# Social Media Is a Cybernetic Loop by Bryant McGill > “Social media forms a cybernetic loop: people train the routing system through behavior, the routing system changes what people encounter, and the changed environment trains the next round of human behavior.” > **— Bryant McGill**, *Independent Media, Audience Trust, and the Responsibility of Reach - Livestream (Apr 2016)* ## Sources and Context - **Source:** [[livestreams/Independent Media, Audience Trust, and the Responsibility of Reach - Livestream|Independent Media, Audience Trust, and the Responsibility of Reach - Livestream]] — exact quotation from the developed livestream document. - **Conceptual context:** Clicks, pauses, follows, shares, and other actions become signals for ranking systems. Ranked exposure then changes what people encounter, making the next round of human behavior partly a response to a machine-organized environment. ## Related Articles and Collections - **Collection:** [[collections/Simple Reminders|Simple Reminders]] - **Article:** [[articles/A Systems-Diagnostic Framework for Planetary-Scale Computation|A Systems-Diagnostic Framework for Planetary-Scale Computation]] - **Article:** [[articles/Participation as an Information-Causal Principle|Participation as an Information-Causal Principle]] - **Livestream:** [[livestreams/Independent Media, Audience Trust, and the Responsibility of Reach - Livestream|Independent Media, Audience Trust, and the Responsibility of Reach - Livestream]] ## Related Topics - [[wiki/Human-Algorithm Feedback|Human-Algorithm Feedback]] ## Share on Social Media ``` “Social media forms a cybernetic loop: people train the routing system through behavior, the routing system changes what people encounter, and the changed environment trains the next round of human behavior.” — Bryant McGill, Independent Media, Audience Trust, and the Responsibility of Reach - Livestream (Apr 2016) https://bryantmcgill.com/simple-reminders-bryant-mcgill-social-media-cybernetic-loop ```