Cybernetics and Digital Whiteness: Exposure to Radicalization through Feedback Loops

Abstract

This paper focuses on ongoing digital ethnographic work studying the links between Internet culture, algorithmic logics, and extremist white supremacy as they collaborate in the radicalization of young people. In my previous work, I became interested in the ways feedback loops and cybernetic experience affect Internet users. Through this research I developed a theory of “cybernetic animism,” which (briefly put) argues that the existence of non-human bots, algorithms, and AI systems in the Internet creates a fully social environment regardless of the presence of other humans. This current research applies the same concept to user experience specifically to uncover the ways “whiteness” and “white identity” are constructed and deployed in the process of radicalization. To study this process, I examine Internet practice across spaces such as Wikipedia, Google Search, Facebook, and Gab, with particular focus on the phrases “It's Okay to Be White” and “White Lives Matter.” My hope in this work is to trace the ways feedback loops create space for and encourage extremism, so we may work towards mitigating their consequences.