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People want inflammatory content like a moth wants a flame. Facebook amplifying a signal from the lunatic fringe preys upon the need of non-lunatics (or differe
by cgriswald 5y ago
People want inflammatory content like a moth wants a flame. Facebook amplifying a signal from the lunatic fringe preys upon the need of non-lunatics (or different-thinking lunatics) to argue against ideas they consider dangerous or just wrong. As a side-effect, it makes the ideas appear more mainstream, which has the effect of making the ideas more popular. This further increases the compulsion of non-lunatics to address the ideas.
I'm not sure if that qualifies as being what people 'want' or not, but it seems like it's profitable.
- s1artibartfast 5y ago>I'm not sure if that qualifies as being what people 'want' or not, but it seems like it's profitable. People want it like an alcoholic wants a drink. Facebook is the corner store that sells to the public. I think we agree on the mechanism. but the question is what to do about it. People generally say, silence people I don't like, and blind others from seeing what I don't agree with. The problem is that this is not a workable standard, because everyone has a different opinion on what should be censored.