Omar Zenhom examines how social media algorithms reward outrage and trolling over genuine value. Platform builders have a responsibility to design systems that build community instead of division, because the incentives we create shape the kind of people we become.
People are now creating content to feed the algorithm, and they're not actually creating something great or something that we want more of in the world.
What we have discovered is that when there's an incentive in the algorithm to be a troll, to be negative, to be a jerk, some people will do it because they're in such a hurry to get to the next step. And I think a lot of people now understand there was an obligation for the people who built these algorithms, the Googles and the metas, to bend it in the way of community, not bend it in the way of division.
