People think online platforms are overflowing with toxic and misleading content, but the reality is far calmer. A small group of highly active users creates most of the harm, while the majority remain relatively civil. Still, many Americans assume the worst about each other because of this imbalance. Correcting that belief can noticeably improve how people feel about society.
The problem is not assholes spouting bullshit. Those have always been around. The problem isn’t even foreign influence operations. The problem lies in the social media algorithms that amplify the bullshit. People always say they do this to maximise profit but I don’t buy that any more. They know exactly what they’re doing and the outcomes we’re seeing are the outcomes they want.
The Internet wasn’t really like this before engagement-boosting algorithms took over. The ragebait got more engagement, so it got promoted and now it’s all we see.
That being said I still don’t like people in the real world but that has nothing to do with internet trolls and everything to do with people.
All these big platforms with their algorithms have blood on their hands. They chose to let this happen. They valued profits over anything else.
There’s no cosmic need for facebook and its algorithms. They chose that.
Remember in like the early 2000s Facebook tried to see if they could make people sad by altering the feed? They could! And somehow no one went to jail for that.