Fact & Friction

Episode: Synthetic Reality: How AI is Now Writing the News you thought Humans Wrote Episode Overview For most of the history of the internet, there has been a basic assumption that behind every article, comment, review or opinion piece is a human being; a journalist, blogger, campaigner or just someone expressing a view. That assumption is no longer valid. Today, large volumes of online content ar...

Episode: The Manipulation You Never See – Emotional A/B Testing Overview Much of the internet you experience today is not static. It is experimental. Behind the scenes, digital platforms constantly test different versions of headlines, images, notifications, and even the order in which stories appear. Each variation is measured to see which one produces the strongest reaction. This process, known...

Episode 2 - Rabbit Holing: How Curiosity Gets Hijacked Why recommendation systems quietly steer curiosity toward more extreme content. Episode Overview Most people have experienced the online rabbit hole. You open a platform to watch one short video or read a single post, and twenty minutes later you find yourself deep into a topic you never intended to explore. It feels natural – like curiosity s...

Episode Overview Most of us assume that what we see online is largely the result of our own choices. In reality, much of the modern internet is shaped by recommendation systems designed to keep our attention for as long as possible. These systems learn continuously from our behaviour - what we click, how long we pause on a post, what we watch to the end - and use those signals to decide what appea...

Fact & Friction – Introduction This introductory episode sets the scene for Fact & Friction who we are, why we’re doing this, and the questions and topics we’ll be working through in the months ahead. Background & Purpose We live in a world where headlines are written to grab attention rather than to clarify. Spin, selective framing, and deliberate distraction often cloud the truth, le...