Rage Bait Drives Internet Engagement at Cost of Well-being

Key Quotes

"rage bait to me is in a way it's it's kind of like an engine that makes the internet work in some ways greg silverman is co founder of indicator a website that investigates digital deception but in a strict kind of definition it's to me it's it's kind of content that elicits a very strong emotional reaction typically anger"

Greg Silverman explains that rage bait functions as a core mechanism driving internet engagement. He defines it as content specifically designed to provoke intense emotional responses, most commonly anger, which then fuels the internet's operation.

"it's been sort of figured out that oh yeah the more i can create content that gets a very powerful and often enraged emotional reaction the more power i have potentially over over people and so to me like rage bait is is kind of the currency or the power that's that's behind a lot of the content we might see"

This quote highlights the strategic exploitation of emotional reactions for influence and control online. The speaker suggests that content creators have discovered that generating strong, often angry, emotions grants them power over audiences, making rage bait a form of digital currency.

"and then i think there's a category of a lot of political rage bait that i think people encounter a lot what's the problem with xenophobic nationalism do you think that's better for americans in general like xenophobic nationalism is better we should have a coherent culture comments that are you know particularly racist sexist um also just you know political ideas veering into like nazism and things like that that were you know considered completely unacceptable for a long time suddenly you know people are saying them people are putting it out there because they kind of win even if it makes people outraged and they've said this outrageous thing it still makes people engage it still makes people listen it makes people write comments they're getting the engagement and they're building an audience over time by engaging in that kind of political rage bait"

This passage illustrates how extreme political ideologies, including racism and nationalism, are employed as rage bait. The speaker points out that such content, once considered unacceptable, is now used to generate engagement and build an audience, even if it provokes outrage.

"and then the second change uh which is less of a kind of step change and more an acceleration of something that was already happening was tiktok introducing the fyp as a sort of concept you go to tiktok because tiktok has this incredibly dialed in algorithm that's going to show you weird videos as you scroll through it and so that fyp concept is other people's videos strangers that you don't know but that are going viral that the algorithm that the sorting mechanisms have determined are for you"

This quote identifies TikTok's "For You Page" (FYP) as a significant development in the evolution of the internet. The speaker explains that TikTok's highly tuned algorithm curates content from unknown creators, making viral videos for strangers the central experience, which has accelerated the trend towards an "anti-social" internet.

"i think a a website that shows us a different path is wikipedia which is as big by the numbers as basically any of the platforms we're talking about and is arguably more essential to the web as we know it than even a facebook wikipedia on the other hand begins with a very radical idea and that's for all of us to imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge and that's what we're doing and in that sense to answer your question well no it's not inevitable"

This quote presents Wikipedia as a counterexample to the prevailing trend of internet platforms becoming detrimental. The speaker argues that Wikipedia's foundational principle of providing free access to knowledge for everyone demonstrates that a large and essential website does not have to devolve into a negative experience, suggesting that the current internet's issues are not inevitable.

"i think ultimately we're creating a new life for ourselves but there are a lot of components that we're borrowing from previous generations one of the things that the internet promised us initially was discovery you know that you could learn about new things and new communities and find new music i wonder you know if you give up spending a lot of time online how do you get your fix for discovery like what advice do you have for people who are like i'm curious i want to learn more about the world around me but i have to step away from the internet"

This quote reflects on the initial promise of the internet for discovery and community building. The speaker questions how individuals can satisfy their curiosity and desire for new experiences if they reduce their online time, suggesting a need to find alternative methods for learning and exploration beyond the digital realm.