friend venting about politics—the algorithm knows what to feed me
because it has pegged me as a progressive.
But what about all the people who don’t express their politics so
clearly? How do you sell political stories to them? Many of them are
probably moderates, because most people in America are. And they’re
a lot harder to figure out. For each one, the Facebook machine would
need a much more sophisticated algorithm to analyze their friend
network, movements, zip code, the words they use, and the news sites
they visit. It’s a lot of work, and it’s less profitable.
Moreover, after all the work, it’s still not a sure thing, because each
bucket of moderates to sell to advertisers is based not on direct signals
from those individuals, but instead from a host of correlations. Those
always come with mistakes. My neighborhood in Greenwich Village is
as blue as they come—only 6 percent voted for Trump.^32 Pretty sure
that means I’m not just living in a bubble, but a windowless, padded
cell. However, as far as windowless, padded cells go, it’s pretty nice.
Moderates are hard to engage or predict. Picture a video with some
guy in a cardigan sweater discussing, in a balanced tone, the pros and
cons of free trade with Mexico. How many clicks would that get?
Marketing to moderates is like fracking for gas. You only do it if the
easier alternatives aren’t available. Thus, we are exposed to less and
less calm, reasonable content.
So, Facebook, and the rest of the algorithm-driven media, barely
bothers with moderates. Instead, if it figures out you lean Republican,
it will feed you more Republican stuff, until you’re ready for the heavy
hitters, the GOP outrage: Breitbart, talk radio clips. You may even get
to Alex Jones. The true believers, whether from left or right, click on
the bait. The posts that get the most clicks are confrontational and
angry. And those clicks drive up a post’s hit rate, which raises its
ranking in both Google and Facebook. That in turn draws even more
clicks and shares. In the best (worst) cases—we see them daily—the
story or clip goes viral and reaches tens or even hundreds of millions
of people. And we all step deeper into our bubbles.
This is how these algorithms reinforce polarization in our society.
We may think of ourselves as rational creatures, but deep in our brain
is the impulse for survival, and it divides the world into us vs. them.
Anger and outrage are easily spiked. You can’t help yourself but click