It's Not Me, It's My Algorithm: A Conversation w Claire Wardle About Breaking Through Our Echo Chambers

They’re the invisible forces steering what we see every day and shaping what we trust.
Algorithms, now supercharged by AI, don’t just feed us information. They feed us emotion — suspicion, outrage, validation — and, maybe most dangerously, only the content they think we want to see.

Today, we’re talking with an expert about how we got here and where we’re heading.

With trust in institutions, public health, and science under constant attack, how much of that is the algorithm’s fault? And how much is on us?

How are memes, ricocheting through our media ecosystems, changing the very nature of political communication?

And as user-facing AI begins to learn from these same algorithms, will it start tailoring its answers to match what it thinks we want to hear?

If that’s our future, how do we hold on to what little remains of our shared facts and shared reality?

Hosts:

Brinda Adhikari

Tom Johnson

Maggie Bartlett

Dr. Mark Abdelmalek

Guest:

Claire Wardle, co founder of the Information Futures Lab at Brown University as well as the non profit First Draft, meant to study and navigate what she calls “information disorder." Claire is currently an associate professor of communications at Cornell University.

Definition, from Oxford Language Dictionary

DVD: a type of compact disc able to store large amounts of data, especially high-resolution audiovisual material.

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Chapters

• 0:17 Intro and headlines: Our Algorithms and Echo Chambers
• 4:13 What Are Algorithms and How Did We Get Here?
• 15:27 Introducing Claire Wardle!
• 16:24 How Influential Are Algorithms?
• 21:28 MAHA and Public Health Examples of Algorithm and Echo Chambers
• 29:06 Is It the Algorithms or Is It Us?
• 34:54 What Is Scaring Claire in the Algorithm Space?
• 38:47 AI and Algorithmic Behavior
• 44:29 Is the Answer to Fact Check Our Way Through This?
• 50:05 Pros and Cons to Transparency
• 52:24 Trump Administration and This Information Moment
• 57:19 Does the Solution Lie with Tech Or with Us?
• 1:00:06 Thank you for joining us!