What Should Technology Companies Do About This Radicalization Engine?

2min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

The algorithms that optimize for engagement can't distinguish between healthy, conscious, you know, wise, thoughtful engagement and essentially radicalizing. So what should the technology companies do about the fact that their products have been radicalization engines? i think it's important for people to look back through time and say, imagine society going through the washing machine, just like spinning around.

What would inspire someone to singlehandedly initiate an armed standoff on the Hoover Dam, or lead the police on a 100-mile-an-hour car chase while calling for help from an anonymous internet source, or travel hundreds of miles alone to shoot up a pizza parlor? The people who did these things were all connected to the decentralized cult-like internet conspiracy theory group called QAnon. Our guest this episode, Travis View, is a researcher, writer and podcast host who has spent the last few years trying to understand the people who’ve become wrapped up in QAnon and the concerning consequences as Q followers increasingly leave their screens and take extreme actions in the real world. As many as six candidates who support QAnon are running for Congress and will be on the ballot for the 2020 elections, threatening to upend long-held Republican establishment seats. This just happened to a five-term Republican congressman in Colorado. Travis warns that QAnon is an extremism problem, not a disinformation or political problem, and dismissing QAnon as a fringe threat underestimates how quickly their views can leapfrog into mainstream debates on the left and the right.