Political violence is driven by commercial interest

The global debate over the rise in political violence is peaking once again with another shocking political assassination in the US. Unfortunately, much of the debate is focussed on personal behaviour when it should be focussed on what is driving personal behaviour.

Large numbers of citizens don't become furious at the same time as a result of some biological or physical factor. When you get rapid behavioural change seen across a society, that strongly suggests and environmental factor.

Because this isn't just about politics; while politicians have a louder voice than most and so that is often the focus of the debate, teachers, police, hospitality workers, public transport staff – reports of increasing aggression, violence and volatile behaviour are witnessed right across society. This is not just about politics.

In fact there is an awful lot of compelling data that suggests that the rapid change in social behaviour coincides with a sharp drop in mental health – and both of those correlate closely with the rise of social media.

It is therefore easy to assume that this is a result of a kind of behaviour that we have developed when we go on social media platforms. That is not even nearly a sufficient explanation. There were plenty of online forums prior to algorithmically-driven social media and those did not, of themselves, descend into anger and bad behaviour.

The key is the development of the algorithm, and that in turn is an outcome of the rise of the attention economy, which in turn is a result of the rise in individualised capitalism. Increasingly it is in the interests of sellers to have us isolated, fragmented and in an direct relationship not with our friends but with online activity that generates commercial gain.

That can just mean lonely people staying at home and over-consuming to make themselves feel better. It can mean influencer culture with people selling an ideal of a life you are unlikely to achieve and which is, in any case, almost always illusory in the first place. It can mean keeping you addicted to screens to maximise the amount of advertising you see.

All of this is the attention economy, a saturated environment of alienation and anomie (the idea that if we have to make constant choices without a moral framework for making those choices, we become paralysed and susceptible to influence). In this environment, being seen is what counts - and keeping being seen.

This has led to the rise of the algorithm as a method of maximising your engagement with your screen. This in turn has had two consequences – fragmentation as we spend less time with others in empathetic relationships and more time in online para-social relationships, and increasingly being driven to whichever content holds our attention for the longest.

And it turns out that what holds our attention for the longest is strong emotion, among which none is more reliably addictive than anger and rage. An algorithm that seeks to keep you on a platform is an algorithm which will send you towards content that makes you angrier and angrier.

This is not a bug or a flaw in the system, it is the intent and the purpose of the system.

Asking people to simply 'overcome' the social programming which is being done by vastly powerful and lightly-regulated media companies – both traditional and social – is unrealistic. Saturation propaganda works and we know that it is almost impossible for people simply not to be affected by it.

There are dozens and dozens of things we should do. Number one is that we should reengineer social contact into our lives. Being with real people in person stimulates empathy and dampens down aggression and anti-social behaviour. Spending time doing things which offer eudemonic pleasure (long-lasting and meaningful) rather than hedonistic (short-term and shallow) has the same effect. Building more relaxation into our lives does too.

But fundamentally we need to get a grip on the attention economy. Online connection and online communities can be vastly rewarding and a wholly positive experience. The algorithm is designed to get in the way of that.

If we wanted to get this problem under control quickly we would continue to regulate social platforms which connect people as forums and not as publishers – unless an algorithm is used. Using an algorithm to determine what content you see is making an editorial decision. That makes you a publisher.

If you are a publisher you cannot wash your hands of the results of your editorial decisions and neither should those using algorithms. If they were regulated as publishers, the business model would no longer stand up. This would shift the social media market back towards platforms that are there to serve the users and not advertisers.

It would also play an enormous role in reducing anger and violence in our society.