Escape the News Algorithms with RSS
Are you tired of just reading about the top 10 news everyone is talking about in your bubble? Are ads distracting you from reading news articles? Do you just want to get out of your daily news feed and see something new? Are push notifications distracting you and do you instead want to decide for yourself when you want to consume content? Or are you concerned about your privacy by relying on social media or other apps to get your daily news?
If your answer to some or even all of these questions is yes, I have good news for you: you can have it all, and you don’t have to go back to buying newspapers! But let’s first take a look back in time into a world without social media and news algorithms.
How did one consume news on the internet before there were smartphones with apps like Google News, Twitter, Reddit, Instagram, and TikTok? Apart from physical newspapers and television, you had to manually browse your favorite journal websites, blogs, and forums. This could be a little tiring if you want to follow many blogs and online newspapers. It would be much easier if you could aggregate all of your sources in one place, so you don’t have to browse all the sites every time to see if your favorite cooking or traveling blogger posted something new. At worst you would be disappointed cause there was nothing new. And that’s where RSS comes in.
What is RSS?
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It is just a simple technical solution for a website host to enable a feed for frequently updated information like news, blog posts, and podcasts. For you as a user that means you can easily subscribe to different feeds and have them all chronologically collected in one place. The place might be an app, a website, or a program on your computer.
That sounds neat, but how can I use it?
First, you have to pick the feed reader you want to use. There are many different apps and sites you can pick from. Just search for the term ‘feed reader’ on the web or in the app store, and you will find plenty. The Verge has some good recommendations. If you want to get started quickly, just pick any reader for the device you want to read it from. It is very simple to switch to another reader later because you only need to export and import your feeds.
After you have picked your reader, you can start collecting your favorite feeds. Let’s take my medium blog as an example of how to do it. Medium does not advertise it, but it has RSS feeds built in. Just append /feed to the URL of the author you want to follow. For my blog that would be https://medium.com/@rene-reifenrath/feed (or https://blog.reifenrath.dev/feed). You’ll see some XML starting with a <rss> tag with some metadata and text in it. That’s how you know that it has a feed. Other websites also use /rss or /rss.xml or /feed.xml, but you don’t have to find the correct URL manually, just paste the URL of the website unaltered into the news feed app you want to use and it will do the magic for you. Many websites especially blogs have an RSS button or link directly on their front page or in the footer. Look out for this symbol:
Conclusion
Using RSS readers is a great way to take back some control of your news consumption. You avoid the manipulation of algorithms because you choose your sources and they are presented chronologically. Also, you can focus on the articles instead of getting distracted by advertisements, social interactions, and other content. Furthermore, you improve your privacy instead of feeding algorithms with your personal information and metadata.
Not everything about social media and news apps is bad so you don’t have to completely abandon them. I think it just isn’t wise to entirely rely on them for reading the news. RSS readers might come with an upfront time investment, but it will lead to more independence, privacy, and conscious content consumption.
It’s easy to get started! So try out using RSS readers and feel free to share your journey and experiences in the comments.
