When widespread outrage is measured simply by twitter likes, I feel there is no end to the outrage machine. The cost of participating is zero while the dopamine hit of lending your support to some presumed moral issue non-zero. And therein lies the problem with adjudicating moral issues through social media. There is zero cost to join in the mob and so these tempests appear to be much stronger than they actually are. If there were a tangible cost to signing on to these outrage mobs, there would be much fewer of them and it would also be a more accurate metric.
It seems that the problem is more insidious than this study hints at. We know from the behaviour on social media some morally righteous outrage is satiated by furiously liking or sharing something that you might agree with, but most people just harumph and move on once they've satisfied their itch to "do something".
However there is a certain element in society that gets truly over-stimulated by this stuff - the over-amplified likes and shares are making it seem like the outraged community you are aligned with is much larger than it actually is. Or more precisely, the number of people actively engaged and willing to undertake actions to back up their likes looks much bigger than it actually is. This pushes our over stimulated friends into over-reactions.
This has now fomented a lot of extreme acts - hitting the streets, burning stuff, occupying buildings, safe in the completely misleading knowledge that your in-group is much larger than you think.
The outrage machine has been an interesting social experiment but now people are getting killed because of it and it's probably time to nuke Facebook and Twitter from orbit unless they start taking moderation seriously.
I think there's a larger point in what he said. Basically all current social media ends up optimizing for creating outrage, spawning mobs, less thoughtful discussion and more vitriolic arguments, etc. It's becoming a real concern to me that this is going to drive us into some kind of civil war or something if we don't find some way to check it.
The outrage seems to be like a drug. Nothing generates engagement quite like it, even if it's toxic in the long-term. So all social media platforms that embrace it grow bigger until they become near-monopolies, and all that don't so far have had a hard time growing userbases, making money, and generally fade into irrelevance.
It would be a real service to society IMO if we could find a way to somehow generate enough engagement and energy to challenge the big players without the outrage culture.
Internet outrage is _never_ as widespread or important as it looks.
The best way to predict the effect of any social media campaign against a person or organization is to evaluate the steadfastness of the campaign's target.
If you are the target of an internet mob and you blink, you're not only going to enact mob-demanded changes that are detrimental to your interests, but also broadcast weakness and attract further mob attacks.
If you instead stand your ground and refuse to be cowed by hashtag campaigns, the outrage mob eventually gets bored and finds another target. Your interests are preserved and you end up broadcasting strength and determination.
A lot of people are starting to figure out that internet mobs have no real teeth.
Basically all current social media ends up optimizing for creating outrage, spawning mobs, less thoughtful discussion and more vitriolic arguments, etc. It's becoming a real concern to me that this is going to drive us into some kind of civil war or something if we don't find some way to check it.
Outrage-driven profit models existed before social media as such. Once known as tabloids and the guttered press, this kind of media existed a while before Facebook. William Randolph Hearst was credited with starting the Spanish-American war back in the day (as fictionalized in Citizen Kane). This is to say the "outrage complex" extends well beyond social media platforms though such platforms certainly serve to accelerate it.
Social media is a harassing tool, and can be a pretty blunt and heavy one (see "cancel culture").
In 1920, a newspaper publication or a public speech needed to be really outrageously beyond the frames of the Overton window to end up in mass protests, boycotts, etc. It took a serious effort to coordinate the outrage, so it only happened when people felt really deeply about it.
In 2020, with social media, the cost of spreading the outrage is nearly zero: a retweet or a repost, maybe with some a few words of an inflammatory comment added on the top. But with social graphs being what they are (highly connected via a number of popular "influencer" accounts), any bit of outrage has a good chance to spread quickly and widely.
The outrage can defend itself by directing the outrage at detractors and doubters, so attempts to actively stop it can make one a victim of it; the cost of spreading outrage, and the cost of ignoring outrage, is much lower that the cost of trying to calm it down, and / or to call to reason over emotions.
It does not help that any moderately public figure, especially a journalist, has to have social media presence, because it's such a powerful tool to spread their own publicity, influence, and agenda.
Freer information flows usually change societies. Invention of writing changed ancient societies profoundly. Invention of the printing press and movable type in Europe changed Europe drastically. The internet and social media are changing our societies seriously, as we speak. There's no way back to the pre-Internet state of society.
I like your wording on this - outrage cycle. I agree that social media algorithms promote that, which is why I have largely withdrawn from twitter, facebook, and instagram. They're nowhere near representative of my real life social networks. While platforms like instagram have the capability to keep friends connected and inspire people, they've turned into toxic waste sites.
That said, their effect on society hasn't been limited to raging twitter tirades. Companies, governments, and other institutions seem to be bending the knee to their outrage, which has led to not only our cancel culture, but to things like the CHOP situation which went on for far too long. Leaders are scared of making the mob angry.
Outrage is addictive and social media only makes this easier: commenting is quick and there's always the urgency to jump on a bandwagon before it disappears.
"Outrage of the Day" is appropriate because what else can fill the mundanity of your life? The trouble is they accumulate and you inevitable form judgements, courtesy to the echo chambers (I'd like to see a new word echosystem!) This also makes it harder to introduce new ideas because the 'right' opinions and argument trees are already set.
I don't see social media as good/bad, but my observation of it is making me wonder if I'm turning into a reluctant Luddite.
It could just be me, but I feel the offence/outrage culture is very tiring on social media. It seems like certain parts of the internet have become a sponge of human frustration, often misdirected, often unnecessary. Is it healthy for us to keep consuming these micro-outrages all the time?
I'm doing great. I'm very disconnected from most outrage media. Haven't used social media in forever. Have plenty of close friends, and family. Successful career. Also working from home today.
I'm just saying the outrage machine is unavoidable. I've had friends and family that are deeply effected by it even if they don't openly admit it. Friends that are in rehab for opioids. Friends and co-workers that do nothing but smoke pot so they don't have to worry about their lives. Family members that became fox news addicts and blatant racists. I'd even argue that you're effected by it. You have to actively avoid it right? You understand the outrage machine and have actively decided to disconnect yourself from that world. Not saying that you're doing the wrong thing, just saying the outrage machine effects everyone. People that aren't particularly smart, financially successful, strong or mentally stable get hit by it much worse.
One minor nitpick: in social media the criticism generally applies mostly to mere statements, especially statements of support or outrage over any given emotionally loaded issue.
Attending a protest or donating to charity is relatively risky and expensive in comparison to just feigning outrage, retweeting slogans or changing your avatar.
But do social media companies ever really pay for the externality that is "info sewage accumulating in people's heads"? To me that's a cost that will always be borne as a society— chaos in the public square, unproductive political discourse, broken families, acts by extremists, etc.
Social media makes its money on outrage so that's what they're optimizing for. Ban or regulate advertising (which will make it less profitable) and other, less toxic business models will come up.
The other problem is that the business model of social media is based on generating "engagement" at all costs, so the platforms are built to encourage outrage as it generates lots of engagement, among other addictive behaviors (the infinite "algorithmic" feed for example). Social media was supposed to be a tool that serves people but its current business model encourages it to work against people.
There were plenty of other technologies that could've been used to organize large-scale virtual fight clubs (forums, BBSes, chatrooms, maybe even the telephone) but this didn't happen because nobody actually wanted to foster such toxic behavior.
I agree, but would emphasize that the main thing at stake is negative publicity. If there's one thing social media has proven to be good for, perhaps exclusively, it's rapidly spreading shame.
The thing you're describing where people latch on to outrage in the social media age isn't an effect exclusive to the left. I think that human tribalism and group think in a huge instant forum like the modern internet inevitably lead to some bad conclusions and disproportionate outcomes. I think we have to find a way to give deeply considered and measured commentary the share of our collective attention it deserves. Upvotes and downvotes and likes and shares don't serve that purpose well enough.
reply