Algorithm Flush

 The age of the Internet has increased the potential for expanding our minds, yet very few of us are actually doing it.  One reason is because the algorithms of social media have significantly narrowed our viewpoint.  Every time we like something, share it with our friends, or even click on an article, the tracking systems of major platforms like Facebook and Google filter out anything that isn't related to it.  For the first time in history, we are controlling the source of our own propaganda, simply by choosing what we like as it befits our biased views.  We've become the agents of our own narrow viewpoint, only receiving the news stories that these algorithms deem worthy of our time. 

By using these platforms, it's like our emotions are selecting facts to read for us.  The algorithms they use snowball biased information that only serve to arouse our feelings.  They fish out the news stories that are more likely to bring us anger or joy, because the more emotional we feel about a story, the more likely we are to share it, thereby increasing their traffic.  It's become a far more personal method of staying in touch with the world than the one of traditional reporting in the past. 

Speaking for myself, just because I click on an article doesn't mean I want to read every article of the same nature, nor does it mean I want to buy the same things or see the same people at the top of my news feed.  I want to read every article that a news organization provides, not just the ones that are trending.  And I don't want stories from only one news organization, but several.  News stories should always be strengthened by a variety of outside opinions, otherwise any source you read from gets confined to the outlook of the social group it writes stories for.  It's important to remember that news is an industry, and its customers are so divided among demographics, regions, and ideologies that any organization would be better off financially if it only catered to one social group rather than all of them.  When we only read one news source, we run the risk of seeing the world through the eyes of a restricted viewpoint, rather than in its totality. 

The new algorithms also apply to advertising.  Now advertisers aren't simply putting their ads in the papers, but relying on similar algorithms that decide which ones will be seen by the most people.  The ads reinforce our narrow worldview by only supplying ones that are based on past views, conveniently blocking out anything new that comes along which might dissuade us from our next purchase.  This benefits the platform as much as it does the advertisers, because if the platform isn't supplying its advertisers with referrals, then their money is being wasted. 

Expanding our worldview means abandoning sites like Facebook as a news platform and being open minded to news sources that don't feed off the emotional reactions of their readers.  Media bias is inevitable; we just have to be more selective in reading stories that are clearly designed to aggravate people.  One way to remedy this is by looking at some of the extremist reporting on the other side of whichever ideology we identify with.  That way we can better see how they are really reflections of the sources we use ourselves.  Liberals should have a look at Fox News from time to time, just to gather a sense of how ludicrous their own news sources can look to conservatives.  Likewise, people who watch Fox News would be wise to see what sources like MSNBC and Huffington Post are reporting, so they realize how biased their own sources are.  Both sides need to be paying more attention to the alt-right, the platform that got Donald Trump elected (namely Breitbart news), whereas their readers should be looking for news sources that aren't meant to arouse populist indignation.  I have never seen a platform that's done more to rally its readers than Breibart; it's almost like a tabloid with its "shocking" headlines printed in big and bold fonts. 

I'm writing this with the hope that we can better understand our political adversaries, as opposed to ignoring them or lashing out.  It would bring us closer together and not divide our country even further than it already has.  Only by expanding our worldview will we be able to think for ourselves.  We must flush out all the sensationalism used by extremist newspapers and the stories that social media algorithms use to keep us addicted with.  No matter what our emotional reaction to a story is, we must remain calm and remember that the world isn't falling apart because of one political party.  Putting the blame on a single ideology only weakens the state by distancing them from us.  We must be conscious that the media is trying to aggravate people so that their stories will reach the most amount of people and generate more ads for the social groups who subscribe to them.  Don't be a victim of all this fear-mongering agitprop; think for yourself, read from a variety of sources, flush em' out!