Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey just dropped a truth bomb, stating that social media algorithms aren’t actually serving you—they’re straight up controlling and “programming you”. This footage of Dorsey, taken from a speech he gave at the Africa Bitcoin Conference 2024, has recently resurfaced, and it truly is something else to hear the former head of one of the world’s biggest social media platforms admit exactly how the system works.
It’s a candid look behind the curtain of platforms like the one now called X, and frankly, it confirms what many of us have suspected all along. The whole thing boils down to the old adage: if you’re using a free service, you’re the product. Dorsey broke down the mechanics of this during the conference, explaining that every little thing you do on the platform is essentially free labor for the company.
It’s not just about reaching your audience when you hit that post button; you’re feeding the machine. “You’re actually doing work for that company for free,” Dorsey said. Every time you tap the heart button, like a post, or hit retweet, “that’s a signal to an algorithm.”
You are helping your own social media addiction
What are those algorithms doing with all that free labor, you ask? Well, it’s not to make your online experience better or to ensure you see the most important news of the day. According to Dorsey, the goal is purely mercenary. He stated, “All of these algorithms predominantly are only focused on increasing the number of impressions, and the reason why, is that increases the number of advertising revenue”.
It was never about fostering a beautiful, globe-spanning community; it was about creating a massive, highly efficient data-collection machine to sell ads better. This isn’t just some abstract business model, either—it’s a strategy that has evolved into a whole new generation of wearable AI products that pretend to be your “friend” but are actually just collecting data constantly.
Dorsey went on to explain why this mechanism is particularly dangerous, and it all comes down to its impact on your mind. If an algorithm is deciding what you see, it’s deciding what you care about. “I should not be reliant upon Google’s algorithm to tell me what I should pay attention to, because they’re programming you,” he warned. TikTok works similarly, and Facebook is constantly upping its own to work better.
The content stream you scroll through isn’t random; it’s a carefully curated feed designed to keep you engaged, and that level of control is pretty unsettling. He also pointed out that this isn’t a static problem; the goalposts can move at any time. Dorsey continued, warning that the companies “can change that algorithm at any point and program you in a different way, and they have in the past, and they will continue to do so”. It’s a constant, invisible form of influence, and you’re just along for the ride.
