World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech

by Franklin Foer

The headline is, of course, an ancient journalistic art form. But Upworthy—and its legions of imitators—subjected it to positivistic rigor. With every item it posted, Upworthy would write twenty-five different headlines. Software allowed Upworthy to automatically publish all twenty-five, and then determine the most clickable of the bunch. Based on these results, Upworthy uncovered syntactical patterns that were close to sure hits. (Upworthy found tremendous success when it used variations of the sentence “You Won’t Believe What Happened Next.”) These formulas were so effective that they became commonplace across the Web—so overused that readers grew wise to the tricks and the formulas lost their powers, which led to the frantic scramble to discover the next new thing. The core insight of Upworthy, BuzzFeed, Vox, and the other emerging Internet behemoths was that editorial success could be engineered—that if you listened to the data, it was possible to craft pieces that would win massive audiences. This was an insight embraced across the industry, even at sober places like the Washington Post. And it was an insight that wormed its way into the New Republic. Chris installed a data guru on our staff to increase our odds of producing viral hits. In weekly meetings, the guru would come armed with topics that we would be wise to pursue. He would keep a careful eye on the topics trending on Facebook, so that we could create content that might ride a wave of popularity. He looked ...