How I Built a Kindness Filter for the Chaos of Daily News

Waking Up to Noise

Every morning, I do the same thing: grab my phone and see what happened overnight. WeChat pings, trending hashtags, news app alerts—dozens of 'important updates' before I've even brushed my teeth. After ten minutes of scrolling, I feel oddly empty. I know a lot, but I can't name one thing that truly matters today.

It's not about missing out anymore. It's about drowning. The flood of information—more than any human can process—steals not just our time but our sense of what deserves attention. That's when I decided to experiment: build an AI agent that curates my news, taking back control of my daily information diet.

The First Attempt: A Simple Digest

My initial setup was basic: a scheduled task at 8 a.m. that scans the web for the top five tech stories and delivers them to me. It worked—sort of. I'd grab coffee, and a neat summary waited on my phone. But the excitement faded fast. The same model launch would appear three times with different headlines. Yesterday's news resurfaced as 'latest' from another outlet. The agent wasn't lazy; it was fed a bag of mixed-up, repackaged info. It could summarize quickly but couldn't judge what was worth my attention.

Building a Trusted Source Pool

So I went back to basics: my sources. Over the years, I've collected 161 RSS feeds. But quantity isn't quality. In an age of AI slop and endless reposts, the core principle is traceability. Get as close to the original as possible. I've organized my sources into tiers:

• Primary sources: Official blogs from OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Anthropic—raw, unaltered announcements.
• Authoritative media: Bloomberg, The Information, WSJ, Reuters—rigorous reporting and cross-verification.
• Curated secondaries: The Verge, Techmeme, TechCrunch—they turn dense info into readable stories.
• Bloggers and influencers: Hands-on experiences and unique viewpoints, useful as supplements.

It's like building a garden, not a landfill. You choose what seeds to plant.

Organizing the Chaos

With over a hundred feeds, a single list is a nightmare. I use Folo, an RSS reader that feels like flipping through a magazine I've designed myself. I've split everything into six categories: technology, gaming, culture, AI, autos, and more. It's my personalized newspaper, but one I control.

Making AI a Thoughtful Editor

The real game-changer was Folo's CLI, which lets my agent read my curated feeds directly. Now, the AI gets a pre-filtered stream, not random internet noise. It can cross-reference sources, merge duplicate stories, and prioritize official statements. But even then, it missed my personal taste. For days, AI model releases flooded my feed. I didn't care. I wanted consumer electronics and hardware news. So I told the agent: 'Today's AI news is too much. I want more on gadgets.' It saved that to memory and adjusted. It worked. A good assistant learns what you don't like, not just what you like.

From Text to a Visual 'Cyber Newspaper'

Reading summaries in a chat window gets old. So I had the agent generate an HTML page with clean cards, each showing the core facts, why it matters, and links to sources. It's like a mini newspaper, but one that respects my time. I even used it to track a long-running rumor about a foldable iPhone. The agent built a dynamic tracker with a timeline, a parameter tree, and source credibility tags—confirmed, multi-source, single rumor, unverified. It separated the signal from the noise, turning chaos into clarity.

The Kindness in Curation

This whole project taught me something bigger. In 2025, Merriam-Webster chose 'slop' as the word of the year—AI-generated, low-quality content flooding our feeds. The more information, the harder it is to judge. Building a reliable source pool is an act of self-kindness. It's setting boundaries for your mind, choosing what enters your awareness. It's not about being efficient; it's about being intentional.

We can't stop the flood, but we can build a dam. We can choose trusted sources, keep diverse voices, and check original reports. By curating upstream, we let only the meaningful flow through. And that clarity—knowing what's worth your attention—is a form of compassion for yourself.

So, start small. Pick five sources you trust. Filter out the noise. Your brain will thank you.