A good article in which the author researched how Twitter’s algorithm pushed people interested in history into alt-right content.

Quote: “Adhering to my guidelines to follow accounts suggested by the algorithm, I clicked the “follow” button. This was the first time I was recommended content adjacent to alt-right and “manosphere” ideology. Prior to that, it was all history related. After “liking” approximately 100 Tweets, however, I saw that the accounts suggested to me were becoming increasingly political, and I was specifically being recommended accounts run by internet political commentators – as opposed to professional politicians or journalists. I cannot definitively call this observation evidence of being led down an alt-right pipeline, but it was interesting to note that those were the types of accounts suggested to me by the Twitter algorithm.”

  • sculd@beehaw.orgOP
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    25
    ·
    2 months ago

    Agreed. Anyone who studies history should understand why Trumpism is bad and unsustainable.

    But a lot of people are just in for the historical “aesthetics”.

    • aleph@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      21
      ·
      edit-2
      2 months ago

      Aesthetics, plus the seductive appeal that pre-modern, pre-liberal-democratic societies (when the governments were authoritarian, the women were submissive, and the men “were men”) have for reactionaries, incels, and cryptofacists.