Watching WOKE on Hulu ( @WokeHulu) and reading INTERSECTIONAL TECH by @KishonnaGray.

I noticed something interesting: A new definition of “algorithms.”
1/

Chat excerpt from INTERSECTIONAL TECH:

ChrisIsNice: We don’t need social media reminding us every minute that black lives don’t matter.

Smif&Wes: Just follow the stuff that ain’t all negative.

silentassasin321: Get ya algorithms right!

[All laughing]
2/

Ayana broke up with her girlfriend, WOKE, Episode 7:

Clovis: You wanna go ahead and talk about your girl?

Ayana: No I don’t, I just want to … fuck up her algorithms! Netflix, Hulu, all of that. So what do you think, 10 minutes of each of these shitty Lindsay Lohan movies?
3/

The CS prof in me says “these dummies don’t know what algorithms are.”

First, all the speakers are Black, so that would be a bad look.

Second, it would miss the interesting part. Their intended meaning is clear. It’s just not the traditional definition from CS class.
4/

CS definition of “algorithms”: Fixed computational recipes that I can study and analyze. The inputs and outputs may vary, but the recipes remain fixed.

Students learn about them, and think: one day, if I’m lucky, I’ll get to design my own.
6/

New definition of “algorithms”: Surveillance data of me, used to compute a shadow simulation of me, that's then fed back to me, so that I’ll generate more data.

It's all such an opaque monolith that calling it “algorithms” is an acceptable synecdoche.
7/

It’s a grim reflection on CS that people outside our field have converged on this definition.

If you work in CS, it’s worth asking: am I just a piece of intestine inside a coprophagic surveillance ouroboros?
8/

Alas, all this may be common knowledge to History of Science people ( @hssonline).

And, I may have been missing the double meaning in @safiyanoble's title ALGORITHMS OF OPPRESSION this whole time?!
9/