Algorithms are designed to promote clicks and purchases, regardless of the accuracy or social impacts of the content being promoted. Sensational information, such as polarizing extreme ideas, get more attention and are made more visible by the algorithms. Media illiteracy makes many vulnerable to thinking that if information is more visible, it’s more valid. The result is a knowledge gap among the public.  

The Internet has been captured by four giant corporations who don’t produce anything, contribute nothing to the wealth of the country, and hoard their billions of dollars in order to pounce on anything that appears to be a competitor and buy it out immediately. They will get you and I to do the work for them – which is putting the data in – then they send out what they con other people into believing are targeted ads. But actually, the problem with their advertising is that it is – like all geek stuff – literal. It has no imagination to it whatsoever. It sees that you bought a ticket to Budapest, so you’re going to get more tickets to Budapest. It’s a scam.

— Adam Curtis