As bad as Fox news is, it’s not the real problem. People get their ‘news’ from social media now. Engagement optimized algorithms have found that outrage is the best way to keep people scrolling. The social media companies’ incentives are to stoke division so ‘line go up’. Fox news feeds some of the garbage onto the pile, but the way we have societal conversations is broken because of the profit incentives.
As bad as Fox news is, it’s not the real problem. People get their ‘news’ from social media now. Engagement optimized algorithms have found that outrage is the best way to keep people scrolling. The social media companies’ incentives are to stoke division so ‘line go up’. Fox news feeds some of the garbage onto the pile, but the way we have societal conversations is broken because of the profit incentives.