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- Simcoeace
It's a thought-provoking (but also blatantly biased and over the top) doc. I do think it has a big point to make, and I wish it had made that point a little more factually. Our brains are not wired to handle the degree of filtering we've been handed. There was something rolling around in the back of my head the whole time I was watching it though. How can increased information not lead to polarization? I mean sure, you can get everyone to toe the line and agree if you feed them a single news source that they can all just agree with. But when you give them lots of news, gasp, they get upset about stuff... and different stuff too! That's polarization.
Biased? Well, it has a point to make - it's not an all-sides-of-the-story documentary. The views presented are those of industry insiders who have become alarmed by what they see as the unforeseen consequences of the rapid spread of social media.
The viewpoint is that a) the polarization is not good ... that b) most people are unaware of the existence of algorithms that are dictating what people see ... & c) the social media companies actually financial benefit from promoting polarization. The case is also made that over-exposure to social media is having a serious effect on the mental health of young people.
The problem is, people are not getting "lots of news". They are getting a filtered source that is feeding them a steady, uninterrupted stream of confirmation bias. I am not active on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or any other similar apps. GTPlanet & a couple of other similar (non-sim racing!) websites is about it. But I have watched as my (previously more or less "normal") 56 year old cousin has gone further & further down the QAnon rabbit-hole on Facebook (& who knows what other social media sites) over the past 10 months. I can see it's going to be very, very hard for her to dig herself out of that hole.