Much has been said about the (in)famous algorithms #Facebook and #Google. These algorithms are supposedly so advanced and so complicated that no one, not even the people who developed them, understand their behaviour. I never really believed the claim, but until yesterday I also never really paid attention to it. Yesterday I watched @KaceyMusgraves new video, ‘High Horse’, on Youtube. Youtube has this annoying feature called Autoplay. It automatically starts a new video after the one you just watched, supposedly on the basis of your preferences and viewing history. It’s bollocks! A hoax! Fake news! I know that for sure because after the Kacey Musgraves video Youtube suggested ‘Apes..t’ by The Carters. Not only have I never watched The Carters or #Beyonce or #Jay-Z on Youtube, I even find Beyonce the most overrated artist on this planet, and I’m always quite surprised that so many otherwise intelligent music critics seem to like her a lot. My appreciation of Jay-Z is only slightly more positive. I guess they are a nice couple in a world hungry for celebrity. To suggest ‘Apes..t’ after I Just played Kacey Musgraves is frankly quite stupid. It means that Google has no clue which songs I have in my playlists or, and that is far more likely, they don’t care and just want to push The Carters. That’s no advanced algorithm, that’s just good old marketing; pushing a product to generate revenue.

It makes you wonder though. Every time someone watches a violent video, or one with a racist undertone, maybe something antisemitic, and #Google slowly sucks that person into more violent, more racist and more antisemitic videos, is that also just marketing, just making money? Did the would-be Hippies of Google take the advice of #FrankZappa and are they only in it for the money? Or are they followers of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill and only interested in morality after they satisfied their enormous appetite?