The truth is, it’s getting harder to describe the extent to which a meaningful percentage of Americans have dissociated from reality. As Hurricane Milton churned across the Gulf of Mexico last night, I saw an onslaught of outright conspiracy theorizing and utter nonsense racking up millions of views across the internet. The posts would be laughable if they weren’t taken by many people as gospel. Among them: Infowars’ Alex Jones, who claimed that Hurricanes Milton and Helene were “weather weapons” unleashed on the East Coast by the U.S. government, and “truth seeker” accounts on X that posted photos of condensation trails in the sky to baselessly allege that the government was “spraying Florida ahead of Hurricane Milton” in order to ensure maximum rainfall, “just like they did over Asheville!”
As Milton made landfall, causing a series of tornados, a verified account on X reposted a TikTok video of a massive funnel cloud with the caption “WHAT IS HAPPENING TO FLORIDA?!” The clip, which was eventually removed but had been viewed 662,000 times as of yesterday evening, turned out to be from a video of a CGI tornado that was originally published months ago. Scrolling through these platforms, watching them fill with false information, harebrained theories, and doctored images—all while panicked residents boarded up their houses, struggled to evacuate, and prayed that their worldly possessions wouldn’t be obliterated overnight—offered a portrait of American discourse almost too bleak to reckon with head-on.
Even in a decade marred by online grifters, shameless politicians, and an alternative right-wing-media complex pushing anti-science fringe theories, the events of the past few weeks stand out for their depravity and nihilism. As two catastrophic storms upended American cities, a patchwork network of influencers and fake-news peddlers have done their best to sow distrust, stoke resentment, and interfere with relief efforts. But this is more than just a misinformation crisis. To watch as real information is overwhelmed by crank theories and public servants battle death threats is to confront two alarming facts: first, that a durable ecosystem exists to ensconce citizens in an alternate reality, and second, that the people consuming and amplifying those lies are not helpless dupes but willing participants…
… “The primary use of ‘misinformation’ is not to change the beliefs of other people at all. Instead, the vast majority of misinformation is offered as a service for people to maintain their beliefs in face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary”…
… As one dispirited meteorologist wrote on X this week, “Murdering meteorologists won’t stop hurricanes.” She followed with: “I can’t believe I just had to type that”…
Engagement and retention are both important. If the solution to retention is to walk away then the solution to engagement is to not be engaged that doesn’t track to me. Maybe the idea is to avoid phones, the internet and TV entirely which is not an idea that is grounded in reality.
This one is less interesting to me for some reason, I think it’s an easier assumption to make or maybe it’s that the argument about harmful algorithms gained traction over a decade ago.
This is an earlier paper but is a solid primer that touches on it
Here’s an entire book about it or an article.
I don’t question that Facebook et al optimize for retention and engagement. I don’t question they’re also successful, I know all these things.
What I don’t understand is why?
Dr.Pepper was also very successful in getting me hooked as a teenager with his much less sophisticated tactics of sugar and soapy cherry-flavoured delights, however I stopped that, it wasn’t that hard compared to other basic day to day things in life like having to get up for work or brushing my teeth, compared to finding a job there’s basically no comparison.
Flash forward to 2018, I had every corporate product a techie would have, now I have almost nothing trendy at all. So I wonder why when I say I’m leaving a platform because of its shady practices e.g. advertising or algorithms I just go ahead and do, but others cannot simply do so. I don’t use corpo/algo social media, I’ve unsubscribed from almost all the streaming services, on the internet I block all ads, on websites I don’t know I block JavaScript altogether, I bypass paywalls, I block known trackers, I don’t pay for media and torrent everything.
The question is why?
How can I take my seemingly unusual ability to just let go despite being exposed to the same algorithms etc and give it to others?