On the flip side, "optimization for engagement", by rewarding user interactions with the interface, puts these with other users second. On the head side, we're aware that rewarding or punishing socially or psychologically vulnerable users is one click away. Because communications capitalism gives us tools that we leverage to directly connect to other people's brains, some of us tend to project their own vulnerability on public figures, trying to leverage theirs and thus making their whole activism about personifying systemic problems – as well as bullying (which is newspeak for abuse). Instead of criticizing the presidential regime, they say how much they hate the President.
2 years ago