Freedom in a World of Algorithms

What does freedom really mean when your choices are shaped before you even make them?

Rousseau

In 1762, the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau opened The Social Contract with a sentence that still resonates:

“Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.”

Today, we’d use more inclusive language — but the idea still hits home. It’s one of those deceptively simple lines that only grows heavier with time.

Rousseau wasn’t talking about physical chains. He meant the invisible ones: the norms, laws, systems, and expectations that shape our lives. In his time, those systems were kings, churches, and empires. In ours? It’s feeds, notifications, algorithms, and platforms.

These chains don’t confine us by force. They guide us by suggestion. They flatter our tastes, mimic our desires, and gently nudge us toward things we didn’t know we needed. We feel free — but the terrain was mapped out for us in advance.

If Rousseau were here today, he might not ask who governs us — but whatgoverns us.

The Illusion of Choice

You check your phone to look up the weather — and twenty minutes later, you’ve watched six videos, liked a stranger’s post, checked the price of something you weren’t planning to buy, and completely forgotten what you were doing in the first place.

That’s not just distraction. That’s design.

We like to think we’re choosing freely — but are we? In a world driven by predictive algorithms, curated content, and behavioural nudges, it’s worth asking whether we’re really deciding anything at all.

Or are we just reacting to what’s been chosen for us?

The Two Faces of Freedom

In a 1958 lecture, philosopher Isaiah Berlin introduced the idea of two kinds of liberty:

• Negative freedom: freedom from interference. No one telling you what to do. No gatekeepers. No restrictions.

• Positive freedom: the freedom to shape your own life — to act with intention, to grow, to live according to your values.

By the first definition, we’re freer than ever. No one’s stopping us from clicking, swiping, posting, sharing. The internet feels like a playground.

But Berlin would urge us to look closer. Because freedom from interference isn’t the same as freedom from manipulation.

Our feeds don’t just offer us options — they gently narrow them. Our behaviours aren’t just expressed — they’re predicted. And if our choices are being shaped by data models we’ll never see, can we really call them our own?

Maybe we’re not acting out of deep intention, but out of habit. Or comfort. Or emotional design.

In that sense, we may be free from constraint — but not to fully decide who we are, or how we live.

Power That Feels Like Permission

Michel Foucault had a name for this kind of control — the kind that doesn’t force you, but shapes you so subtly you don’t realise it’s happening.

He warned that modern power doesn’t always look like repression. It looks like freedom. But it’s freedom with guardrails. Freedom inside a cage shaped like your comfort zone.

That’s how algorithmic power works. It doesn’t punish. It personalises. It doesn’t silence. It floods. It doesn’t demand — it suggests. And it does it so well that we thank it for doing so.

The feed already knows what video will calm us, what headline will enrage us, what product we’ll click on at 11:30pm when we can’t sleep. When it gets it right, we feel seen — and that’s exactly what makes it powerful.

Because when power feels like being understood, it becomes harder to question.

You’re not being pushed. You’re being steered. And that’s much harder to resist.

Responsibility and the Burden of Freedom

Jean-Paul Sartre believed that we are always free — even when we try to pretend we’re not.

And with that freedom comes something uncomfortable: responsibility. For our choices. For our actions. For who we become.

But freedom, Sartre knew, is a heavy thing. It’s much easier to say, “I had no choice.” That’s what he called bad faith — the lie we tell ourselves when we give up our agency because it’s easier than carrying it.

And today, that lie is built into our daily lives.

We scroll, we click, we consume — and it feels effortless. But is it choice? Or is it just us playing out a script that’s been designed around our fears, habits, and impulses?

Are we really free if we don’t stop to ask why we’re choosing what we’re choosing?

Sartre might argue that freedom doesn’t vanish in the digital age — but our awareness of it does. And when we stop noticing, we start surrendering.

The New Shape of Control

Algorithms don’t just respond to us — they shape us.

• You follow a few accounts, and your worldview narrows.

• You click on one conspiracy-adjacent video, and the platform lines up a dozen more.

• You search for one opinion piece, and suddenly that opinion is everywhere.

You feel affirmed. But also filtered. Fed. Framed.

It’s not totalitarian. It’s not overt censorship. It’s something quieter — and more efficient: a kind of freedom that slowly shrinks your range of motion.

So What Does Freedom Look Like Now?

Maybe freedom today isn’t just about fighting for privacy or logging off completely. Maybe it’s about awareness.

It starts with small pauses:

• Why did I click on that?

• Who decided this was what I should see?

• What’s being left out?

Even noticing is a kind of resistance. So is asking questions. So is choosing the harder path — the slower scroll, the off-screen hour, the uncomfortable conversation.

Final Thoughts: Why did I write this?

Not to offer neat answers or rehearse yet another digital doom narrative — but to pause. To reflect. Because in a world of invisible systems and constant nudges, even reflection is a kind of resistance.

This isn’t just about what we buy or binge-watch. It’s about what we believe. How we vote. Who we trust. Algorithms don’t just recommend shoes — they recommend worldviews. The feed doesn’t just push entertainment — it shapes political identity. Slowly, subtly, it sorts us into echo chambers, amplifies outrage, and filters reality through a lens we didn’t ask for but end up accepting.

And when public discourse becomes fractured — when facts become relative, and truth feels optional — democracy starts to erode. How can we make informed choices when the information itself is shaped by clickbait, manipulation, or flat-out lies?

If we care about freedom, we have to care about what shapes our minds. That means not just paying attention, but questioning what we’re shown. Checking sources. Validating facts. Not believing everything that’s pushed at us just because it feels right or confirms what we already think.

Because the freedom to think, to choose, to participate — it doesn’t disappear all at once. It dissolves, click by click, post by post.

Stay curious. Question the feed. Seek out voices beyond your bubble. Real freedom begins when we choose to think beyond what’s handed to us.