The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World

[Viker]

I just stick to music and Mr. Ballen when on YouTube. Only other things that show up on my YouTube feed are others similar to my music and Mr. Ballen. I rarely get any political or religious stuff, which I automatically ignore, that's what the RF is for.

 

[Secret Chief]

And the algorithms persistently pushed farther and farther to the right.

Why would that be?

 

[Stevicus]

I wonder if a crew of AI mods could? This would be something that could effectively read and watch the entirety of something, in mere seconds, long before it gets suggested to someone.

Perhaps someday. I'm not convinced that AI technology is really quite there yet. The underground or dark web might be able to escape government scrutiny or surveillance.

 

[anna.]

Thanks for providing some handy information and getting a conversation going! What do you think of services like Ground News ? I see them advertised frequently on a few channels. They supposedly list the current news stories and tell you which media sites are covering them and who is left or right leaning.

I don't use them but have heard of them. A couple good points in their favor are they don't support ads, I just checked their FAQs. Since driving engagement for ad revenue is what's behind platform algorithms, that seems like a good thing. Also, they use mediabiasfactcheck as one of their bias checks (yes I see the issue with that) but here's mediabiasfactcheck's summation:

Ground News does not appear to favor the left or right when publishing news stories, and they provide the bias rating of each source as determined by credible bias raters. While they present news with minimal bias, they do not factor in the credibility of the source. For example, we found that they publish news stories from sources that routinely fail fact checks, such as PJ Media, Sputnik, and Alex Jones’ Newswars website, which has a history of promoting conspiracy theories and falsehoods daily. However, these stories are also being reported by other credible media outlets, which indicates they are most likely true. In general, Ground News is not biased, but some news sources utilized have poor track records with fact-checkers.​

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Ground News - Bias and Credibility

LEAST BIASED These sources have minimal bias and use very few loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by appealing to emotion or

mediabiasfactcheck.com

​

To me, it's a laudable effort to break the information silo system, but it's not surprising to see that the failed fact checks listed are PJ Media, Sputnik, and Newswars, all of which I'm familiar with but wouldn't like them in my daily feed. I'm exposed to enough right-wing conspiracy messaging without seeking it out on a daily basis, and Ground News doesn't seem, from what I can tell, to parse whether a story is factual, just whether it has a bias and seem to rely on 'the other side' to provide the factual counterbalance. If you're a regular user maybe you can tell me more about that.

 

[Brickjectivity]

I don't use them but have heard of them. A couple good points in their favor are they don't support ads, I just checked their FAQs. Since driving engagement for ad revenue is what's behind platform algorithms, that seems like a good thing. Also, they use mediabiasfactcheck as one of their bias checks (yes I see the issue with that) but here's mediabiasfactcheck's summation:

Ground News does not appear to favor the left or right when publishing news stories, and they provide the bias rating of each source as determined by credible bias raters. While they present news with minimal bias, they do not factor in the credibility of the source. For example, we found that they publish news stories from sources that routinely fail fact checks, such as PJ Media, Sputnik, and Alex Jones’ Newswars website, which has a history of promoting conspiracy theories and falsehoods daily. However, these stories are also being reported by other credible media outlets, which indicates they are most likely true. In general, Ground News is not biased, but some news sources utilized have poor track records with fact-checkers.​

​

Ground News - Bias and Credibility

LEAST BIASED These sources have minimal bias and use very few loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by appealing to emotion or

mediabiasfactcheck.com

​

To me, it's a laudable effort to break the information silo system, but it's not surprising to see that the failed fact checks listed are PJ Media, Sputnik, and Newswars, all of which I'm familiar with but wouldn't like them in my daily feed. I'm exposed to enough right-wing conspiracy messaging without seeking it out on a daily basis, and Ground News doesn't seem, from what I can tell, to parse whether a story is factual, just whether it has a bias and seem to rely on 'the other side' to provide the factual counterbalance. If you're a regular user maybe you can tell me more about that.

I think its a service that costs about 10$ per month, and I haven't tried it for that reason. I've heard of newswars but not those other two.

Ground news would probably not by itself be all the information that a person needed, because it would only be a link to news which tends to be preachy sermon content, not a basis for understanding. Information comes from direct sources such as the proposed bills in one's state and nation, from a knowledge of history, from experience, from technical knowledge, foreign language and from thinking. I think that we are generally deficient if we rely upon news.

There have always been biased media services such as newspapers that sponsor parties and candidates.

 

[anna.]

Why would that be?

Where to begin... I could come up with 20 different starting points and tbh I don't have it in me. I'll try though, to put a few up here - and then go the admittedly lazy path and leave you with some links to those who say it better and with the expertise I don't have.

Two related but not the same places would be right-wing authoritarian personality and social dominance orientation. Get social groups with higher values of these together (the way social media pulled together disparate groups that ended up in QAnon, who likely wouldn't have found each other without the algorithm seeing the common variables they wouldn't have seen themselves - for instance: the homeschool mom, the evangelical apocalyptic believer, the 2A militia member, the anti-vaxxer, Trump follower/Hillary hater, incel, white nationalist, homophobic/sexist/racist aggrieved white conservative watching their demographic shrink).

Anyway, RWAs and SDOs would have different approaches but would work together for a similar goal. I dug out my textbook, and here's a graphic with a simplified comparison, but you could see how these groups in tandem could see a crisis (Democrats are stealing the election from Trump) and imagine a solution (storm the Capitol and prevent the electoral ballot count).

RWAs would place high value on a religious authority (megachurch pastor telling them Trump is God's anointed) or trusted political authority (Trump) telling them things they perceive as true, that the threats they face are real, and that action to protect their social dominance is necessary. Whether that plays out with bogeymen like DEI, or immigrants at the border, or transgender visibility days that fall on Easter, or no prayer in school, or governments that want to control people with vaccinations, or people of color protesting injustice, or women in roles not meant for them... all of these are threats to the social orders they see as dominant, and they want to keep dominant. That's fear, and anger, and that's what the algorithm hones in on and amplifies. They see things much more in black and white - they're on the good side, and The Other is on the bad side, and must be kept down where they belong.

 

[anna.]

@Secret Chief

And some links for your reading enjoyment...

Fake news is fooling more conservatives than liberals. Why?

As with the coronavirus itself, some people seem to be more vulnerable than others to the infodemic

www.economist.com

Opinion | The Qanon conspiracy is bizarre. A psychologist explains why its supporters aren't insane.

The fear that evil forces conspire to hurt good people is deeply rooted in the human psyche.

www.nbcnews.com

Personality Type, as well as Politics, Predicts Who Shares Fake News

Highly impulsive people who lean conservative are more likely to share false news stories. They have a desire to create chaos and won’t be deterred by fact-checkers

www.scientificamerican.com

Conservatives’ susceptibility to political misperceptions

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abf1234

Despite cries of censorship, conservatives dominate social media

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/26/censorship-conservatives-social-media-432643

(I wish I could fix whatever keeps all the links from unfurling properly. I inserted titles above the unfurled links.)

 

[Secret Chief]

Where to begin... I could come up with 20 different starting points and tbh I don't have it in me. I'll try though, to put a few up here - and then go the admittedly lazy path and leave you with some links to those who say it better and with the expertise I don't have.

Two related but not the same places would be right-wing authoritarian personality and social dominance orientation. Get social groups with higher values of these together (the way social media pulled together disparate groups that ended up in QAnon, who likely wouldn't have found each other without the algorithm seeing the common variables they wouldn't have seen themselves - for instance: the homeschool mom, the evangelical apocalyptic believer, the 2A militia member, the anti-vaxxer, Trump follower/Hillary hater, incel, white nationalist, homophobic/sexist/racist aggrieved white conservative watching their demographic shrink).

Anyway, RWAs and SDOs would have different approaches but would work together for a similar goal. I dug out my textbook, and here's a graphic with a simplified comparison, but you could see how these groups in tandem could see a crisis (Democrats are stealing the election from Trump) and imagine a solution (storm the Capitol and prevent the electoral ballot count).

View attachment 90239


RWAs would place high value on a religious authority (megachurch pastor telling them Trump is God's anointed) or trusted political authority (Trump) telling them things they perceive as true, that the threats they face are real, and that action to protect their social dominance is necessary. Whether that plays out with bogeymen like DEI, or immigrants at the border, or transgender visibility days that fall on Easter, or no prayer in school, or governments that want to control people with vaccinations, or people of color protesting injustice, or women in roles not meant for them... all of these are threats to the social orders they see as dominant, and they want to keep dominant. That's fear, and anger, and that's what the algorithm hones in on and amplifies. They see things much more in black and white - they're on the good side, and The Other is on the bad side, and must be kept down where they belong.

I use youtube but only for music and have "history" turned off. Recently noticed youtube seems keen for the history to be turned on. This morning I turned history on and searched for a few topics (immigration problems, hate crime, stop the boats...) and watched a few bits. Just gone back on to youtube and guess what - I'm getting recommended all headcase rightwing stuff. Dear god shoot me now. Just going to turn my history off and clear it...

 

[Brickjectivity]

RWAs would place high value on a religious authority (megachurch pastor telling them Trump is God's anointed) or trusted political authority (Trump) telling them things they perceive as true, that the threats they face are real, and that action to protect their social dominance is necessary. Whether that plays out with bogeymen like DEI, or immigrants at the border, or transgender visibility days that fall on Easter, or no prayer in school, or governments that want to control people with vaccinations, or people of color protesting injustice, or women in roles not meant for them... all of these are threats to the social orders they see as dominant, and they want to keep dominant. That's fear, and anger, and that's what the algorithm hones in on and amplifies. They see things much more in black and white - they're on the good side, and The Other is on the bad side, and must be kept down where they belong.

It is an interesting book page. The lefties also ignore things the righties point out and the lefties do vice-versa; but it also gets worse. It is the independents who are left to pick up the slack, and these threaten the larger mainstream journalists. The independents get labeled whatever the mainstream wants to label them: right, left, extreme. It is unsurprising that major failing traditional news outlets such as CNN frequently warn about the dangers of social media, but such warnings must be taken as biased.

The algorithm on youtube, in my experience, probably does lean one left or right. It tries to guess at what you want; and it is tangible. Its like if you order the spaghetti and they then presume that what you want are fifty plates of spaghetti.

 

[PureX]

I use youtube but only for music and have "history" turned off. Recently noticed youtube seems keen for the history to be turned on. This morning I turned history on and searched for a few topics (immigration problems, hate crime, stop the boats...) and watched a few bits. Just gone back on to youtube and guess what - I'm getting recommended all headcase rightwing stuff. Dear god shoot me now. Just going to turn my history off and clear it...

It skews to the right because that's where the greater ad revenue is. It's the same reason all media tends to skew toward disasters and conspiracies and outrage: it keeps the viewers tuning it. Good news does not inspire us to look for more information. Fear and threats, do. We humans survive via knowing what's going on around us and how to mitigate it to our advantage. So whenever we encounter something that we think may threaten us, we immediately want to "understand it better", so we can better deal with it. So the more YouTube or Fox or any other media outlet confronts us with frightening and confusing "news", the more we will stay with it and work to better understand it. And all these media outlets are getting paid to put our eyes and ears on their advertiser's adverts. So the more eyes the media outlest can capture, and KEEP, the more money they make.

And make no mistake about it, this is ALL and ALWAYS about the money. Everything in our consumption culture is all about the money.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I'm only 30 pages in and wow. I was reminded when I was in highschool, the econ teacher had us reading The Wallstreet Journal, and this article mentioned how kids who were growing up with it were becoming addicted because it was making the brain release shots of dopamine.
For me, it's been connecting dots I didn't realize were connected. And scary despite the years and government pressures amd everything it's only gotten worse.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I use youtube but only for music and have "history" turned off. Recently noticed youtube seems keen for the history to be turned on. This morning I turned history on and searched for a few topics (immigration problems, hate crime, stop the boats...) and watched a few bits. Just gone back on to youtube and guess what - I'm getting recommended all headcase rightwing stuff. Dear god shoot me now. Just going to turn my history off and clear it...

Yup. Its intended first and formost to maximize the time users spend on the platforms. The RW stuff because that tends to appeal more to deeper, more primal feelings (like xenophobia). It's meamt to prey upon negative feelings, suspicion and mistrust because that gets people spending more time online which translates to more money for those destroying democracy.

 

[Stevicus]

Yup. Its intended first and formost to maximize the time users spend on the platforms. The RW stuff because that tends to appeal more to deeper, more primal feelings (like xenophobia). It's meamt to prey upon negative feelings, suspicion and mistrust because that gets people spending more time online which translates to more money for those destroying democracy.

I read a lot of talk about AI algorithms which are geared towards people's online habits and also seems to influence what they might see on their newsfeed, although the easy remedy to that is to look for different news sites, including sites from other countries which might give a different point of view. I find it uncanny, in an age when there's so much information available at one's fingertips, people still tend to gravitate to their own particular neighborhoods in the WWW.

The right wing also has another angle in that they also have a strong presence on the radio dial.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I read a lot of talk about AI algorithms which are geared towards people's online habits and also seems to influence what they might see on their newsfeed, although the easy remedy to that is to look for different news sites, including sites from other countries which might give a different point of view. I find it uncanny, in an age when there's so much information available at one's fingertips, people still tend to gravitate to their own particular neighborhoods in the WWW.

The right wing also has another angle in that they also have a strong presence on the radio dial.

The issue is even if you look for stuff that isn't political or conspiracy related the algorithms, especially on Youtube and Facebook, will start showing you RW stuff.
It finally answered how I get that stuff even though I'm about as LW as you can get without killing for it.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Let's not kid ourselves into thinking that social media's pernicious and devastating impact on the world is limited to the right wing.

Indeed. The very idea of Facebook pushing right wing stuff is laughable, given that it's a liberal echo chamber, like Reddit is, with stifling rules that overreach more often than not. Both of those sites went through a big banning spree not too long ago, and it was mostly conservatives or "conspiracy theorists" who were axed. The only major social media site these days that has a lot of right wingers on it is X.

After all, the algorithm that has everyone so scared only shows you what you want to see and what you interact with. An algorithm that shows you what you don't want to see, after repeatedly interacting with it, is a broken one. People need to learn how this works. Ultimately, these are just more attempts to justify censoring the Internet, same with the push to ban TikTok.

 

[Stevicus]

The issue is even if you look for stuff that isn't political or conspiracy related the algorithms, especially on Youtube and Facebook, will start showing you RW stuff.
It finally answered how I get that stuff even though I'm about as LW as you can get without killing for it.

I don't have Facebook, and most of my YouTube algorithms seem to focus on history videos, since those are what I watch the most.

I keep hoping that someone will develop a technology or a better AI program to counter some of the more malicious stuff that goes, such as deep fakes. There needs to be more reliable ways to detect and see through all this fakery which goes on, without necessarily inhibiting or limiting free speech rights.

 

[Augustus]

It makes sense. The people who built this technology were probably just thinking in terms of profits and how much money they would make, but they may not have been aware of how it would be used by certain segments of the population.

Many of them actually thought the exact opposite: that it would be a great tool for bringing people together and tearing down barriers between people.

Shows you how good humans are at anticipating the consequences of their actions when dealing with complex systems...

Oh, well at least we have a great track record of learning from our mistakes in this regard and will be much warier of unintended consequences in future. Good old humans, eh?

 

[danieldemol]

So why can't we ban algorithms that create echo chambers again?

 

[bobhikes]

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― Leon Festinger - When Prophecy Fails: A Social & Psychological Study of a Modern Group that Predicted the Destruction of the World​

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Yes I agree that Facebook has changed a social dynamic but I don't agree that it will lead to more destruction.

First these groups that form are still fringe groups and do not expand outside their community much at all, unlike the Nazi's and the KKK plus others that built there empires long before the internet.

They are basically shut-ins eager to be appeased but not so eager to leave their house. While Jan 6 was horrible it was a small group of people defended by unready and unsupported group and yet no one was injured and only property destroyed. Had more people revolted and no support given it would of been much worse.

When these groups become public nuisances they lose support from the internal portion that does not want to leave their home and the public in general that does not like them. Their public actions also lead to prosecution which dimisses the group more.

The problem we have which is partially the web's fault is the ability of leaders to have easy access to these groups to rally these groups and should we get a Hitler or Napolean they actually might be able to dominate the world. Fortunately, right now no one is of that caliber and people are fast moving up the learning curve for web use and reliability.

Summary, In my opinion while the web is increasing social division, it might actually be helping us in the long run whereas these misfits can take their frustrations out on the web and only occasionally interact with the real world. Leading to less wars and genocides.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

So why can't we ban algorithms that create echo chambers again?

You want to ban people from seeing what they want to see?