'Angertainment', algorithms and the online outrage industry
6/1/202653 min
Political advisor Ed Coper on the cold-blooded machine that is feeding angry people angry content online to make them even angrier, and what we can do about it.
Ed Coper is a political advisor and communications consultant who has worked for the Australian Labor Party, and for progressive lobby groups.
Over the past few years, he has noticed what everyone else has - people on both sides of the divide becoming increasingly vocal and angry about their politics online.
While there's no shortage of things to get outraged about in today's world, no matter where you lie on the political spectrum, Ed argues our rage is being monetised cold-bloodedly by social media platforms.
This digital, online machine has planted us in what he calls the era of 'angertainment', where an entire outrage industry is harvesting our worst impulses with algorithms that deliberately trigger the caveman switch in our brains that keeps us alert for potential threats.
But there is an antidote.
Ed says we need to understand this machine in order to build guardrails that preserve democracy, heal divisions and protect future generations from the "angry clowns" who currently rule the attention economy.
Angertainment is published in Simon and Schuster.
This episode of Conversations explores politics, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, divisive society, social cohesion, left versus right, attention spans, war, Trump, Putin, Gaza, Israel, Ukraine, elections, World War 3, the future, chronically online, rage bait, internet trolls, keyboard warriors, content farming, bots, Russia, Musk, Zuckerberg, Bezos, Get Up, populism, political ideology, transgender issues, attention economy, MAGA, the woke left, polarised society, family violence, violence against women, misogyny, entertainment industry, Hollywood, nihilism, conservatives, progressives.
To binge even more great episodes of the Conversations podcast with Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski go the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. There you’ll find hundreds of the best thought-provoking interviews with authors, writers, artists, politicians, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsSana Kadir0:00
Hey there, Sana Kadir here from All in the Mind. Check out our new series, Forensic. It's all about the psychological tools and tricks that come with investigating crime.
Ed Coper· Guest0:09
He was setting the bombs off in subways, in the New York Public Library, in movie theaters.
Speaker 3· Soundbite0:15
When you're testifying in court, rather than having purely your own memory, you take on all these little bits and pieces of information from different sources.
Sana Kadir0:23
All in the Mind: Forensic. Search for All in the Mind on ABC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 40:29
ABC Listen: podcasts, radio, news, music, and more.
Richard Fidler· Host0:35
Winston Churchill had this wonderful definition of a fanatic. A fanatic, he said, is someone who can't change their mind and won't change the subject. Maybe you've got someone that's in your family or in your circle of friends who have, over the last few years or decade or so, become increasingly vocal about their politics and very angry with it. So many people these days seem to have a grievance and an enemy. And God knows there's no shortage of things that are wrong in the world right now. But Ed Coper is here to tell us how rage is being monetized quite cold-bloodedly by social media platforms, and this has put us in, he says, "The era of angertainment." Ed Coper is a political advisor and communications consultant.