I grant that it's nice to have relevant content presented. But I'm not in favor of profit-driven companies controlling social discourse with their secret algori

I grant that it's nice to have relevant content presented. But I'm not in favor of profit-driven companies controlling social discourse with their secret algorithms. Couldn't there be a way where users have more control over this? Perhaps recommendations to friends, user ratings, stuff like web-rings, etc. Even the fact that these algorithms are secret gives me the creeps. The political problems we're seen have been accidental, what happens when someone is using these to manipulate everyone on purpose?