C. Thi Nguyen talking about how we let others define meaning for us:

Someone says, “Here’s a watch. It measures your health.” And if you accept that, you’re letting someone else — maybe like Apple [for example] — define what health means for you. And they typically define it by what is easy for one of their devices to measure cheaply.

John Stewart on algorithms and social media:

the one place where speech isn’t free [is social media]. It’s speech incentivized for engagement and profit...social media is a machine designed to stimulate the reptilian parts of your brain that would otherwise beg you to go outside.

He continues:

social media is free speech in the way that Doritos are food: it’s ultra-processed, it’s designed in laboratories, it’s the same mechanism that somehow convinced you you should eat a [whole can of pringles]