Outrage Machine

In the vein of The Righteous Mind and Factfulness, an invaluable guide to understanding the underlying machinery and technology that controls modern society. Foreword by social psychologist, Jonathan Haidt, author of The Righteous Mind. Over the last two decades, there has been an inescapable rise of anger and aggression across our planet. Hate speech has become increasingly prevalent online, Western governments are turning towards authoritarianism and populism, and extremist groups are rising across both the left and the right ends of the political spectrum. Every day, it seems, we're hearing more angry voices and fearful opinions, we're seeing more threats and frightening news, and we're reacting faster and less rationally.The cause is hidden in plain sight: for the first time, almost all of the information we consume as a species is being controlled and curated by algorithms designed to capture our emotional attention. This, media researcher and strategic advisor Tobias Rose-Stockwell argues, is the outrage machine. It is the wide-cast net of social media that is propelled by tech, has been exploited by all of us, and which has been allowed to steadily replace our newspapers, emergency communication systems, town halls, churches, and more.In the vein of The Righteous Mind and Factfulness, Outrage Machine is a big-think book the explores the unintended consequences of this alarming shift in today's smartphone era-and shows us how to navigate the world we now live in. First, he explains how and why we've become addicted to not just technology, but outrage itself. Since Social media algorithms now favor the most inflammatory content because it gets the highest engagement, the levels of righteousness, certainty,