The consensus of reality has never been more fractured. There has always been a discourse on the nature of us and the things around us, but in todays algorithmic pandering to fears, suspicions, assumptions, traditions, and just general bias – radicalization of ideals and the dehumanization of others is an epidemic. There are many things within human nature that facilitates this tendency (eq. Tribalism, Confirmation Bias, Cognitive Dissonance, and much more), however there is a powerful and insidious force that exploits this nature for its own benefit. Algorithms that are designed to their core to maximize interaction and profit over maximizing education and perspective. The concern to click bait targeted demographics overrules the nuisance of truthful information. This is fragmenting the very fabric of what we all even acknowledge as reality, and is making in more difficult to respectfully converse with people that have different/opposing views/opinions.
I think there are a few ways to address this complicated problem. One of which is to alter the prioritization of the the algorithms, and secondly add a way of facilitating a meaningful fact checking/sources process. Imagine having an algorithm that earnestly exposes people to different views? Additionally, each post/article in a media platform would have a way of flagging, confirming, and citation requiring faculties? Similar to flagging for inappropriate posts, there would be a flag to say “There was a claim here that needs to be verified”, and until acreditded information/citation is given, there is a clear highlighted banner stating that the information in this post is either unverified or once it is verified, have that also equally stated.
I think that these two things in tandem would help at least a little on addressing the disconnection we have from one another.
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