Medium thinks it’s doing something for me. I think it’s doing something to me.

Medium, Twitter, Facebook before it, Google, Yahoo and all the other social websites provide us with what they say are things we’d like to read but, are they really things we’d like to read or, are they things they’d like us to read?

How can any of them know what I want to read? Even I don’t know what I want to read. The internet used to be a place to explore, lists, menus, drop down menus, page after page of things to find, things to discover, things to read or ignore, accept or reject, remember or forget.

Then the web got social.

Now, instead of menus and things to discover I get suggestions and recommendations and reading lists, things people I’ve never met think I should read, things people I’ve never met want me to read, things people I’ve never met want me to accept. Nobody lets me see a menu anymore, a list of everything they’ve got, so I can follow my own inclinations, read what I want and believe what I will.

If I wanted someone to tell me what to read and believe, I could go back to third grade, not fourth because, by then I’d already blown off the people trying to control my thoughts.

Is that what Medium and Twitter and Facebook and the rest are about, thought control? Because that’s how it feels, how it seems, how it looks to me; thought control.

That’s why I think Medium isn’t doing something for me. It’s doing something to me. That’s why I’d like Medium to rethink itself, give me a menu and trust me to roam on my own, without their guidance. Not only do I not want an artificial intelligence filter telling me what to read, I don’t even want a human intelligence filtering me.

Please give it up. I’m a big boy now.