> The political polarization might not be caused by technology but instead only amplifies it. [..] What we seem to forget is that we all lived in confirmation bias bubbles before the internet.

Yes, and doing the same as always just more efficiently can be reason enough for regulation.

Consider fishing. Mankind pretty much always did it. Over time we got more efficient, but the core mechanism of extracting fish from the sea always stayed the same. Along the same line of reasoning there should not have been any need for fishing limits. But if we look at all systems and mechanisms interacting, just pushing this one variable at some arbitrary point can make the system collapse.

Afaik fishing is a lot better understood than filter bubbles. But the history examples of strong political polarization I can remember usually heave lead to bad outcomes (as in bloody), thus we probably want to stay on the safer side for now.

Kind of sad that the Chinese way of dealing with this might actually produce better outcomes, if our western "free societies" won't find a way to deal with it.

Abramowitz and Sanders (2008)[1] is a good article showing the debate going on 10 years ago over whether or not we were even seeing polarization, which supports the possibility that tech is a spurious factor.

A really cool causal factor (e.g. Green, Palmquist, and Schicker, 2002, [2]) is the effect of civil rights and voting rights acts in the 60s. Essentially, young conservatives subsequently started primarily joining the Republican party and it took 30 years for the effects to really be visible (kind of like messing with pH levels where the color eventually just changes).

[1] http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jcampbel/documents/AbramowitzJO...

[2] http://www.uvm.edu/~dguber/POLS125/articles/green.pdf

> the companies themselves have also been manipulated ...The political polarization might not be caused by technology but instead only amplifies it.

There are claims that Facebook staffers directly help political campaigns micro-target specific audiences using "dark posts" [1].

[1]: https://www.wired.com/story/free-speech-issue-tech-turmoil-n...

I don't like the term "polarization" because the reduction to a spectrum, much less a one-dimensional one with two poles, doesn't represent most issues well or at all, and even where it might be applicable, the reason why someone is "at one of the poles" matters a lot more than what opinion they have. Someone is adamantly against the death penalty as a result of a lot of weighing and reflection, and is able to argue their opinion, is very different from someone who just holds it because their peers do, and is unable or unwilling to think things through for themselves. So I'd say where people get "more radical" just by being exposed to different views that kind of shows there is something more than just deliberation going on, and that issue seems orthogonal to the world seeming more confusing and confused because we see more of it (which I agree plays a role).

And though I agree without reserveration that technology doesn't cause that per se, the way we use it for the most part (and which we seem to have accepted as the way to go, or at least as somehow unavoidable), turn things into headlines and TLDR and memes, and those into things to "share" or "like", seems like an already existing problem put on steroids to me.

The only part of your argument that's relevant is the part about selling personal information for profit. The rest is immaterial to the problem with unregulated industry, and in fact incorrect when it comes to the end-result of things like "political polarization". Governments and private companies are more than happy to see the mass organization and demonstrations of the 20th century turn into yelling at auntie on Facebook. Social media is the /dev/null of critical thought; a pressure valve for grievances that can be quickly assuaged by faves. The polarization of views online just makes us more silent IRL, much to the delight of our employers.

The article itself barely touches upon the titular "stake." NPR inserts "election interference" and Smith is quoted in reference to personal data acquisition as a potentially dangerous wealth transfer/concentration.

Since election interference is widely reported and understood to have been an intel operation aimed at polarizing U.S. public opinion with legitimate and illegitimate information, I dont see how treebeard is irrelevant.

Sidenote: It's still unclear, to me anyway, just how effective the influence was. In these crazy times, I should clarify that I'm not denying it occured.

Even beyond how effective the election manipulation was or wasn't, no one is asking whether the vague 'regulations' (by the US gov?) will do anything useful at all.

I suspect not but this all sounds reactionary "something must be done" where the utility of the something is always downplayed.

Agreed, of course. And, thanks for bringing my sidenote back onto topic (:

The subject of the article is not too well-defined, which reflects our inability to come to terms with the associated Big Issues. So, yeah, it's difficult for me to imagine forward thinking regulation coming out of the current conversation--such as it is, in main editorial media and government.

In my personal life, having a productive conversation about the current and future impacts of data (non)privacy is next to impossible due to the inherent complexity of integrating the subject with pre-existing ideological frameworks. I do not think I'm brighter than them, just happen to have a long-standing interest. Based on observation, politicians seem no better equipped.

“Social media is the /dev/null of critical thought”

Beautiful.