Digital economic incentives reward manic, bridge-burning behavior during crises

Evidence

The economic incentives for this kind of online content go a long way toward explaining the breed of public figure who seems to have turned into a different kind of person during that first Covid year—more manic; angrier; more willing to burn bridges, to make outlandish claims, and to share unreliable and poorly sourced information if it was likely to be carried by a strong current in the digital ocean. — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, 343

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the noise/information-overload thread and to the broader attention-economy argument about platforms rewarding outrage. — connects to: Post-crisis risk models internalized social imitation as a financial risk factor. — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial…, 1231
• SEED: Angle: platform incentives as a one-way ratchet that only selects for escalation — who survives Covid-era content economies and who gets pushed out.