Tag: Narrative

Algorithm (thoughts are not facts)

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Content provision

prompts confirmation bias

no need for the facts

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by Scooj

  • Reflecting on why we have such divided opinions and polarised societies like never before. My verdict… it is the digital channel algorithms and our unconscious attachment to them.
  • Before the general election I followed a few conservative MPs to see what they were saying in my desire to be well informed. Now my ‘X’ feed is bombarded with right-wing narratives (some quite extreme) all day every day, at the expense of the Labour streams and MPs I have been following for years.
  • Solution… regulate the algorithms – allow us to choose what we see, and not what AI thinks we want to see.
  • A conspiracy theorist might say that these platforms (‘X’ in particular) favour right wing narratives, although I don’t subscribe to that view. I think that there is more right wing disruptive/divisive content out there, much of it being produced by Russia and other nations looking to divide and conquer. They and the algorithms are having a profound impact in the UK, Europe and globally.

Headlines

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Phew! what a scorcher

Freddie Starr ate my hamster

it’s Paddy Pantsdown

 

three outstanding Sun headlines

shaping a nation’s story

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by Scooj

Conventional wisdom

 

In the seventies

the country was much greener;

rose-tinted glasses.

 

by Scooj

 

  • A convenient narrative adopted by pro-Brexit campaigners urging a return to the ‘good old days’ before we were told what to do by Europe. The facts rather contradict this romantic notion, and certainly my recollection of growing up in London in the 1970s is not a pleasant one – choking car fumes, filth and litter everywhere and heavily polluted rivers, our countryside didn’t fare much better. What did European regulations ever do for us…? (Habitats Directive, Water Framework Directive, the Birds Directive, Bathing Waters Directive, Air Quality Framework Directive and others).