Right, but that’s slightly different.

I think the nuance here is that with algorithmic based outrage, the outrage is often very narrow and targeted to play on your individual belief system. It will seek out your fringe beliefs and use that against you in the name of engagement.

Compare that to a typical flame war on HN (before the mods step in) or IRC.

On HN/IRC it’s pretty easy to identify when there are people riling up the crowd. And they aren’t doing it to seek out your engagement.

On Facebook, etc, they give you the impression that the individuals riling up the crowd are actually the majority of people, rather than a loud minority.

Theres a big difference between consuming controversial content from people you believe are a loud minority vs. controversial content from (what you believe is from) a majority of people.