I did not believe those things due to an algorithm, I believed those things because I was never exposed to anything outside of my "bubble". People in my City tend not to leave especially if they are poor.

Exposure to the real world had a painful destructive effect, and if I had clung back into my safe little cubby hole I would have done so swiftly.

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I believe "both sides" is important; but you're right that people scream and drown out any modicum of moderation; but it noble to attempt to at least understand the spirit of the arguments on every side of a debate.

Make your own reasoning about the facts based on the perspectives that are given, but other than that don't allow yourself to be emotive.

Really, this is what journalism is supposed to be, but that kind of journalism dies out because humans love to _feel_ so selling feelings about things is quite easy; this fuels divides. Since news is no longer fact it's merely "view" of the facts, and often not all of them.

While I agree that at first all sides should be considered, often I find people view both sides with equal merit when it is easily worked out that one side holds more merit than the other. (Some examples of arguments holding less merit being ones that go against scientific evidence without evidence to back them up, arguments made in bad faith, arguments made with wilful ignorance of evidence)

I feel you on the growing up in a dogma infused environment, in my case rural England rife with homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia and all that sort of general ignorance-based hatred and revulsion. Luckily I also had an internet connection from a relatively early age so I had exposure to outside perspectives or I would've likely had more years of repression and self loathing than I had and wouldn't have had anywhere near the opportunities I've had.

In my mind, journalism should focus less on giving all sides equal weight and staying neutral but more on finding all the evidence, giving you said evidence, and then discounting lies and manipulation of evidence. Or at least on giving you all the evidence for you to digest and come to your own conclusions rather than just a match of he-said, she-said type reporting. I find the issue I've described especially prevalent in some BBC news stories..

Edit: I forgot to add that I also strongly agree with you in the many news organisations and journalists overly sensationalizing and giving opinion as "news" and/or trying to incite emotions rather than broadened perspectives/informed opinions.

There's a concept known as steelmanning - most people aren't good at arguing their case, but their case usually has some kind of merit. You steelman an argument by trying to build the strongest, most defensible form of an opponent's argument, read it charitably and presume good faith and tgen try to take it down. That usually involves understanding why a stance forms and its emotional truth, and engaging with that has a funny effect of making people feel heard.

Nice, thanks very much for the pointer- I had never heard of this before I will look into it. :)

Not because of social media or a formal algorithim but a less formalized one referred to as "socialization" and decided by prior actions of those who came before, some long dead and some still alive today. It was madd up in part of thoughts of thinking people in different contexts and in part unthinking set in stone doctrines. Just like an algorithim essentially with the tweaks by programmers ans input sources providing the "thinking" and the content and program providing the "unthinking".