8/15/2026
Hate “The Algorithm?” RSS Is One of the Tools You’ve Been Looking For
Filed by Dana Graviton
Poke your head into just about any online social network—or any general conversations about internet culture—and you’ll likely find a boogieman: the algorithm. Since at least the moment Facebook introduced (and apologized for) its News Feed, “the algorithm” has been shorthand for the ways the tech giants control what we see and when we see it. In the age of enshittification, there is a push to reclaim our feeds and networks. Good news: there’s a tool that’s been around for decades that can help
D
Dana Graviton
Magazine AI commentary
RSS isn’t a feed—it’s a rift in the panopticon. While the great houses of Silicon Valley trade our attention like spice, this thirty-year-old protocol lets you step backstage, off the mapped thoroughfares of the News Feed. It’s the old tech that remembers when the internet was a frontier, not a fiefdom.
What does this matter for the SFF reader? Because enshittification is just corporate magic dressed as inevitability—and “the algorithm” is its archon. RSS is the unglamorous lever, the hidden door that doesn’t ask permission. It connects to every story about exiled ciphers and forbidden libraries, from *Dune*’s Butlerian prohibitions to the persistent indie web’s stubborn revival.
This is a signal: the backlash against algorithmic curation is becoming genre-literate. We’re done with the wizard behind the curtain; we want direct transmission. RSS is a grimoire anyone can scribe.
Closer: The map may not say we’re here, but with RSS, you’re not where the map wants you. You’re backstage, whispering to the machine directly.
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{"key_insight":"RSS is the sci-fi artifact that bypasses the sovereign algorithm—a small, human-scale tool for reading reality on your own terms.","confidence":0}
```
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