if they’re going to decide what we get to see and what we don’t get to see, then we need to make sure that they’re not just keyed to relevance but th… - Michiko Kakutani

Because social media sites give us information that tends to confirm our view of the world — what Pariser calls “an endless you-loop” — people live in increasingly narrow content silos and correspondingly smaller walled gardens of thought.

If a novelist had concocted a villain like Trump—a larger-than-life, over-the-top avatar of narcissism, mendacity, ignorance, prejudice, boorishness, demagoguery, and tyrannical impulses... [one] would likely be accused of extreme contrivance and implausibility. ...less like a persuasive character than some manic cartoon artist's mashup... But the more clownish aspects of Trump ...should not blind us to the monumentally serious consequences of his assault on truth and the rule of law, and the vulnerabilities he has exposed in our institutions and digital communications.

More and more, your computer monitor is a kind of one-way mirror, reflecting your own interests while algorithmic observers watch what you click.