The Attention Machine

The Attention Machine is a public-interest, non-commercial website explaining how attention-optimising platforms exploit human psychology, what the documented harms are, and what structural responses exist. It is written in English and is being localised into Dutch, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian. The About page has the fuller story.

It is run by a Dutch foundation (stichting), which is currently being registered. The foundation is independent and non-commercial. As registration and ANBI (public-benefit) status are completed, the details will be published on the About and funding pages.

There are no ads, no sponsored content, and no selling of your data — the things this site documents are not how it sustains itself. It runs on voluntary contributions. You can read exactly how on the funding page, or contribute here.

No party-political one. The argument is about incentives, not ideology: platforms optimise for engagement rather than wellbeing, and the gap between those is where harm lives. We try to describe the system and let you draw your own conclusions. How we hold ourselves to that is set out on How We Communicate.

No. The problem is a set of design and business incentives, not technology itself. The same tools could be built to serve people rather than capture their attention. Pointing at the incentives is not the same as wanting to switch everything off.

Claims are sourced to peer-reviewed research, official investigations, or primary documents, and each page lists its sources so you can check them. Contested points are marked as contested. When we get something wrong, we correct it openly rather than quietly — the approach is described on How We Communicate. The full source code and history are public on GitLab.

Yes — sharing is the point. The content is published under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 licence: you are free to copy, share, and adapt it for non-commercial purposes, as long as you credit The Attention Machine and release any adaptation under the same licence. Translation into more languages is already underway and very welcome. For commercial use, or to coordinate a translation, please get in touch.

We do not profile you the way the platforms described here do. The site uses privacy-respecting analytics and keeps data collection to a minimum. The details are on the Privacy page.

Three easy ways: understand the mechanism and share it with people you know; play and pass on the recommended tools; and, if you can, contribute to keep the site independent. There are tailored starting points for parents, educators, and lawmakers.

You can reach us via the contact page. For updates, the RSS feed carries new posts now; a newsletter is planned.