It isn't any different, that is the point. They are all manipulating super-smart you far more than the NY Times was ever capable of doing. The fact that you think you organically found who to follow is really something.
What would finding someone "organically" look like? Even before social media algorithms were a thing, or even before social media was a thing, information was not laid out in some random fashion, or in a way that made any of it equally likely to reach anyone. Seems like a fallacy to me.