Is the algorithm dividing us on social media? EP13

Episode 13 Transcript

Welcome to the Marketing Combat Podcast. name is Jason Donnelly and the person sitting over here in the cowboy hat with the sunglasses who may or may not be a trained assassin is Chris Kubbernus. Tell us a little bit about what we're fighting about. Hey, what's up everybody? My name is Chris Kubbernus. I am not a trained assassin, but I am in the Marketing Combat Podcast and I'm ready to kick some butt. Today we are talking about comment sections because something interesting has come out where it looks like the comment section is

different depending on who you are, depending on the algorithm, depending on what it's going to show you. And the big debate right now is whether the social media platforms are doing this on purpose to divide us on controversial topics, or is it just the algorithm giving us what we want? And I'm going to take the stance that it is absolutely dividing us. It is political in nature. It is cultural in nature. The platforms want to mess with us. And I think it's because

They believe, they know that that's going to create more engagement on the app, more dissent, more topic discussion, more debate, more addiction to the platform because we love rumor, conjection, we love controversy, we love drama, we are drama queens up in this world and I believe the platforms know this and they want to feed that drama. They want to fan the flames of drama, they want to get it up to a rip -roaring drama fest and this is what they're doing, they're messing with us because they want...

to create more drama, which creates more engagement, which keeps people on the platform, which allows them to get more advertisers and make more money. Fight me on that. Yeah, this is so hard to fight because on one side, I completely and totally agree with you. I think that the apps know exactly what they're doing. They're doing the comment section specific to whoever the person is so that you stay on the app as long as humanly possible. And on the other, I don't think they're doing it specifically to divide us.

I think they're doing it specifically because we like to hear what we like to hear. We like to hear what we like. So if we go into an apps or a comment section, which is what we're all doing on these social media apps, every time you go into the comment section, you see an echo chamber of the stuff that you already like. So it completely makes sense that they're doing that. I don't think it's to divide us. What you're saying, I think it's a little bit of both.

I think you're saying they want to divide us so that we fight, so that we stay on the app longer. And I'm saying they want us to stay on the app longer, no question about it. And the echo chamber that is the world that we live in. Listen, my little controversial rat brain is saying that it's to divide us. But you think it's not political in nature. It's not cultural. It is simply because they want to keep you on the platform, make more money, but it's not cultural in nature. It's not political in nature. Keeping in mind though, that

There's no study done that is this worse on TikTok, is this worse on Instagram. I think that work has to be done. think it could be interesting for somebody, maybe a social media agency or Jason, either a social media agency or just Jason, should go out there and study that and see, when this person is logged in

what comments section do they get? What comments do they get? When this person's logged in, what comments do they get? And do it across every single platform and see which ones are the worst and which ones are the best for this, or which ones, maybe not even worst or best, but which ones are doing this and which ones aren't. I think that's super interesting. At the end of the day, we are being divided on social in many ways. If that's, it's the stuff that we like, if it's the stuff we don't like, I think the scariest part about it is when you go to the dark side, when it's the hate groups and the negative energy that people just feed on.

to scary that the apps kinda cater to that. What's everybody who's listening to this or watching this think? Do you think that the apps are purposely trying to divide us as per Chris Kubernetes over here? Or do you think the apps are just purely trying to make money? I will leave you with this. I think that if you have any problem, any problem in the world, you can find the solution by rubbing your fingers together. It's all about the money, baby. That's it.

Good call. Thank you so much for tuning in. We hope you enjoyed this episode of the Marketing Combat Podcast. Stay tuned for another episode coming up right after this one if you're listening on your local podcast app. I've been Chris Kubbernus. I'm Joe Rogan and I'll see you next time. See ya.