Algorithmic Literacy and Quotidian Curation Practices: Rethinking User Agency in the Social Media Regulation Era

Abstract

This paper examines the practices ordinary social media users employ to influence the content served to them by platform algorithms, and the relationship between these practices and levels of algorithmic literacy. Practices were documented across TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter (now X), YouTube and Reddit during 65 sessions, conducted as part of a digital ethnographic study of Australian social media users aged 18–30. The paper presents a taxonomy of curation practices, categorised as active or passive, and inviting or dissuading of content. The diversity of practices used by participants in the study points to a degree of user agency, exercised within proprietary algorithmic content systems, not previously explored in the literature. In the context of rising public concern about the harms of social media use, particularly to young people, and policy responses that focus on restricting access to social media, this paper offers a more nuanced account of user experiences online, foregrounding their agency, practical expertise and capacity to deploy protective strategies when engaging with algorithmically mediated content flows.