The “Algorithm”

It’s all bots and paid for…

Mills Baker, Substack’s head of design, said this recently on Notes:

“When users see more posts they ‘like,’ they tend to come back, go deeper, and pay for more Substacks—so the model also selects for posts people like, even if we don’t tell it to.”¹

Funny how that landed right when I noticed something strange.

My friend biologyphenom used to be huge on X—tons of views, shares, and likes—mostly posting summaries and videos from the Scottish Inquiry. Then, out of nowhere, banned in 2024. No reason given.² Now he’s here on Substack, still posting great stuff.

Yesterday he replied to my comment on his post about John Campbell’s latest Gain of Function / Nipah virus video³:

“John’s vid (which, let’s be honest, is very basic) is now approaching 1 MILLION views. The power of the algorithm.”⁴

Here’s the weird part: when I tried to “like” his reply, I couldn’t. Got an error message instead.

Then I see Mills talking about how the algorithm reacts to what people like—and I’m sitting there, unable to “like” this one specific reply.

Today it works again.

Coincidence? Maybe. But I can’t help wondering… would that “glitch” have been fixed if I hadn’t called attention to it?

I even asked Mills about it:

“Is there some reason why I’m not allowed to like a reply that my friend made to me?”

He didn’t reply. Maybe because he knows it’s all fake—that “glitches” are placed purposefully, and that bots are secretly allowed, because we can’t just let the “algorithm” do its own thing. That might be dangerous, no?

Here’s a screenshot of John Campbell’s video stats—it’s blowing up compared to his other recent ones. Almost ten times more views. Is that real? I don’t buy it!

Maybe the secret is to post about Gain of Function and scary viruses, so the bots boost your posts. Then, who knows—maybe more paid subs roll in too.

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2. Suspended from X/Twitter 2024

3. 'Dr' John Campbell-The Next Pandemic

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