🧩 BND Motif Index · M231
Algorithmic bias distorts discourse
Algorithms push people to extremes and warp public debate.
🕵️ Theories🗂️ Information integrity🗂️ Online life
- 4claims filed under it
- 1left show it came up on
- 1right show it came up on
- 2claims retold online
⚠️ A story people tell, not a claim that it's true.
A motif is the shape of a story as its tellers tell it, named the way a folklorist names a tale type, so the same story told about other people, by the other side or in another year lands in the same place. Some of the claims below are true, many are false. Arguing against a story is often a story of its own, its answer (Voter fraud is answered by Voter suppression, Lawfare by No one is above the law), and we file it there; where no answer has a motif yet, the arguments against a story sit with its tellings.
🪜 Its family
what it rests on, what rests on it, and the motifs that answer it
🪜 rests on 🧩 Misinformation spread 🧩 Blaming technology
🔗 goes with: 🧩 AI breaking social trust 🧩 Firehose of falsehood 🧩 Manufacturing consent
🎙️ Who it came up with
the shows we follow where its claims came up, by the show's lean
🫏 left 1
⚖️ center 0
🦗 none of our center shows, so far
🐘 right 1
"Came up on" means one of its claims was heard on the show: told, reported or argued against. We don't yet mark which. Show leans are our own grouping of the shows we transcribe.
🧶 Its claims
what's been told in this shape, newest first, in our words, with where each was heard
- 2026-10-23 “Online platforms use rage bait and political heroin to addict subscribers to their screens.”
🎙️ Clay Travis & Buck Sexton - 2026-10-21 “Social media splits people apart because polarization is its business plan.”
🎙️ The David Frum Show - 2026-10-07 “Arguments about whether trans people are dangerous and violent or are often falsely accused of crimes, and they are vilified and targeted by society and institutions.” 🧶 people online
- 2026-10-05 “The internet has both positive and negative effects on democracy, with misinformation and algorithmic polarization threatening democratic discourse.” 🧶 people online
M231 · first seen 2026-10-05 · last 2026-10-23 · what this is · how the index works