When I think about this, I think about classical social movement theory, where people are only going to be motivated to do something in this world if they feel that there is outrage and they hope for change. Often what we see online with rage baiting is this call to outrage that, in some instances, people are hoping will change ordinary citizens' behaviour.
If we think about the United Nations documentation on the freedom of expression, we have three rights with the freedom of expression. Of course, we have the right to speak; we can saying anything whenever we want. We have the right to receive information. Let's say a forest fire is happening. Then we would hope that an information intermediary like Facebook would serve us news about how to be safe.
The last part of freedom of expression that we often forget, and it matters so much for how we understand social media and algorithmic amplification, is that we have the right to seek the truth. We have a right to the truth, and this comes from post-Holocaust political theorizing about what it means to seek the truth, about who has purchase on the truth and about how we arrive at truth.
Algorithms do not care if what you're posting is true or false. They also do not care if what you're posting is incitement to violence, because that's going to drive the rage, which is going to drive, as Matthew just said, the engagement. We have to really concentrate on rewarding platforms, and also journalism, that protect the right to seek information.
The last thing I'll say about that is what we need are roles that make sure people have TALK—which is timely, accurate, local knowledge. Those are the building blocks for democracies. Having an informed citizenry who is educated and who has access to our own heritage and histories is paramount in this moment. What social media has done, really, is inverted that need for society, commodified it and then mixed it with entertainment and rage bait.