Twitter’s Response to the Oscars Slap Was a Predictable Cycle

By portraying our opponents as beyond persuasion, social media sorts us into ever more hostile tribes, then rewards us, with likes and shares, for the most hyperbolic denunciations of the other side, fuelling a vicious cycle that makes sane debate impossible. 

That all of us are reveling in content slop is an uncomfortable truth. It may be intellectually easier to blame AI as the problem when the issue resides in people and platforms. My double-bind theory argues that attention aggregators have no choice but to allow content that pushes the bounds of social acceptability. Otherwise, engagement moves to a... See more

Instead of informing the public, journalists are forced to game social media algorithms by spinning stories and writing misleading headlines. One reporter at Vox told me they have to write 10 headlines for every post they write. Vox chooses the headline that attracts the most engagement, depending on the platform. Desperate for clicks, reporters t

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