Meta did the same when it launched Meta Verified, a subscription service that promised it would provide paying users with “increased visibility and reach.” But in his typically crass way, Musk was just making obvious what was always the case for his industry.

(Musk denies having done so.) This might seem to say more about Musk’s vanity than about social media in its entirety. Last month, Elon Musk reportedly had his engineers alter Twitter’s algorithm so that it fed his own tweets to the platform’s users, whether they followed him or not. Lately, this deception has become more transparent. Algorithmic timelines quietly replaced chronological ones, until our social-media feeds no longer took direction from us, but rather directed us where they wanted us to go.

Over time, though, the sites were carefully calibrated to filter what users saw-regardless of their stated preferences-in order to manipulate their attention and keep them on the platform. Platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter enticed countless users to join with the promise that they could see everything their friends or favorite celebrities posted in one convenient location.

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