The Growing Fear of Social Unrest and Division
I used to think that it took a lot to scare me; I’m not talking about the anxiety that often afflicts me, but real fear—the kind I’m experiencing right now. It’s the same kind of shiver I felt on election night and the same as I feel now as I watch my country burn.

A Personal Crisis: Struggling with Faith and Belief
The rise of the Far Right and the subsequent riots have prompted a degree of soul-searching that has thrown me off balance. As I search for answers, I find myself unsettled by a deeper, more personal question—one that exposes the source of my inner turmoil, one I don’t think I shall ever be able to answer.

Social Media’s Role in Amplifying Hatred and Division
What is it about my own faith that, while I’m quite happy to believe in God, I’m so reluctant to believe in the devil, despite so much evidence to the contrary?

Is Social Media Fueling Political Division and Unrest?
No matter how many times I ponder that question, I find myself repeatedly drawn to another interlocking issue: what role does social media play in the rising tide of social unrest and the seemingly ever-growing levels of hatred and division? For it feeds on poverty and social deprivation. And rather like boiling a frog, by the time we know it’s too hot, it’s too late.

The Devil’s Work: How Algorithms Promote Division
For let’s face it, I’m not suggesting for a second that the devil does exist, but if he did, I can think of no better way to do his bidding than through social media. An algorithm that drives division and profits from hatred sounds to me like the work of a devilish mind, so who do we blame—those who wrote the code and profited from it, or those who merely danced to its rhythm?

The Root Causes of Social Unrest: Austerity and Inequality
I get it, people are angry, rightly so, for those who have the least had the most to lose—and they lost it. Social media just stepped into that economic void and gave that justified anger a voice. But in the process of amplifying that bitterness, it lost its direction and got aimed at a manufactured enemy.

Austerity: The Driving Force Behind Riots and Division
Now I have no questions as to the root cause of the riots—you can sum it up in one word—austerity. Nothing to do with immigration. Austerity is at the core of all of this. That warped doctrine and mantra of madness is the gift that just keeps on giving. Social media exploits that fury; it is the head of steam that powers the engine of its greed—no wonder it’s interested in stoking those fires.

The Mechanics of Social Media Algorithms and Their Impact
Social media algorithms encourage us—we are each placed at the centre of our own universe, free to rotate in whatever direction we want, regardless of the will of others. In the process, we bang, clank, and collide with so many other worlds where each individual at the centre believes the world rotates around them. That friction is bound to cause heat and generate its own form of global warming.

The Profit Motive: How Social Media Drives Greed
Any idiot whose income is generated by the motion of those worlds is bound to agitate them for the faster they rotate, the more they make. They don’t care what makes them turn, only that they turn. Faster, quicker—spin those worlds. So what if they spin out of control? It’s good for business.

Elon Musk: A Useful Idiot or Catalyst for Division?
So if, and God forbid, he does exist, that would make Elon Musk nothing more than a useful idiot for Beelzebub. For there is a little piece of the devil in us all, so perhaps the inherent evil of social media is that it allows us to join the dots and then allows a much greater evil to flourish.

The Role of Human Nature in Amplifying Social Media’s Negative Impact
No matter what you might think about the devil, you can’t deny the existence of evil. So, maybe it’s the good in me, but I don’t believe these are bad people, or even good people who have done bad things, but something in between—imperfect humans like me or you with our inner evil unleashed and amplified by a mob mentality.

Understanding the Long-Term Impact of Social Media on Society
Just as we’ve yet to fully understand the long-term effects of microwaves and mobile phones, we are only beginning to grasp the profound impact social media has on our society.

Is Free Speech Destroying Society? The Dangers of Amplified Voices
Freedom of speech is sacrosanct, but what if being able to say what we want with a volume and confidence out of all proportion to the consequences is tearing the very fabric of society? If amplifying the pub bore to the level of Socrates endangers us all?

The Devil Believes in Us: A Final Thought
There is a great line in the cult film Constantine that goes something like this: “I don’t believe in the devil… You should. He believes in you.”