News feed algorithms that maximize profits for the social media company <i>inevitably</i> promote sensational, emotionally potent content. Doing so is part of their design.<p>Consider the following experiment with YouTube. Search for something, anything. A list of relevant search results will appear.<p>You might imagine that after you watch the top search result, the next video to play would be the second place search result.<p>But alas YouTube does not want you to see the second most relevant thing that you just searched for! YouTube wants to show you the most addictive thing that relates to the item you just watched.<p>YouTube’s algorithm is essentially walking a graph from whatever you are currently watching, following the edge to the most addictive thing that relates to it.<p>It’s like a vending machine that dispenses the chocolate bar and then automatically dispenses some nicotine gum immediately after.<p>This is “news feed profit maximization 101”.<p>Viral content creators know how to make emotionally potent content and one can see the extent to which YouTube’s algorithm has rewarded/incentivized this by observing the vast percentage of YouTube content that is gimmicky, uses irrelevant thumbnails, etc.