Review of "Death By a Thousand Hits"

For anyone interested in the unintended consequences of social media, and in particular the "echo chamber" and "engagement" algorithms, I recommend "Death By a Thousand Hits," episode four of season twenty-seven of "Silent Witness."  The story turns on the development and use of an algorithm to increase social media engagement by promoting anger and rage at another party, particularly anything that you already dislike or fear.  In the episode this is used to foment the oppression of a minority, and generate the perpetration of a massacre against the minority.  This is only a mild exaggeration of the use of these kinds of algorithms, and, with the inclusion of disinformation and discord attacks, it isn't really an exaggeration at all.