The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World by Max Fisher
Facebook delivers conspiracy-driven news to over two billion users every day. These conspiracies generate money for Facebook. Facebook wants to deny charges of hijacking billions of brains with conspiracies, but the evidence shows that they are guilty.
Facebook doesn’t create conspiracies; they provide a platform for bad actors, racist organizations, troll farms, “grassroots movements,” “hyperpartisan outlets,” and foreign agents who know how to use Facebook to manipulate its users.
An outsourced tech contractor working in Silicon Valley named “Jacob” saw the connection between misinformation and Facebook and Instagram early in the game.
Jacob was monitoring and flagging misinformation with his team. That was his job. Around 2017, he noticed the posts growing more extreme and violent.
Jacob realized that FB’s safety measures were grossly inadequate to stem the torrent of often racist misinformation.
With weak countermeasures, FB was allowing millions of its users to become radicalized and brain-hijacked by conspiracies.
Jacob reported his findings “up the chain of command” and waited for a response. One never came.
As Jacob saw mass violence in Sri Lanka and Myanmar, he realized he would have to be more aggressive than sending reports to an unresponsive bureaucracy. He “siphoned internal rule books and training documents” from his office computers. He cleaned these documents of their “fingerprints” so they couldn’t be traced to him, and then he leaked them to The Guardian, Vice News, and the author Max Fisher.
When FB discovered Max Fisher had the documents, they invited him to headquarters. Fisher found the anti-propaganda team to be very kind, conscientious, and hard at work fighting misinformation, but in spite of their efforts, the problem was getting worse and worse.
The failing of these higher-ups wasn’t their effort toward bad actors; it was their failure to acknowledge something intrinsically dangerous with the very platform itself: Facebook.
Its very model for success is based on extremist algorithms, which generate more clicks. More clicks mean more revenue for Facebook.
Facebook is built to amplify extremists’ misinformation. Extremists will use FB for that purpose and their devastation will overrun any good things that come from Facebook and Instagram.
One example is the growth of a QAnon story: liberals kidnapping children and selling them as slaves. Their slavery hub was a pizza restaurant in Maryland. A major study shows that nearly 1 in 5 Americans believes in QAnon. Such a crisis would not be possible without Facebook.
Thanks, Facebook, for sucking 20% of America into a fever swamp of lies and conspiracies. American democracy is hanging by a thread.
In spite of this catastrophe, the well-paid FB minions “believe in the mission of Facebook.” Of course, they do. It’s in their self-interest, just not ours.
Algorithms and Divisiveness
One FB researcher leaked this to the Wall Street Journal in 2018: “Our algorithms exploit the human brain’s attraction to divisiveness.”
In other words, causing societies to fracture and wage war against each other in a non-nuanced, non-critical thinking battle of belligerent misinformation is the winning business model for Facebook.
As an example, we can as a country have a nuanced and deep discussion about Jim Crow and racism, but such a discussion becomes impossible when a racist group weaponizes any discussion of race by turning it into “CRT” a buzzword for indoctrination. Critical Race Theory or CRT becomes a buzzword for shutting down any discussion of race. Shouting “CRT” becomes a way of showing your allegiance to your tribe.
Of course, not all discussions of racism and Jim Crow can be labeled as “CRT,” but it doesn’t matter when the political discourse is based on divisiveness, hate, bombast, division, and over-simplification.
The world of social media is a world where human minds by the very nature of the platform become more stupid. This is well observed in Jonathan Haidt’s 2022 Atlantic essay “Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid.”
People who work in the inner chambers of social media have been sounding the alarm for several years, but the top people don’t listen because they don’t want anyone questioning their Money Machine or the ways their Machine generates cash revenue.
Lipstick on a Pig
The top executives will say “we’re doing everything possible to fight misinformation,” but this is lipstick on a pig.
Low Vaccine Rates
Renee DiResta, a tech analyst, discovered that many schools have only a 30% vaccination compliance rate.
While 85% of parents wanted vaccine mandates at schools, a small number of parents feeding off Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook were passionate and well-organized. They could assert their influence at the schools.
Radicalized people can punch up so their influence is beyond their numbers.
Renee DiResta noticed that if she typed “vaccine,” she didn’t get information for both sides of the debate, just negative misinformation. This is because the algorithm makes more money on negative misinformation than on science.
DiResta noticed that anti-vaxxer misinformation was linked to other conspiracies like Chemtrails and Flat Earth. Conspiracies are the jackpot of social media.
Hijacking the human brain with misinformation is the business model of FB.
DiResta discovered that FB “wasn’t indulging anti-vaccine extremists. It was creating them.”
Fake Consensus Becomes a Persuader
Max Fisher observes that when Facebook invented the news feed in 2006, it created something we can call Fake Consensus, the illusion that the majority of people have accepted something to be true on their news feed. Even if we are skeptical of this news feed, Fischer observes, we “internalize” it and eventually believe it to be true.
What is the number-one type of news feed that generates engagement? Outrage.
Think about that. Outrage, that toxic emotion that overtakes us, is the secret sauce of social media.
2007 Is a Turning Point in World History
Outrage spiked FB’s growth so that it was worth 15 billion in 2007. This is a turning point in world history.
FB created a “social-validation feedback loop” and gave you a shot of dopamine to get over 3 billion people hooked on the drug.
Brain Hijack
Max Fisher writes: “Social apps hijack a compulsion--a need to connect--that can be even more powerful than hunger or greed.”
FB taught us to connect through shared outrage, and outrage is created through misinformation. Hence, we have the recipe for the Fever Swamp where people lose their minds.
Anti-Vaxxing Conspiracy Chimera
Sample Thesis Statements and Outline
Chimera of Fear: A Pandemic During Political Polarization
Public intellectual and Stanford neuroscientist Sam Harris said that if the Covid Pandemic was a dress rehearsal for an even more fatal pandemic, we as a society failed.
We failed because we didn’t come together during a time we needed to. The Pandemic became a wedge between the Red and the Blue parties and compounded preexisting political polarization.
The Big Three: Masks, Vaccines, and Lockdowns: Chimera of Government Intrusion and Overreach
On the Right, masks, vaccines, and lockdowns were seen as intrusions by Big Government, AKA “A Liberal Plot,” AKA “A Communist Plot,” AKA “Satan Himself.”
On the Left, vaccines were seen as dangerous substances that conflicted with highly educated left-leaning people’s embrace of alternative medicine and organic living.
Social Influencers Have More Power Than Legacy Media
Both the Right and the Left now live in a new Information Ecosystem where cultural influencers Joe Rogan and Adam Carolla have more podcast listeners than CNN and MSNBC have viewers and New York Times readers combined.
Both Joe Rogan and Adam Carolla are hard to pin down politically because they are complicated individuals but they do invite conspiracy theorists on their shows, they do have hostility toward big government, they do tend to be libertarian in wanting minimum government, and their views tend to be embraced by anti-government players in social media who weaponize their information to push their own agendas.
“News” can travel light-speed on TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook faster than all the “legacy media” combined.
We no longer believe in our media sources, we no longer believe in our government institutions, and we no longer even live in the same reality. We have what is called an epistemic crisis, which means we can’t even agree on how to determine what is knowledge and what is real.
Vaccine Compliance
To beat the Pandemic, we needed vaccine compliance, but red zones were huge non-compliance zones. This doesn’t bode well for future pandemics when viruses may be more fatal.
We failed to address the Covid Pandemic appropriately because we saw a breakdown of trust in our public institutions.
If we can’t trust government institutions during times of crisis when we have to comply with life-and-death safety measures, we as a society are done.
The polarization of the Covid Pandemic may be a precursor to our extinction.
The same conspiracy-soaked brains that reject all government information about Covid as a lie are the same brains that see free elections as a lie and are the same brains that believe Nancy Pelosi and her minions stole the 2020 election.
Once your brain gets hijacked with one conspiracy theory, it opens the gates to getting hijacked by hundreds more.
To Wear a Mask Or Not: Shaming Doesn’t Work
In this environment, wearing a mask, or not wearing a mask, becomes a signal to not only your political beliefs but your tribal affiliation.
Shaming and ridiculing non-maskers who have been featured in viral videos has not helped persuade non-maskers to wear masks. It has only helped to deepen the political polarization.
The Appeal of Conspiracies
People more and more have not been doing deep dives into credible news. Rather, they are enjoying “entertainment news,” which imitates the dramatic conspiracy stories from Hollywood movies.
Conspiracy believers feel a loss of control in a stressful world, and believing in a conspiracy makes them feel like they are in control and not one of the “sheeple” being manipulated by big government.
Conspiracy believers rely on a childish narrative about the world: It can be a world of closure, certainty, and control if we have a conspiracy theory to frame the world in such a way. In fact, the world is chaotic, illogical, and uncertain. Adults can embrace the uncertainty of the world. Emotionally-stunted narcissists can not.
Conspiracy believers love believing that they have knowledge of a “secret reality” that the sheeple are too blind to see and this belief makes them feel special, suggesting that conspiracies appeal to narcissism, a form of psychological maladaptation.
Social media weaponized misinformation and scales it so that what was once fringe has the appearance of being mainstream and gives conspiracy believers a sense of being normal because they enjoy power in numbers. In reality, they live in a fever swamp of insane beliefs.
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Fallacies That Misinform Anti-Vaxxers
Additives are toxic when in fact the amount of toxins is less than what you consume in water every day.
I lead a natural lifestyle, so I am building my immunity when in fact only the vaccine will increase your immunity in a significant way.
Vaccines lead to allergies.
Big government is exaggerating the danger of disease.
Vaccines lead to autism.
As a free person, I should have a choice since my choice affects me and me alone.
Big Pharma is making billions from this corrupt business.
Failures of Media to Promote Truth in Vaccines
Bothsideism, providing both sides to create what appears to be a balanced view when in fact, a conspiracy gets a lopsided advantage.
The media peddles fake controversies because sensationalism gets high ratings. We can call this entertainment news.
Anecdotes carry as much weight as legit studies to an audience that gives as much credence to anecdotes as they do to real data.
Fringe news and fringe conspiracy believers go on high-profile shows like Oprah and other media stars.
***
Sample Thesis Statements for Chimera of Conspiracies
Sample #1
In an age of the Covid Pandemic, we find that a significant population has been brain-hijacked by the anti-vax chimera because of a distrust in institutions, political polarization, the rise of “expert” influencers over true experts, and narcissistic personality types that crave conspiracies.
Sample #2
The appeal of anti-vax conspiracies is a case study of the breakdown of ethos, pathos, and logos.
Sample #3
Anti-vax conspiracists live in a self-feeding fever swamp defined by weaponized misinformation, political polarization, and logical fallacies that defy reason and the powers of persuasion.
Sample #4
A conspiracy chimera such as anti-vax propaganda hijacks the brain in such a way that the person stubbornly resists even the clearest presentation of ethos, pathos, and logos to support the efficacy of vaccines.
Sample Outline:
Paragraph 1: Define a chimera in the context of conspiracies.
Paragraph 2: Present your thesis or claim.
Paragraphs 3-7: Your supporting paragraphs
Paragraph 8: Your conclusion, a powerful restatement of your thesis.
Your final page, Works Cited, in MLA format with 4 sources.
Sentence Fragments
Sentence fragments are incomplete thoughts presented as dependent clauses or phrases.
A dependent clause or a phrase is never a complete sentence.
Types of dependent clauses:
Whenever I drive up windy mountains,
Because I have craved pizza for 14 months,
Unless you add coffee to your chocolate cake recipe,
,which is currently enjoying a resurgence.
Phrases
Enamored by the music of Tupac Shakur,
Craving pesto linguine with olive-oil based clam sauce,
Flexing his muscles with a braggadocio never seen in modern times,
Lying under the bridge and eating garlic pepper pretzels with a dollop of cream cheese and a jug of chilled apple cider,
To understand the notion of Universal Basic Income and all of its related factors for social change in this disruptive age,
Running into crowded restaurants with garlic and whiskey fuming out of his sweaty pores while brandishing a golden scepter,
Examples
I won't entertain your requests for more money and gifts. Until you show at least a modicum of responsibility at school and with your friends.
I won't consider buying the new BMW sports coupe. Unless of course my uncle gives me that inheritance he keeps talking about whenever he gets a bit tipsy.
I can't imagine ever going to Chuck E. Cheese. Which makes me feel like I'm emotionally arrested.
I am considering the purchase of a new wardrobe. That is, if I'm picked for that job interview at Nordstrom.
Human morals have vanished. To the point at which it was decided that market values would triumph.
No subject
Marie Antoinette spent huge sums of money on herself and her favorites. And helped to bring on the French Revolution.
No complete verb
The aluminum boat sitting on its trailer.
Beginning with a subordinating word
We returned to the drugstore. Where we waited for our buddies.
A sentence fragment is part of a sentence that is written as if it were a complete sentence. Reading your draft out loud, backwards, sentence by sentence, will help you spot sentence fragments.
Sentence Fragment Exercises
After each sentence, write C for complete or F for fragment sentence. If the sentence is a fragment, correct it so that it is a complete sentence.
One. While hovering over the complexity of a formidable math problem and wondering if he had time to solve the problem before his girlfriend called him to complain about the horrible birthday present he bought her.
Two. In spite of the boyfriend’s growing discontent for his girlfriend, a churlish woman prone to tantrums and grand bouts of petulance.
Three. My BMW 5 series, a serious entry into the luxury car market.
Four. Overcome with nausea from eating ten bowls of angel hair pasta slathered in pine nut garlic pesto.
Five. Winding quickly but safely up the treacherous Palos Verdes hills in the shrouded mist of a lazy June morning, I realized that my BMW gave me feelings of completeness and fulfillment.
Six. To attempt to grasp the profound ignorance of those who deny the compelling truths of science in favor of their pseudo-intellectual ideas about “dangerous” vaccines and the “myths” of global warming.
Seven. The girlfriend whom I lavished with exotic gifts from afar.
Eight. When my cravings for pesto pizza, babaganoush, and triple chocolate cake overcome me during my bouts of acute anxiety.
Nine. Inclined to stop watching sports in the face of my girlfriend’s insistence that I pay more attention to her, I am throwing away my TV.
Ten. At the dance club where I espy my girlfriend flirting with a stranger by the soda machine festooned with party balloons and tinsel.
Eleven. The BMW speeding ahead of me and winding into the misty hills.
Twelve. Before you convert to the religion of veganism in order to impress your vegan girlfriend.
Thirteen. Summoning all my strength to resist the giant chocolate fudge cake sweating on the plate before me.
Identify the Fragments Below
Identify the Fragments Below
I drank the chalky Soylent meal-replacement drink. Expecting to feel full and satisfied. Only to find that I was still ravenously hungry afterwards. Trying to sate my hunger pangs. I went to HomeTown Buffet. Where I ate several platters of braised oxtail and barbecued short ribs smothered in a honey vinegar sauce. Which reminded me of a sauce where I used to buy groceries from. When I was a kid.
Feeling bloated after my HomeTown Buffet indulgence. I exited the restaurant. After which I hailed an Uber and asked the driver for a night club recommendation. So I could dance off all my calories. The driver recommended a place, Anxiety Wires. I had never heard of it. Though, it was crowded inside. I felt eager to dance and confident about “my swag.” Although, I was still feeling bloated. Wondering if my intestines were on the verge of exploding.
Sweating under the night club’s outdoor canopy. I smelled the cloying gasses of a nearby vape. A serpentine woman was holding the vape. A gold contraption emitting rose-water vapors into my direction. Contemplating my gluttony. I was suddenly feeling low confidence. Though I pushed myself to introduce myself to the vape-smoking stranger with the serpentine features. Her eyes locked on mine.
I decided to play it cool. Instead of overwhelming her with a loud, brash manner. Which she might interpret as neediness on my part.
Keeping a portable fan in my cargo pocket for emergencies. When I feel like I’m overheating. I took the fan out of my pocket, turned it on, and directed it toward the serpentine stranger. Making it so the vapors were blowing back in her face.
“Doesn’t smell so good, does it?” I said. With a sarcastic grin.
She cackled, then said, “Thank you for blowing the vapors in my face. Now I can both enjoy inhaling them and breathing them in. For double the pleasure. You are quite a find. Come home with me and I’ll introduce you to my mother Gertrude and her pitbull Jackson. I’m sure they’ll welcome you into our home. Considering what a well-fed handsome man you are.”
“Thank you for the compliment,” I said. “I would love to meet your mother Gertrude and your mother’s pitbull Jackson. Only one problem. My breath smells like a rotting dead dragon. Right after eating spicy ribs. Which reminds me? Do you have any breath mints?”
“I don’t believe in carrying breath mints. On account of the rose-water vape. That cleanses my palate. Making my breath rosy fresh.”
“Wow. Your constant good breath counteracts my intractable bad breath. Making us a match in heaven.”
“I agree. Totally. You really need to meet my mother. Because she’ll bless us and make our marriage official. Since we really need her blessing. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
“Now let me smell your breath. So I can identify the hot sauce.”
“Why must you do that?”
“So I can use the same hot sauce on our wedding cake, silly. To celebrate the first night we met. Capisce?”
“Capisce.”
She approached me. Affording me a view of her long, tired face. Covered in scales. Reptilian. Evocative of something primitive. Something precious and indelible from my childhood lost long ago. I wanted to run from her, but I could not. Some mysterious force drew me to her, and we inched closer and closer toward one another. Succumbing to a power neither of us could fathom.
Comma Splice Review
Identify the Comma Splices Below:
It’s not a question of will there be chaos or will there be destruction, it’s a question of how much?
MySpace was disruptive in its time, however, it’s a dated platform and to simply mention it is to make people laugh with a certain derision surely it’s a platform that has seen its time, another example is the meal replacement Soylent, its creator made a drink that says, “You’re too busy to eat,” so drinking this pancake batter-like concoction gives tech people street. I may laugh at its stupidity, instead I should admire it since the product has made millions for its creator. It’s proven to be somewhat disruptive.
To be sure, though, Facebook redefines the word disruptive, it has rapidly accrued over 3 billion users and will soon have half the planet plugged into its site, that is the apotheosis of a greedy person’s fantasy, imagine controlling half the planet on a platform that mines private information and targets ads toward specific personality profiles.
One of the scary disruptions of Facebook is that billions of people have lost their personal agency, what that means that people have unknowingly been manipulated by Facebook’s puppeteers to the point that many Facebook users suffer from social media addiction, moreover, these same users prefer the fake life they curate on social media to the real life they once had, in fact, their previous real life is just a puff of smoke that has faded into the distance, many people no longer even know what it means to be “real” anymore, having lost their agency, having succumbed to their Facebook addiction, they have become zombies waiting for their next rush of social media-fueled dopamine, what a sad state of affairs.
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