Not only the most incendiary topics but the most incendiary people as well! So the crazy angry neighbor who AFK has two friends gets 500 followers on Twitter, and lots of "likes" on various partisan sites. That rush of approval causes the neighbor to invest even more of their time online where they feel important. This wouldn't be possible without network effects, so I agree, the algorithm can't be discounted or disambiguated from the phenomenon as a whole.
Yeah, we shouldn't discount the algorithms put in place by people; but we should also keep in mind that those algorithms only operate based on inputs from people. If the outputs the algorithms are giving you are not desirable, then it is solely the fault of the people who are feeding that algorithm in the way they are, etc and so forth. Algorithms are not sentient nor have agency over the results of their actions.
We however, do. This is why the human element side of things is my target. Even if the algorithms change, not much will if we don't.
Algorithms are designed, evaluated and impoved by organizations, so are not a point of blame at all. They’re not accidentally putting divisive stuff to the top, the analytics, devs and management all surely see the consequences and decide that the algos are aligned with the business .
Many Organizations generally are within some sort of
competitive landscape - companies in the market,
non profits with donations, city and state govts for tax base. So they all will optimize for effectiveness towards some metric to some degree, restricted by whatever fear of backlash or consequences they may have.
No one is going to approve a ‘say anything as long as it bumps ratings immediately’ algorithm, but almost everyone is going to try to do at least what the top competitor seems to be doing.
Which is algorithmic/ML based engagement optimization, with some kind of ‘but not the most controversial if it’s literally nazis’ type filter for things with too much political blowback (aka calls for insurrection), or legal issues (child porn).
If you look, it’s literally almost everywhere now. And earlier they didn’t even have the ‘not literally nazi’s’ filter.
