Is this the "uh, thing"?
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/01/the-blo...
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/01/the-blo...
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-inquiry/slate-st...
Edit: users pointed out this is a different Scott. My mistake!
I’m pretty sure they all know/read each other - related communities/ideas.
PBS also has a (now discontinued) YouTube show called infinite series that did a decent overview of the algorithm and showed examples of a lot of the stuff described here.