> There's a growing perception, verging on conspiracy theory, that big social media companies are deliberately tuning their recommendation engines to promote th

> There's a growing perception, verging on conspiracy theory, that big social media companies are deliberately tuning their recommendation engines to promote this misinformation while publicly claiming to do the opposite. I don't think that this is the perception of many people. I think that many people think (and I think so too) that social networks maximise for engagement quite deliberately. Content that is very engaging can be very good (amazing educational resources) or relatively harmless (cat videos). But, due to human nature, "engaging" videos also include divisive content, propaganda, conspiracy theories, group-think or even just stuff that is highly addictive. The complaint, therefore, is not that YouTube etc. are actively pushing conspiracy theories—it wouldn't be in their interest to do so necessarily. The issue is that, by trying to maximise engagement, they very deliberately push all the subconscious buttons that may make us behave in irrational ways without caring for the psychological and social cost that this implies, and that any attempt of those networks to curtail the spread of problematic content will never be adequate as long as those underlying mechanisms are still the same.