The instantaneous wave of likes in response to a post helps the recommendation algorithm evaluate which pieces of content should be promoted, but it also gives the creator an unprecedented real-time measure of what resonates with their audiences, as if every thought was gauged by a Nielsen rating viewable on a smartphone. Cultural flattening is one consequence. But the same mechanism is also what makes our public political discourse more and more extreme, because conflict and controversy light up the feed and attract likes in a way that subtlety and ambiguity never will.
