i imagine its more a function of “people who have similar activity to you frequently responded to these comments,” and in practice with any sort of political content that’s going to be opinions you disagree with.

i realize its a bit of a chicken and egg situation but i dont think they postulated “oh controversial opinions will get more engagement, lets tweak the algorithm to show that to people.” its that the algorithm led itself to doing that and they’re very happy to let it.

i dont intend to discount the lack of ethics here whatsoever but i just find this kind of simple profit-seeking logic resulting in complex shitty outcomes both fascinating and ubiquitous when analyzing capital’s behavior. so often we attribute an individual’s intent and planning to things that are really emergent complexities of capital’s simple process of profit selection.

anyways im sure everybody already knows this i just find it morbidly neat.