Yeeaaah but you know what he meant. There’s algorithms and then there’s “The Algorithm” in common parlance. IMO it’s the obsession on precision in language that makes otherwise excellent FOSS programmers into terrible proselytizers of FOSS services.
When someone complains about “the algorithm” on Twitter, the correct thing to say is “You should try Mastodon it doesn’t do that” not “Technically all sorting is algorithmic but the sorting on Mastodon is less opaque and more verifiable than that which is commonly employed by Meta Systems Incorporated.”