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Let’s face it! Trump maybe responsible for much that ails the United States today, but he definitely did not create the anger and animosity Americans are feeling towards each other. Racism, bigotry and misogyny have always been a part of the social fabric, but they were contained because social norms had made it inappropriate to openly express them. Trump not only made it okay to have express these views, but he also made it something to be proud of.
The real culprit dividing society is Mark Zuckerberg’s Frankenstein — Facebook. Facebook’s algorithm literally shapes what billions of people read, watch and think every day, and its programming to show you “what you want to see” has effectively created echo chambers that has balkanized our society.
It has become a tale of two news feeds, with each half of society only seeing information that reinforces their own world view. This results in confirmation bias, and user will only ever get one side of the story. This is detrimental to the proper functioning of a democracy which is premised on citizens making informed decisions on who to vote for based on a set of common facts.
What you must do ….
Once we understand the danger of being in an echo chamber, and how Facebook’s algorithm works, we can break out of our echo chamber by allowing different…
