Oh, this is nice. https://twitter.com/jessehawken/status/1361730636889935879

Something Scorsese doesn't touch upon which lit up for me in that passage like a warning flare--what does "the algorithm" do to us as a people? Does it widen divisions on Netflix as sure as it does on Facebook?

I'm going to talk about TV over cinema for a moment. In the decades before we had this absolute glut of "content," we didn't have the choices we have now. And so all families would sit down for Good Times or Chico and the Man or All in the Family.

And we got to "see in each other's houses," so to speak. Superficially, but the choice was no TV or TV that featured those outside of one's frame of reference. And people chose the latter. And it helped to humanize those who had been "othered."

Now, to our modern day and Netflix. And diversity, but not diversity. Netflix knows I'm black. Netflix knows I like sci-fi. Netflix will offer up Nollywood films and Afro-Latino series to me--which does widen my frame of reference. I also get a wide array of sci-fi.

Netflix has never, and likely will never, ask me if I want to see a western or a period drama. Or ask me if I want to see a Korean romance. And frankly, there may be one that I would absolutely love. But that trailer will never catch my eye. Because of the algorithm.

And I doubt very highly that some white dude in Iowa has been offered up the chance to watch Always a Witch or Fifty after finishing up Starship Troopers.

The algorithm kills possibility. Give us the chance to turn things down and be turned down. If it doesn't connect with certain people then those are the breaks, but we are being robbed of the chance to simply pitch.

Let me curate Netflix for myself the way I can Twitter (to some extent). Show me everything and then let me block as I so choose. And if I miss out on a good horror film? So be it. But at least I got to make that choice upfront for myself.