the easy thing to combat that is the el the truth. i love youtube as a platform. i use it all the time. we have seen great things come from them. they also have the power to do just as much damage. misinformation packaged into youtube content has caused real harm. social media companies are facing questions about how conspiracy theories spread on their platforms. as it turns out, it s baked into the very dna of how they were created and how they turn a pro profit. lowe s showrooms have a variety of stylish flooring
feed that truth into the algorithm. then you d have to tell the algorithm, create engagement, meet the profit numbers, but do at this time without lying. the reason that s not happening, in my view, is the incentives aren t there. even though i believe it is within their capability. you mean facebook wouldn t make money? they wouldn t make as much money. in your congressional testimony, you expressed fear that the consequence of all this could be civil war. why do you believe that? i was thinking about civil war because it s the natural extrapolation of an ongoing algorithm that has the financial incentives to pull us apart. studies have show it only taxi a few minutes of exposure to a conspiracy theory to alter your perspective. imagine the ripple effect magnified by millions when conspiracy theories are created, posted, and reposted by the
yes. continues to discount it? yes. so how do you know what s real? how would anyone know what s real? that s the essence of why i m so concerned. i mean ten years ago, it was pictures of our friends, and that was enough. but now it s conspiracy theories, incendiary content, violence, tribalism. the algorithm has figured out that driving wedges between people on these controversial issues is just wonderful business. do you think that there is this concerted effort to incite this kind of tribalism? my view is they don t have malicious intent. i think they re negligent. these algorithms, can they be built to work differently, to stop spreading information that is not true? you d have to agree on a source of truth, and then you d have to feed that truth into the algorithm. and then you d have to tell the algorithm, create engagement, meet the profit numbers, but do
capitol, fueled by the baseless claims the election was stolen. make no mistake this election was stolen from you, from me. this is the consequence of conspiracy theories running amuck. accusations of lies, treason and even pedophilia flew from all directions. it begs the question, how did we end up here? americans have always been phosphated with alternate versions of the truth. the clues are all there that it had the potential to get as huge as it s become. in the last decade, conspiracy thinking has gone main stream. it may not be entirely our fault. if are you a democrat, i m a republican, the algorithm is incentivized to push us further apart. tonight we look at a system designed to stoke paranoia and
to capitalize on the resistance to change. the john berks society were engaged if spreading vir leapt conspiracy theories. they openly accused their political opponents of being communist that the government was riddled with secret communists working to sort of undermine the workings of the government and this was an existential threat. the civil rights movement as we know it today is simply a part of a world wide movement organized and directed by communists to enslave all mankind. it s something that we have seen subsequently that people who don t believe what you believe ideologically are actually in danger to the united states and that idea has occurred quite a lot. these ideas can also take root when people have lost trust in their leaders. conspiracy theorists don t have to do very much work to make people believe the government is capable of the