There are certainly people who are taking advantage of the hatred, the division, and the strife. Like Fox News, Ben Shapiro, etc.
But the real villain, the real enemy, are the algorithms designed to take advantage of you, to use you, to discard you, to do what it is told to do without consequence of what the actions are.
To engage you. To manipulation your emotions. To bring you content that keeps you hating...... because hate drives clicks, hate makes you watch.
6/x
If you want to save the world, stop the division, stopping the grifters won't stop it.
You have to go after the corporations. Meta. Google. Apple. All of them, make these algorithms illegal. Ban them. Stop them.
The evil isn't coming from the other side, it's coming from where you are not looking.
The question is, what do we do about it? How do we explain it to people like my parents who are barely capable of using Facebook and email?
What do we do about it?
7/7
@quinnsentialOne the tough part of all of this is that even if you got rid of the algorithms, magically they all stopped tomorrow...
So many people are so far down their preferred rabbit hole that they personally would continue to push their preferred narratives.
Sure, algorithms are a big part of why so much RW content propagates
But a lot of that is also organically shared bc people are so deep into their ecosystem that they wish to share that information to the exclusion of all else.
@The757Progressive
Yes, but a lot of that sharing is curated by the algorithms. It directs those shares to people are more likely to engage with those shares.
It compounds the narrative problem a thousand fold. It enforces the bubble of "you will see nothing else".
@quinnsentialOne as for a solution, it's hard to think of one off the cuff.
Pressuring advertising to stop associating with these platforms and people
Pressuring media and elected types to take it seriously and not dismiss it all as a cash grab
Working actively as a community to counter cult programming and brainwashing.
This has taken a deep root unfortunately and we all need very sharp shovels to dig it all out
@quinnsentialOne yes, absolutely.
I think a big opportunity has been missed to not understand why people have gone down these holes and become radicalized the way they are.
It is not hyperbolic to say these people are part of a cult.
And, like any other cult, it is not just that they need to be "cut off" from an algorithm, but rather fully deprogrammed as any other person who has fallen into a cult would need to be
Apologies of my replies seem out of order lol trying to keep up