PANews reported on January 9 that venture capitalist, a16z co-founder, and well-known Silicon Valley investor Marc Andreessen published a long article on social media, criticizing digital platforms for using algorithms to put deep academic works on the same level as shallow popular content, which has weakened academic depth. He cited "Democracy in America" and popular bestsellers as examples, pointing out that the former provides a deep insight into the nature of democracy after years of research and observation, while the latter covers a wide range of topics in a superficial way but lacks substantive analysis.
He was indignant that the platform presented these contents in an equal manner, believing that this was a "horizontalization" of academics and ideas, making real academic achievements no different from fast-food knowledge. Andreessen also satirized the platform's "preview" function, believing that this design further reduced readers' interest in in-depth reading. He called for attention to academic standards and avoiding the loss of knowledge discrimination due to algorithm recommendations.
