Facebook has become—or is more than ever—a morass of bullshit posts promoting or representing this or that, the Baltimore Orioles or the ASPCA. Blocking them becomes a game, an obsession even, and then of course there’s the dreadful realization you’re doing what they really wanted all along, instructing the machine who you are and how you behave by being you and doing what you do. There’s nothing you can do but flee, but you’re not going to do that, are you?

With every tap you feel more and more, I’m working for these motherfuckers now. I’m a data-providing machine. Telling the algorithm what you hate is just as valuable as telling it what you like. Maybe more.

Then you notice all the other posts, by your friends. They’re sharing the shit they’ve been told to follow. All we can do in the end is one of two things: block or follow. block or follow. The terms of the AI era have already been inverted: we humans are propagating content by machines.