Algorithms are the deciding factor behind what gets amplified, buried, flagged, and monetized, often with very little public visibility into how those choices are made. Power sits inside recommendation systems, ad targeting, and automated ranking, shaped as much by incentives as by code. What can be measured from the outside, and what remains invisible to the public eye? Where do privacy and fairness break down, and what would real transparency and accountability look like when these systems control most of online- and offline-users’ lives?

Dr. Crystal Lee first joined Central Square Theater as the featured scholar for the October 2022 reading of The Moderate at the MIT Museum. Nearly four years later, she returns to the work—now in full production—to reflect on how the script, and the digital world it confronts, have both evolved. New questions have emerged: What can stories reveal about the systems they’re built from? How much do they risk obscuring in the process? What happens when a play about online life evolves alongside the internet it critiques?