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Discussion on: You are being manipulated

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Kasey Speakman • Edited

A civil war never seriously occurred to me. I mean surely we learned that lesson with great tragedy already. The weapons I mentioned were quips, retorts, and trite sayings. Each side of any given issue provides outrage to motivate you against the other. Then equips you with words to parry and counter attack. This manipulates users at a psychological level to keep them coming back for the next outrage and counterpoint and ad revenue. Media (social or otherwise) makes money and society loses.

"News media" has done this for a while. But social media can now make it happen in a way that's tailored to each individual and at scale.