Hack Your Social Media Feed

Some simple tricks to receive better information

"Show me the way of hacking" by Alexandre Dulaunoy is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
Social media is an incredible tool for channeling the world’s information. Sadly, though, not all the information you receive will be correct. We all have our biases and we will often give a free pass to narratives that support our worldview. At the same time, we will find ourselves drawn to people who sell black-and-white solutions or fringe views with a sense of utter certainty, while inconvenient and challenging facts will make us feel uncomfortable. All of these factors can take us in the wrong direction.

Luckily, though, we can hack the algorithms behind our feed in order to improve the quality of the information we receive. The algorithms heavily weight our recent activity. That means that a burst of activity can yield fast results and help us in our quest to improve our understanding of the world around us.

Some readers will have been told that the mainstream media is corrupt and corrupting, particularly by anti-globalists. While the media certainly isn’t above criticism, we have seen that people who want you stop reading the papers rarely have your best interests at heart. Instead, I would suggest following a wide range of news sources on social media. Look for news sources across the whole ideological spectrum. Focus on news instead of commentary. Look for a consensus about what has happened, without worrying too much about why.

A few searches on your favourite platform will yield plenty of scientists and promoters of science, as well as skeptics and promoters of skepticism. If you dig a little deeper, you can even find thinkers who promote a Bayesian approach. One example here on Substack is Astral Codex Ten.

If members of your community spread conspiracy theories, try and see if they are working backwards from an event to its alleged cause or using weak methodology. Arguing with dogmatic conspiracy theorists is unlikely to yield good results because of cognitive dissonance. If your friends make specific predictions about the future, though, consider a small bet. If you win, please tell them about the Sharpen Your Axe project.

I explore these issues in further depth in Chapter 16 of Sharpen Your Axe, my free book on thinking critically about the news, current affairs and conspiracy theories. If you missed the beginning, here are the links for Chapter One, Chapter Two, Chapter Three, Chapter Four, Chapter Five, Chapter Six, Chapter Seven, Chapter Eight, Chapter Nine, Chapter Ten, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14 and Chapter 15. Please join me next week for a discussion on contrarianism!

Update (25 April 2021)

The full beta version is available here

[Updated on 10 March 2022] Opinions expressed on Substack and Twitter are those of Rupert Cocke as an individual and do not reflect the opinions or views of the organization where he works or its subsidiaries.