A couple of key quotes:
The volume and
viciousness of the memes — portraying Warren (D-Mass.) as a snake, a
backstabber and a liar — reflect how Facebook identifies and rewards emotionally
charged content to generate reactions from its billions of users. That serves
the company’s ad-driven business model, which equates engagement with profit.
But it also, in the view of experts who study Facebook’s effect on political
speech, distorts democratic debate by confirming biases, sharpening divisions
and elevating the glib visual logic of memes over reasoned discussion.
Facebook’s
“algorithm not only aggregates people, it activates people in a way that
accentuates extremism,” said George Washington University professor Steven
Livingston, director of the university’s Institute for Data, Democracy and
Politics. “It inflames passions. It inflames the nature of the discourse.”
And:
[Trump’s] campaign
aides have credited Facebook with his victory in 2016, when he poured money
into advertising on the platform while also using organic posts on social media
to speak directly to his followers, who responded with a torrent of posts
backing him and lacerating his opponents.
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