"It's your fault for believing everything you read on the internet."
I disagree, it's our fault as a society for not allocating proper resources towards education. You can't expect people to understand critical thinking, media/source analysis, etc. if no-one ever taught it to them.
Now, Facebook capitalized on that societal failure point and developed an algorithm that exploited individuals who lack that critical thinking skill by shoving progressively angrier and more unhinged content in front of their eyeballs, and recommending them groups of extreme individuals, therefore normalizing their way of thinking. They did this because they realized content that causes anger, outrage, and fear is extremely effective at keeping people clicking, scrolling, reading, and overall "engaged" which means more data, more ads shown, more money. They basically took the Fox News model and injected pure racing fuel into it.
This, like most issues, cannot be explained by one specific cause, but Facebook absolutely shares the blame.
I disagree, it's our fault as a society for not allocating proper resources towards education. You can't expect people to understand critical thinking, media/source analysis, etc. if no-one ever taught it to them.
Now, Facebook capitalized on that societal failure point and developed an algorithm that exploited individuals who lack that critical thinking skill by shoving progressively angrier and more unhinged content in front of their eyeballs, and recommending them groups of extreme individuals, therefore normalizing their way of thinking. They did this because they realized content that causes anger, outrage, and fear is extremely effective at keeping people clicking, scrolling, reading, and overall "engaged" which means more data, more ads shown, more money. They basically took the Fox News model and injected pure racing fuel into it.
This, like most issues, cannot be explained by one specific cause, but Facebook absolutely shares the blame.