Don't Feed the Outrage Machine

In the beginning, the internet promised connection. It was to be the great unifier — a place where knowledge flowed freely and people found each other across boundaries of geography, race, and class. But what was built instead? A set of binary social networks, ruled not by empathy or understanding, but by algorithms optimized for outrage and profit.

We have been flattened into data points, reduced to likes or dislikes, follows or unfollows, red or blue. The rich texture of human experience — our doubts, our contradictions, our intuitions, our silences — has been sacrificed to the digital click machine. We’ve traded complexity for simplicity, nuance for certainty, humanity for engagement metrics.

And it is tearing us apart and destroying democracy.

Humans are not ones and zeroes. We are not defined by thumbs-up or thumbs-down, swipe left or swipe right. We are messy, feeling, irrational, brilliant creatures who learn through stories, change our minds, and grow in the in-between spaces. Yet social media platforms, designed to maximize profits and ruled by billionaire overlords, have shaped a world where those qualities are liabilities. The algorithms do not reward conversation or care — they reward division, speed, and spectacle. Bots are free to flood the zone while our own voices get buried in the noise. The rules are clear: keep scrolling, keep reacting, keep the machine fed.

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But we don’t have to live like this.

It’s time to revolt.

Revolt against the idea that your identity is just a handle and a heap of behavioral data to be monetized. Revolt against a system that sells your attention to the highest bidder while sowing distrust and division. Revolt against platforms that thrive on chaos and dehumanization.

We can build something better. We can build human networks.

Imagine a space where bots are banned. Where real people talk with real names and own their words—and their data. Where your identity and content belong to you, not to some distant server farm. Where conversation is civil, disagreement is welcomed, and nuance is not only allowed but celebrated. A network built for human beings, not for engagement engines.

That future is possible — but only if we build it.

And to build social networks that build community and break away from the disunion that is destroying our democracy will require us to get radical.

Being human is radical now. Listening is radical. Thoughtfulness is radical. Refusing to let your worldview be shaped by recommendation algorithms is radical. But radical is exactly what we need right now.

Want to save democracy? Be human. Revolt.

The machine wants your clicks at the expense of your soul.

Don't give it.

Note: A bunch of us have launched a pro democracy social network at Sez.us. It’s in Google and Apple App Stores. Thousands are helping us build it. Join us. And find a friend to join us here on Lincoln Square. We have to build our own networks and media platforms. Thanks for your help and support.