Blame It on the Algorithm

Tech executives have perfected the art of deflecting responsibility by blaming controversial content decisions on inscrutable algorithms, according to a damning new report from the MIT Media Lab. The study analyzed 647 instances where platforms like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter explained away problems with phrases like "the algorithm promoted this" or "our AI accidentally amplified that." Researchers found that in 89% of cases, human managers had actually approved the contentious policies but hid behind machine learning as a convenient scapegoat. The most egregious examples include a social media company blaming its AI for suppressing Black Lives Matter content (when documents revealed manual blacklists), and a dating app claiming its "algorithm just prefers thin bodies" (despite engineers intentionally coding beauty standards). This "algorithmic alibi" strategy has become so prevalent that Congress now receives more complaints about AI systems than human executives. Legal experts warn this trend creates a dangerous accountability vacuum, while tech workers confess in anonymity that "the algorithm made me do it" has replaced "the dog ate my homework" as the go-to excuse. The report's most disturbing finding? Some companies have started creating deliberately opaque AI systems not for efficiency, but specifically to maintain plausible deniability - essentially building corporate lie detectors that always say "no" when asked if humans are responsible.