Outrageous Algorithm
“They’re being ironic, right? They’re just pretending to be a part of this unnervingly large segment of our population for a laugh, right?”
– Me, during my optimistic youth
So lately my Facebook page has been inundated with conservative/anti-vax/conspiracy memes. Not from my friends, mind you, but just random pages that Facebook believes, for some reason, I would be interested in following.
Well, I say for some reason, but I feel like I know the reason. See, over the past year or so, a high school acquaintance I barely knew had been steadily growing bolder with some “I’m just asking questions” memes until they eventually upgraded to full-blown anti-vax propaganda with their posts. “How disappointing,” I thought, “hopefully all those comments to this post are my other high school acquaintances I barely know providing well-sourced refutations to this misinformation.”
They weren’t. Instead, I just became disappointed in a few other high school acquaintances I barely know.
– James