One morning, I was casually browsing my Twitter’s “For You” page and looking at the recommended tweets. One tweet stood out and made my blood cold. On my feed was a clip from the film Africa Addio. The title seems somewhat innocent to some, but the film contains the actual deaths of Africans in the 1960s. I may have been lucky not to see anything violent; others were not.

The age of social media may have brought us together, yet it also reminded us how violent our world is. It’s important to acknowledge the suffering and pain felt by the unfortunate, yet clips like I saw aren’t for education; they’re for entertainment. Plenty share videos of cartel violence, animal deaths, ISIS beheadings, and more for the sake of a “punchline.” However, how are these types of videos appearing on our feed so often?

Well, that’s thanks to the algorithm. The algorithm implemented in social media is a tool to decide what posts are shown to us on our “For You” page based on the content we interact with. For example, let’s say a cat video appears in your feed, and you decide to give it a like because the video is cute. The algorithm sees that you watched and interacted with the video, choosing to show more animal videos, thinking it’s what you want to see more of. That’s how much violence shows up because the algorithm detects you liked a post close to what appears on the screen.

If the algorithm is the problem, why not eliminate or reform it? Gonzales v Google is precisely that: a lawsuit to force Google to take action after hosting ISIS videos. Granted, it’s not as simple as it sounds. If sites like Google reform or remove the algorithm, they would cease to exist as they do now or have complete control. We would let tech companies ultimately control what we see or have millions of content creators lose their jobs.

Since there is no reasonable alternative, then what can we do as people to defend ourselves from violence on our feed? For starters, turn off autoplay on your site. Disabling autoplay will prevent videos from automatically playing, allowing you to avoid it quickly. Then, block accounts that frequently post such content or stick to the “Following” tab, if available. This strategy will help you limit the posts shown to you or restrict them to only those from users you follow.

Violence is an unfortunate occurrence that we all witness online. Whether it be people dying, animal deaths, or wars, however, we shouldn’t become so accustomed to seeing it on social media that we become numb to it. Empathy makes us human, and we cannot afford to lose that. While it’s essential not to close our eyes to the suffering around the world, it’s also vital not to drown in it.

Works Cited

Adisa, Dorcas. “Everything You Need to Know About Social Media Algorithms.” Sprout Social, 30 October 2023, https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-algorithms/. Accessed 5 February 2024.

Fung, Brian. “Google claims a Supreme Court defeat would transform the internet — for the worse.” CNN, 12 January 2023, https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/12/tech/google-supreme-court/index.html. Accessed 5 February 2024.