The Audio Long Read

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Bland, easy to follow, for fans of everything: what has the Netflix algorithm done to our films?

When the streaming giant began making films guided by data that aimed to please a vast audience, the results were often generic, forgettable, artless affairs. But is there a happy ending? By Phil Hoad. Read by Adam Sims. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

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  When I met Craig he was 13 and homeless. I still thought his life might tu…

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  Money talks: the deep ties between Twitter and Saudi Arabia

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  From the archive: A day in the life of (almost) every vending machine in t…

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  ‘They take the money and go’: why not everyone is mourning the end of USAID

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  ‘I knew in my head we were dying’: the last voyage of the Scandies Rose

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  From the archive: ‘If you decide to cut staff, people die’: how Nottingham…

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  ‘Scamming became the new farming’: inside India’s cybercrime villages

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  From the archive: how we lost our sensory connection with food – and how t…

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  The Pushkin job: unmasking the thieves behind an international rare books …

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  ‘The jobless should lead the attack’: a radical Jamaican journalist in 192…

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  From the archive: ‘We are so divided now’: how China controls thought and …

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  Special Edition: Behind the scenes at the Long Read

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  Counting down to zero: the final warning from a climate diplomat

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  Extremely offline: what happened when a Pacific island was cut off from th…

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  From the archive: A drowning world: Kenya’s quiet slide underwater

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  ‘Americans are democracy’s equivalent of second-generation wealth’: a Chin…