The Information Environment

The like button started as a convenience feature. There is no evidence the engineers who built it understood they were tapping into dopamine signalling — the same neurochemical pathway activated by food, sex, and addictive drugs. They almost certainly didn't. They just noticed that people used it, and that people came back more when they did. What happened next is the important part. Once the data made the mechanism visible, the platforms didn't stop. They hired behavioural scientists, ran tens of thousands of A/B tests on human subjects without their knowledge or consent, and systematically optimised their products to maximise the neurochemical response. They introduced intermittent variable reward — the same mechanism at the core of gambling addiction — because unpredictable rewards are more addictive than predictable ones. Pull down to refresh. Will there be something new? Maybe. That uncertainty is engineered. It is not accidental. If a pharmaceutical company wanted to introduce a compound that altered brain chemistry in this way, it would face years of regulatory scrutiny, clinical trials, and informed consent requirements. Social media platforms did this to billions of people, including children, with no regulatory process whatsoever. They are still doing it. The algorithmic amplification of conflict builds on this foundation. Outrage produces a stronger neurochemical response than agreement. The algorithm learned this from the data and acted on it. The result is a system that is structurally biased toward conflict, division, and the emotional states most likely to impair careful reasoning — not because anyone planned it that way, but because that is what the optimisation process selected for. Barbara Walter's book How Civil Wars Start documents what this looks like at scale — from Myanmar to the former Yugoslavia to the United States. The mechanism is the same in each case. Social media doesn't cause civil conflict. But it accelerates the conditions that make it possible, and it does so faster than any previous information technology in history. I have professional training in data analysis and argument construction. I still feel myself being baited by content online. That should tell you something about how effective these systems are, and how little individual awareness protects you from them. Most people would not tolerate a government adding compounds to the water supply that made them angrier and more impulsive — even if those compounds were freely available elsewhere and technically legal. We would consider it a profound violation of autonomy and public trust. Social media is doing something functionally equivalent. The delivery mechanism is different. The effect on brain chemistry is not. We built Kōan because we believe the design of a platform is a moral choice. This is ours. Source: Walter, B.F. (2022). How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them. Crown Publishing. ISBN 978-0-593-13778-9. — Walter is a political scientist and adviser to the CIA's Political Instability Task Force. The book draws on decades of data on civil conflict to explain why democracies are more fragile than they appear and how social media has been weaponised. Sherman et al. (2016) — peer-reviewed neuroimaging research showing likes activate the striatum (dopamine reward system), with heightened effects in adolescents. Published in Psychological Science. Hunt et al. (2018) — experimental study finding that limiting social media use led to significant reductions in loneliness and depression. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology. Sharpe & Spooner (2025) — "Dopamine-scrolling: a modern public health challenge requiring urgent attention." Peer-reviewed public health journal. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/17579139251331914 Frances Haugen testimony (2021) — Meta whistleblower, Senate Commerce Committee. Confirmed internal knowledge of algorithmic amplification of divisive content.