Library:The Hype Machine
| The Hype Machine | |
|---|---|
| Author | Sinan Aral |
| First published | 2020 |
| ISBN | 978-0-525-57451-4 |
| Role | Analysis |
| Domains | Technology & Media |
| Tactics | Fabrication |
The Hype Machine is a 2020 book by Sinan Aral.
Summary
Sinan Aral, a professor at MIT and director of its Initiative on the Digital Economy, published this book in 2020. Aral is one of the leading researchers on how information spreads online, and the book draws on his own studies and two decades of work to explain how social media shapes elections, markets, public health and relationships.
The false news study
The book builds on one of the most cited studies of misinformation, published in Science in 2018 by Aral and his colleagues Soroush Vosoughi and Deb Roy. Analysing more than a decade of rumours on Twitter, they found that false news spread farther, faster, deeper and more broadly than true news across all categories of information. Falsehoods were significantly more likely to be shared than truths. The researchers found that the main cause was humans rather than bots, and that false stories spread faster partly because they were more novel and provoked stronger emotional reactions such as surprise and disgust.
The machine
Aral describes what he calls the Hype Machine: the combination of digital social networks, machine-learning algorithms that decide what people see and the smartphones that connect people to both constantly. Together, he argues, they create a feedback loop: algorithms learn what keeps people engaged, people respond, and the system shapes behaviour at a scale never seen before.
The effects
The book examines the machine's effects in different areas: on elections and political polarization, on consumer behaviour and markets, on public health, including the spread of vaccine misinformation, and on personal relationships. Aral presents both the benefits, such as the ability to organize and share knowledge, and the harms.
Fixing it
Aral argues that neither simple regulation nor abandoning social media is the answer. He identifies four levers: money, meaning the business models that reward engagement; code, meaning the design of algorithms and platforms; norms, meaning how people choose to use them; and laws, meaning regulation of competition, privacy and harmful content.
Relevance to Bullshitopedia
The book provides the best evidence that false information has a structural advantage online: it spreads faster than the truth. That finding is a central part of the case for the site's existence, and the book is a core reference for the Technology & Media domain.