End algorithmic control
“Our music, our passions, the connections we form, the fans we lose, are all lost because of the control these tech companies have over us. The next generation is taking down the walled garden we have all been under for 10 long years. The control must end, it must fall like the great wall that separated two countries long ago. The human spirit can’t be pushed down forever. It has become akin to 1984.”
“There is a great divide separating us online”, the musician cannot find their fanbase, that once attainable organic group of people who are interested naturally in your craft. The artist who paints, or the filmmaker who directs, the creator who invents and wants to reach their audience. From the small business owner who wants to sell her flowers, or trinkets online to a fresh list of people. The once free Internet that we all had is now controlled. We are in a walled garden. Even our thoughts are encased in a digital prison. – Imagine if you will your home being boarded up with barriers on all sides, and you can’t talk to your neighbor, you can’t find new friends in that coffee shop, because they install cubicles that reach the top of the ceiling. This is digital tyranny and we have to get the word out and let others know what is happening.
WEATNU for 10 years has spoken out about the unfair music industry, and we are the new underground. We are musicians, the artists the people that these systems are hiding, one from each other and also from groups who may find them by discovery alone.
The tech giants that all came up like skyscrapers around our fair city, the old internet are now in full control over our daily lives. We – live and play – online, and we pay our ISPs for this, but these companies are not playing by the rules. They funnel our posts, our music, our links, our passions and our purposes into a computer program that dictates and directs where and who should see what we have posted on social media, YouTube, Instagram, and the like.
People rely on these companies because it’s all we have, and because there is no way around this, they are controlling their user-base by unethical means, they change the algorithm just when you think you have it understood; there is ‘no’ transparency. The rulebook is closed and no one knows the secret.
We have been whittled down to ‘content creators‘ the very things we love to do are hindered, hidden and lost to a sea of 1’s and 0’s online, only to be fed into a machine that Google, Facebook, TikTok, even Twitter, which have all the cards, hold all the power and where people use ‘with good faith’ that their posts and passions will be seen for all. They are walled off from their friends and even their families by showing them a feed of useless garbage to distract them, so that shareholders are appeased.
The artist has no way to break free, no way to expand and show their works to others. The Internet didn’t use to be this way, it was a free enterprise, where thoughts and uniqueness was upheld. Now we have no freedom to speak of. Musicians are without a fanbase, and fans likewise without new music. We have to fight to be heard, more than we should, or attain viral status which is absurd. We are fed ‘cookie cutter’ artists who seem to rise to the top, instead of the next Prince or Bowie. We aren’t allowed to find natural progression to make a simple living from our works.
Where are the leaders of the new music? Where did pop culture go? The musician needs to be heard, and WEATNU has been fighting for 10 years to help them. This is no different, and it is a hope that the word is spread far and wide to get them heard. Congress needs to know how much control these tech monopolies really have over us. The algorithm is hurting the arts and art is needed in a dull and dismal world.
There are studies being done on the effects that this level of control is having over society in a whole. Entire generations are leaving that world and going back to simple tech, just to have a normal existence.
Where do we go to share our music and art, music videos and films we put intense passion into?
It is hard to say, but until these barriers are removed, we have little to no freedom.
The websites of tomorrow are our last hope.
Almark – #WEATNU Digital Magazine – March 2025