This observation is of course entirely anecdotal, but manufactured outrage is so fascinating, even if it currently eroding the very foundations of society.
I'm particularly annoyed by Twitter lately because I can no longer share anything with my GF because she have already seen it. Our timelines are largely similar, it doesn't matter much who do you follow. Also, the algorithmic discovery being the default is very effective to create this channels(Technology Connections recently made a video about it).
On Twitter it appears like there are few talking points, or "channels", are being pushed based on location and few other things maybe and apparently to get exposure you have to say something that fits the narrative.
Maybe its not intentional, maybe its the result of the algo dividing people in cohorts or something but I'm very annoyed by the potentially destructive effect of the firehose. Everyone being very outraged of something for short period of time or being very excited for short period of time can't be healthy because it lacks depth and continuation.
I think we should really be aware that, if tech companies weren't already able to build something like this anyway, with LLMs they are definitely able now.
There is lots of talk about the generative powers of LLMs, but they also have unprecedented analysis powers: You can now easily build something that automatically checks whether a tweet expresses a certain opinion or narrative and automatically upranks or downranks it based on the results.
So if you're the owner of a platform, you can now fully control the appearance of what "people are saying" on the platform, without even having to use bots or fake messages.
(Of course you could use those as well, in addition, if the opinion you want to push is so bad there aren't enough real users to uprank in the first place)
I also notice that "influencers" are also influenced by this. They pick the talking points from real time media like Twitter and then make coherent videos over this stuff and it gets legitimized. People rarely revisit their past works once the firehose is spraying at some other direction and the fake public sentiment becomes the real public sentiment.
I call it “outrage porn.” I have a friend that is really politically engaged, and occasionally sends me YouTube links to almost cartoonish vids. I watched the first couple, but ignore them, now. He seems to take them completely seriously, and I’ve learned not to trigger him, when it comes to politics.
This seems to be de rigueur, these days.
Today it's dramatically more splintered than that. Still central wells, but the amount of content is many orders of magnitude larger and everyone has their own tailored feed.
I disagree, today there are just a few platforms and on Twitter at least everyone sees about same things. I say this because the feed of my girlfriend is very similar to mine, also I see the pretty much same stuff shared on WhatsApp groups of unrelated(related only because of some interest, not having social interaction beyond the group) people.
The total number of content is much larger, probably the absolute number of topics is also much larger, but in my opinion, the diversity of topics is getting smaller and it is directed by the platforms. People’s attention spans and time is limited and the platforms are choosing what they are going to fill it up with and what would be the main topics.
There was a whole scandal at Twitter about this around 2020 or 21. People came forward and said there were secret departments that would suppress certain ideas or keep certain stories from trending.
The main thing that I do, personally, is not engage in these things. There are some shows, vids, and news sources that I simply avoid, and that seems to have done the trick.
It's like giving up an addiction, though. I felt quite uncomfortable, for a time. I no longer feel uncomfortable, and these once-legitimate (to me) news sources, now seem to be little more than cartoons.