With Kamala Harris And Donald Trump tied in most polling averages, you don’t need me to tell you that America is more divided than it has been since 1861. A UC Davis study last year found that a significant portion of Americans believe violence for political purposes can be justified. For the first time in history, there have been no fewer than two assassination attempts, and potentially a third, against a presidential candidate, one of which nearly killed Trump.

This is also the first time in history that we have had to take such extreme measures to protect polling places and election workers. According to NBC NewsElection officials were threatened, harassed, and targeted simply for doing their jobs. Incidents such as suspected arson of ballot drop boxes and threats against election officials are occurring across the country. In Maricopa County, Arizona (one of the hotbeds of conspiracy theories), authorities turned the county’s vote tabulation center into a war zone, complete with snipers on the roof, metals and security services at each entrance, swarms of drones monitoring overheads and security services. cameras and floodlights in case of potential attacks. In other states, schools are closed on Election Day so police can patrol polling places.

Whoever wins, Americans will wake up the day after the election to a deeply divided nation. But even if pundits and political actors rush to analyze voting patterns and campaign strategies, they will miss the real story: the American social fabric has not been torn apart by politicians (even s ‘they certainly helped), it was optimized by algorithms to the point of oblivion. The only way to fix America is to fix the algorithms that broke it.

Algorithms – the sophisticated programs that determine, among other things, which pieces of content individual users see in their feed – have fundamentally transformed the way we consume news and information. They don’t care if the content is false, divisive, or downright destructive. They simply make content appear more “engaging” – and the fact is that we are more likely to respond to content that provokes a strong emotional response. As a result, our attention is directed to the most polarizing and abrasive videos and posts and other little anger-inducing nuggets, keeping us in a constant cycle of outrage that fuels the platforms’ need for profit.

These algorithmic curators don’t just predict our interests; they shape them. They have transformed us into a nation of people living in parallel but fundamentally different realities. Take any major issue facing the world today: immigration, gun control, foreign policy, Israel, climate change, or abortion. The social media world you operate in not only influences your stance on these issues: it determines the facts you’ll see, the experts you’ll hear, and the arguments you’ll encounter. The result is that Americans no longer just disagree; we operate from entirely different sets of premises, facts, and beliefs.

According to a 2024 Pew Research Center investigation4 out of 10 young Americans say they use TikTok “regularly” to get information. According to the report, other platforms include Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube and X. And search published in the magazine Science found that emotionally charged content seems to spread more quickly on these platforms.

When you explore TikTok algorithmsIt’s truly terrifying how manipulative they can be. Sure, sometimes it’s just to show you funny dance videos or funny memes, but it’s also to share misinformation about some of the hardest questions facing the planet. As a result, we amplify made-up things more than the truth. A Study 2016-2018 by the MIT Media Lab found that fake news is 70% more likely to be retweeted than true stories. Now that AI has become part of the disinformation cycle, the situation will only get worse.

The path to solving all of this is not complicated. In fact, it’s incredibly simple. Tech companies need to fundamentally rethink the role of their algorithms in our democracy. Instead of optimizing engagement at all costs, they need to start optimizing something far more valuable: an informed citizenry. This means rethinking their algorithms to promote factual content And showing people information that does not match their existing beliefs. This means introducing friction into sharing unverified information. And yes, that means potentially sacrificing some of those valuable engagement metrics that have made social media managers some of the most powerful people on the planet.

As we emerge from yet another bitter election, we face a choice: continue on this path of algorithmic division, where Americans increasingly live in separate realities, or demand that tech companies accept their role as managers of our national dialogue. The technology that has divided us can be reimagined with a few lines of code to bring us closer together (or at least a little closer). It is clear that someone like Elon Musk has no interest in this, but others, like Mark Zuckerberg, Evan Spiegel of Snapchat, and Neil Mohan from YouTube, could. For while we may disagree about policies and politicians, we can surely agree on this: a democracy cannot function when its citizens no longer share a fundamental understanding of reality.