in a colloquial sense, from an end user’s perspective, the thing they see is “the algorithm”.

Yes, usually the default or most common method of aggregating posts is what people talk about when saying “the algorithm”

However, any method of sorting posts is by definition an algorithm. “top” is an algorithm, “new” is an algorithm, if you can compare two posts and have a method to choose which one to display first, that right there is an algorithm.

I’d actually argue that the “hot” algorithm is one of the more opaque ones. It sorts posts based on a composition of different metrics, and It’s unclear exactly what these metrics are and how they are combined.

News story #3 is actually kind of crazy to me. The only possible explanation for someone filling that lawsuit is if they don’t believe in their own tenets. The suit has no grounds and is meant to suppress criticism.

It pretty clearly is a direct contradiction with tenet 4 (respecting freedoms of others, especially the freedom to offend) I might expect hypocrisy like this from other religious groups, but for TST, the tenets are a fundamental part of their movement.