Horizontal Navigation: Against Algorithmizing

Browsing websites has ceased to be a conventional practice today. The simple act of typing a URL into your browser’s address bar and pressing enter seems to have become obsolete. For someone who grew up in the 1990s, this might be surprising. That decade was the period of the first popular contact with the network, where the basic idea that the internet would be the most free, democratic, and access-facilitating medium was absorbed. Something that would revolutionize our entire ideal of horizontal communication. Indeed, at that time, there were not all the barriers that exist today. There, I think the most hegemonic thing that existed could perhaps be the big portals like AOL, UOL, Terra, etc., and in contrast, there was a mix of plural tools beginning to be used, such as a free encyclopedia called Wikipedia, dozens of niche forums, Mirc, and the beginning of instant messaging systems, P2P applications like SoulSeek, eMule, Kazaa, etc. In short, a new world is to be discovered by excited people.

In this context, the network seemed to facilitate the formation of breaches in the formal structures of control, opening the margin to evoke the well-known temporary autonomous zones of Hakim Bey. An environment of free exchange, dissemination, and organization that fit perfectly in the wake of the expansion of autonomist movements. We can exemplify here using all communication and dissemination of information regarding the Zapatista Uprising in Chiapas from 1994 or the horizontal organization of demonstrations against the WTO meeting that occurred in Seattle in 1999. Parallel to this, it also enabled the acceleration of discussions for a conceptual renewal in established left-wing politics. Definitely, the web excited those who dreamed of an equity of voices and greater access to information.

However, after this first public contact with the internet, the logic begins to change. As we approached the millennium transition, the speculative bubble of Nasdaq kept inflating, inflating, inflating, and BOOM! Although it burst, it was already possible to see who wanted digital governance from then on. It was time for the money guys to arrive at the digital public square, and with the landing of bankers, investors, and businessmen in the game, there was a new rule: everything needed to be monetized or monetizable. All that free field full of creative potential now had to generate and encourage consumption. Here it is worth quoting a famous phrase from Milton Santos:

“Never in the history of humanity have there been technical and scientific conditions so adequate to build a world of human dignity; it happens that these conditions have been usurped by a handful of companies that decided to build a perverse world. It is up to us to make these material conditions the material condition of the production of another politics.”

 

Oligarchizing and Encroachment

Summing up this quick contextualization of three decades: we were monopolized. To be more precise: oligarchized. This escaped our control due to the power of a small group of entrepreneurs who were treated as geniuses in the media (overwhelmingly white men and now billionaires). We saw basically a process of assimilation in the 2000s followed by another process now of algorithmizing in the 2010s which would perfectly adapt the network to the interests of capital with coating and finishing done by advertising. Initially, it didn’t seem like it would be this way. Maybe we were being deceived, or indeed there was a loophole that the development of algorithms rushed to solve. Right during the establishment of social networks in the early 2010s, we saw flourishing perspectives of organizations for rights and against despotism and social injustices such as the use of Facebook in the Arab Spring with a spark that from Tunisia extended to various countries in North Africa and the Middle East. In Spain, there was the 15-M, idealized by the digital civil platform ¡Democracia Real Ya! and organized via social networks. In the USA, the use of Facebook and Reddit to organize the Occupy Wall Street movement. In Brazil, before the fateful June 2013, protests were organized such as the ‘churrascão de gente diferenciada’ in the Higienópolis neighborhood after residents signed a petition to stop the construction of the subway, a form of protest that reminded of the Provos in 1960s Amsterdam. The use of digital means indeed still seemed to serve as an extension of the expressions of our concrete life. An interesting example in relation to this was the ‘rolêzinhos’, meetings organized by young people that counted with expressive numbers of participants occupying places like shopping centers, parks, or public squares. That is, apparently, the whole artifact of simulacrum where digital life is self-nourished had not yet been birthed. The contact with the real, with concrete experience, still seemed to be the main service of this web environment.

After the wave of insurgencies in the mid-2010s, we can observe a strong advance in algorithms. Now with the apparent intention of generating such great redundancy within the digital experience that indeed this experience self-nourishes, detaches, and does not essentially depend on lived experiences. New processes of semiotization and subjectification in our way of navigating, providing inputs for the conquest of our psyche in exchange for profit provided by the average increase in screen time consumption. The dehumanization of the user. Goodbye, leisure. Goodbye to the poetics of the analogical imaginary. As support, a quote from Andityas Matos in ‘Beyond Biopolitics’:

“Exiled from themselves by themselves through complex (de) subjectification devices – Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, Netflix, Instagram, etc. – current humans are not exactly ‘subjects.’ The processes of (de) subjectification that result from them are not effective so that they may enjoy potency or release it but to keep the empty place of the subject intact, akin to a mold to be completely filled by works that generate more and more karma.”

 

Algorithmic Dominion

Here we are, scrolling an infinite timeline without having total control over what is recommended to us. Valuing humans by the extent of their influence is counted by the number of their followers and not—exactly—by their competencies. Reproducing objectification based on consumption and deifying characters with whom we will never have any concrete relationship. (De)energized for being conditioned to addiction to small digital crumbs just by trying to fit in and reproduce the prevailing patterns. Finally, redefining our communication, now not based on our concrete experience but on the very digital unfolding themselves.

Every day, more studies link both screen time and the use of social networks to the growth of psychic problems among the population. Brazil has alarming data in this regard since the average time in front of screens is the second highest in the world, behind only South Africa in the Digital 2023: Global Overview Report from DataReportal, which considered 45 countries around the globe. The World Health Organization (WHO) itself revealed that Brazil has the population with the highest prevalence of anxiety disorder in the world in its last mapping of mental disorders. We just need to connect the dots.

In the sixteenth century, La Boétie exposed the loss of the desire for freedom by humans in his classic ‘Discourse on Voluntary Servitude.’ Five centuries later, here we are with individuals conditioned to what the algorithm determines as interesting to maintain user engagement. A regime of voluntary servitude was generated precisely due to a lack of lucidity about the artificiality of these contents. Well, maybe it is really complicated to have clarity about this since the topics are perfectly personalized for each individual. Unlike our forgotten memory, all data related to the usage experience such as decisions, likes, clicks, comments, shares, viewing time, etc., are stored and constantly used in this forge.

Moreover, the algorithm’s design is to keep its contingent addicted to the app or service via ‘immediate pleasure’, which ends up leading to the prioritization of the display of appealing material. Well-built bodies, infantilized dances, and various other egoic disfigurements endorse the idea of the reproducibility of this type of content so that its own users remain active and do not fall into the much-feared limbo of ostracism, thus reinforcing the idea that a forgotten profile becomes an isolated person. Regarding this addiction, let’s go with Mark Fisher in the famous ‘Capitalist Realism’:

“Just like Burroughs, Spinoza shows that, far from being an aberrant condition, addiction is the normal state for humans, habitually enslaved in reactive and repetitive behaviors by frozen images (of themselves and the world). Freedom, Spinoza shows, is something that can only be achieved when we are able to recognize the real causes of our actions and when we can set aside the ‘sad passions’ that intoxicate and numb us.”

 

Line of Flight: Refusal to Conform

After the consolidation and success, the algorithms seem to start showing signs of wear. Like every formula that establishes itself, they already seem to have reached their plateau, and maybe this is the moment when we can find a crack for rupture. As usually happens in the cycles of aesthetic regimes, user publications that recently seemed detached now begin to lean towards the tacky. The form becomes obsolete. The means adopted as a strategy to invest in the extraordinary (influencers and accounts with high numbers of followers and engagement) may see the exodus of the ordinary (mass of users) that fed them.

The very action of informing oneself via social networks seems to have become a trap since the headlines consider much more a passionate character to move affection than any informative intent in itself. With this, by becoming aware of this modus operandi of the algorithms and how we are instrumentalized in order to generate more revenue and control, we can exercise a prerogative that scares them: refusal. Refusal to superficiality. Refusal to conditioned forms. Positively encouraging dedicated production and artisanal content.

Possibly due to an inclination related to my profession as a web designer, I believe that to manage (initially) to exercise this refusal and tame social networks, the first move could be to prioritize horizontal navigation via decentralized websites and services again. We have at our disposal a plethora of pages of organizations, news, brands, collectives, services, and businesses, all with enormous plurality. And most importantly: with their content arranged in the fullness of its form. That is, arranged exactly the way they were designed and not adapted and reduced to a post immersed in an ocean of other competing posts. Each one is different from the other, all with their own life. Thus, managing to escape the monopolizing logic and the imposition of a format that conditions content within the same layout, within the same timeline, with the usual dimensions. Evoking again that we cannot live without creation and experimentation.

Websites and portals already offer much deeper expressions than the superficiality of social networks. To operationalize this refusal to the eternal scroll, we could select a few news portals that we sympathize with and access them once a day from an organized favorites bar, for example. Or even subscribe to the newsletters of these portals if we prefer that the content arrive passively. This is a refusal. As is also refusing a ready playlist from Spotify or a featured film on Netflix, prioritizing suggestions from researchers, specialists, friends, or anyone who seems to have good references.

It would be hard to believe immediately that there is a total rupture in the way information is consumed. This is gradual and comes in waves. But it is possible that this type of practice of horizontal navigation can lead to a good dosage of the use of these means, avoiding that they self-feed by enchanting users in their own unconscious movements. That is, with the awareness of what is consumed, with what intents and motivations, we could put a network like Instagram or ‘Xwitter’ back in its initial place: as a means and not as an end.

—

This text idea emerged in the context of the redesign and restructuring work on the Veneno radio website, where I felt fulfilled for having the maximum creative freedom to perform. Veneno.live is a great example of resistance because all its programming and its content are refined with zeal and ample authorial freedom. The renewed site has been live since March; I hope you enjoy the experience.

—

Vitor Zanirato is a journalism graduate and founder of the design studio ANTNNA. In addition, he organizes Sismo, an audiovisual collective and music label.

The text was revised and translated into English by Rafa Toledo, founder and organizer of VENENO LIVE.

—

References for text production:

Adam Curtis – Século do Ego (documentário da BBC)
Andityas Matos – Para Além da Biopolítica
Digital 2023:Global Overview Report da DataReportal- https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2023-global-overview-report
Hakim Bey – Zona Autônoma Temporária
Jacques Ranciere – Tempos Modernos
Julian Assange – Cypherpunks
La Boétie – Discurso Sobre a Servidão Voluntária
Mark Fischer – Realismo Capitalista
Maurizio Lazzarato – O Intolerável do Presente, A Urgência da Revolução
Milton Santos (parte no documentário O Mundo Global Visto do Lado de Cá)
Noam Chomsky – Mídia
Subcomandante Galeano – Contra a Hidra Capitalista
Vilém Flusser – O Mundo Codificado