Polarization, hate, disinformation: The formulas that Facebook, Instagram and Tiktok use to sort content are said to be to blame. It would be nice if it were that easy.
essay by
Simon Hurtz
Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, and then there’s the algorithm. In addition to men with too much power and too little morality, social media has become a projection screen for everything that is currently going wrong in the world. Facebook is supposed to polarize societies, radicalize YouTube users, seduce teenagers with Tiktok. The bad guy is the algorithm these platforms use to sort the content they put in front of people: a kind of dark magic that supposedly can turn people’s heads and bring down democracies.