“We don't become permanently changed by the algorithms to crave narrowness,” Aral says. However, large-scale experiments show that when the algorithms are turned off, the human desire for diversity of information returns. This narrows the scope of information we are exposed to until our newsfeeds become echo chambers that isolate us from different views and beliefs, contributing to polarization in such areas as politics. Through what Aral has termed the “hype machine loop,” social media newsfeed algorithms read our behavior to determine the kinds of content we like, and then show us more of the content we prefer while excluding content we don’t like. Social media also permits a degree of customization and personalization that was never possible in traditional media like books or television. We can blame social media, at least in part, for the spread of misinformation that caused the resurgence of measles in the US and the erosion of public confidence in the COVID-19 vaccines under development. A 2018 study showed that falsity spreads farther and faster than the truth in every category of information. The difference today, Aral says, is the speed, breadth, and depth with which social media allows misinformation to spread. The phrase “fake news,” for example, first appeared in a Harper’s Magazine article in the 1930s. But not all of social media’s damaging effects are new to humanity. In what Aral calls a decade of “techno-dystopianism,” social media has become a pariah even as it is deeply ingrained in many of our lives.
#Media hype code
Code The way platforms and their algorithms are designed
Within each category, Aral describes the challenges we face and suggests concrete actions that companies, governments, and individual consumers can take to tackle them. During a virtual CHM Live event on November 11, 2020, Aral shared with veteran tech journalist John Markoff the four levers we have available to us to steer social media technology toward promise and away from peril: money, code, norms, and laws. His tongue-in-cheek response speaks to his hope that we can transcend the good-or-evil debate and think instead about how we can achieve the promise and avoid the perils of social media. Is social media good or evil? “The answer is 'yes',” says Sinan Aral, the David Austin Professor of Management and Director of the Initiative on the Digital Economy at MIT.
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