to different perspectives and is a one-way ticket to worsening the polarization in our current political climate.
READ MORE: Escape into the algorithm: Taking the 'doom' out of doomscrolling
On the other hand, there is some value in the personalization of the algorithm. If we have access to an app that isn't very good for our mental well-being, we might as well be seeing content that speaks to us. Being spoon-fed an agenda not only facilitates polarization but is a legitimate form of censorship.
"It's so important that we're not just being spoon-fed everything, and that people are given the ability to look into what they want, know what they want and not have content that they don't want to see," said Emily Depperschmidt, a senior studying accounting. "That's kind of against the point of social media."
Edited by Andrew Dirst, Abigail Beck and Natalia Jarrett.
Reach the reporter at ebmosier@asu.edu and follow @eleribmosier on X.
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Eleri is a senior studying interdisciplinary studies, english and sociology. This is her third semester with The State Press. She has also worked in retail.
