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The Corona virus lockdown and mass unemployment has led to more people in their fifties, who aren't exactly digitally savvy, suddenly spending hours of their time online, and it's a disinformation nightmare.
Algorithms have been feeding them inflammatory nonsense for months now.
Algorithms have been feeding them inflammatory nonsense for months now.
I don't know if anyone else has noticed the late middle aged people in their lives falling head first into conspiracy theories and general digital nonsense, but it's getting ridiculous.
For months now my Father has been genuinely convinced that Kim Jong-un died of Covid in April and was replaced by a lookalike.
Why? Because that's what the news feed has been delivering to him - and the more he clicks on it, the more it gives him. He's also turned a bit racist.
Why? Because that's what the news feed has been delivering to him - and the more he clicks on it, the more it gives him. He's also turned a bit racist.
Thanks to the virus, all the people over fifty in my life are consuming too much inflammatory digital media, without being used to it, or knowing how to engage critically with it. I can see them all growing crueller, and meaner. More bigoted, and stuck on their biases. It's bad.
I'm not going to argue with people acting like I'm attaching people and being ageist when I'm highlighting a concerning trend fed by a lack of familiarity with predatory controversy driven algorithms. People in their mid-fifties and up are not at fault. They're unwitting victims.
