Jul 24, 2025 07:26 PM
https://asteriskmag.com/issues/11/scapeg...-algorithm
EXCERPTS: Many people sense that the United States is undergoing an epistemic crisis, a breakdown in the country’s collective capacity to agree on basic facts, distinguish truth from falsehood, and adhere to norms of rational debate.
This crisis encompasses many things: rampant political lies; misinformation; and conspiracy theories; widespread beliefs in demonstrable falsehoods (“misperceptions”); intense polarization in preferred information sources; and collapsing trust in institutions meant to uphold basic standards of truth and evidence (such as science, universities, professional journalism, and public health agencies).
[...] What is driving these problems? One influential narrative blames social media platforms...
[...] But there are compelling reasons to be skeptical that social media is a leading cause of America’s epistemic challenges. The “wrecking ball” narrative exaggerates the novelty of these challenges, overstates social media’s responsibility for them, and overlooks deeper political and institutional problems that are reflected on social media, not created by it.
The platforms are not harmless. They may accelerate worrying trends, amplify fringe voices, and facilitate radicalization. However, the current balance of evidence suggests that the most consequential drivers of America’s large-scale epistemic challenges run much deeper than algorithms.
[...] Perhaps most surprisingly, there is little evidence to suggest that rates of conspiracy theorizing have increased in prevalence in the social media age. In a recent study, political scientist Joe Uscinski and colleagues conducted four separate analyses to test for possible changes over time. They conclude: “In no instance do we observe systematic evidence for an increase in conspiracism, however operationalized.”
[...] [...] Although the scientific literature on political polarization and its causes is highly complex and evolving, there is scholarly consensus that the unusually low polarization of the mid-twentieth century began to decay decades before the advent of social media.
[...] The emergence of a thriving partisan media ecosystem exacerbated this trend of increasing polarization. But this, too, predates the internet and social media: it’s typically traced to the Reagan administration’s 1987 termination of the “fairness doctrine,” which had required broadcasters to discuss controversial topics in an unbiased manner. Famously, Rush Limbaugh’s enormously influential conservative radio program was nationally syndicated the following year. The next decade then saw the emergence of cable news like MSNBC and Fox News...
[...] the current balance of evidence does not support blaming America’s epistemic challenges on social media. First, many of these challenges predate social media and can arise independently of it. Second, the uneven distribution of such challenges across nations and political cultures with comparable rates of social media use suggests that social media alone is not what’s causing them. And finally, our best large-scale experiments show minimal effects of social media platforms, which aligns with decades of research into media and social learning... (MORE - missing details)
EXCERPTS: Many people sense that the United States is undergoing an epistemic crisis, a breakdown in the country’s collective capacity to agree on basic facts, distinguish truth from falsehood, and adhere to norms of rational debate.
This crisis encompasses many things: rampant political lies; misinformation; and conspiracy theories; widespread beliefs in demonstrable falsehoods (“misperceptions”); intense polarization in preferred information sources; and collapsing trust in institutions meant to uphold basic standards of truth and evidence (such as science, universities, professional journalism, and public health agencies).
[...] What is driving these problems? One influential narrative blames social media platforms...
[...] But there are compelling reasons to be skeptical that social media is a leading cause of America’s epistemic challenges. The “wrecking ball” narrative exaggerates the novelty of these challenges, overstates social media’s responsibility for them, and overlooks deeper political and institutional problems that are reflected on social media, not created by it.
The platforms are not harmless. They may accelerate worrying trends, amplify fringe voices, and facilitate radicalization. However, the current balance of evidence suggests that the most consequential drivers of America’s large-scale epistemic challenges run much deeper than algorithms.
[...] Perhaps most surprisingly, there is little evidence to suggest that rates of conspiracy theorizing have increased in prevalence in the social media age. In a recent study, political scientist Joe Uscinski and colleagues conducted four separate analyses to test for possible changes over time. They conclude: “In no instance do we observe systematic evidence for an increase in conspiracism, however operationalized.”
[...] [...] Although the scientific literature on political polarization and its causes is highly complex and evolving, there is scholarly consensus that the unusually low polarization of the mid-twentieth century began to decay decades before the advent of social media.
[...] The emergence of a thriving partisan media ecosystem exacerbated this trend of increasing polarization. But this, too, predates the internet and social media: it’s typically traced to the Reagan administration’s 1987 termination of the “fairness doctrine,” which had required broadcasters to discuss controversial topics in an unbiased manner. Famously, Rush Limbaugh’s enormously influential conservative radio program was nationally syndicated the following year. The next decade then saw the emergence of cable news like MSNBC and Fox News...
[...] the current balance of evidence does not support blaming America’s epistemic challenges on social media. First, many of these challenges predate social media and can arise independently of it. Second, the uneven distribution of such challenges across nations and political cultures with comparable rates of social media use suggests that social media alone is not what’s causing them. And finally, our best large-scale experiments show minimal effects of social media platforms, which aligns with decades of research into media and social learning... (MORE - missing details)