Jason Kander: How to keep our young men from becoming radicalized online | Opinion

Americans — particularly young men — are being radicalized by social media algorithms. Every time there’s a mass shooting or an assassination, like the horrible events of the past two weeks, we wait to find out the identity of the killer, and then we want to know: Is he from the side I agree with or the side I don’t agree with — and what does that say about me and my beliefs? About my team?

It’s exhausting and it’s terrible for America.

So why are these mostly young, mostly white American men becoming so easily radicalized? There are influencers on both sides who sway them. I have my opinion (and some pretty reliable data to back it up) about which side is more guilty of this, but ultimately, it’s irrelevant which side is more to blame. Because simply assigning a greater percentage of guilt to one side or the other will not lead us out of this problem.

Social media platforms have perfected the exploitation of anger to juice engagement. I see it when I post something political on X. For the first hour, people who follow me reply in supportive agreement. Then the algorithm inserts my post into the feeds of people who don’t follow me but do follow those with whom I disagree. For the ensuing 48 hours, I am subjected to a steady stream of heinous comments and outright threats.

And yet I do not believe online radicalization can be adequately countered technologically, or even through regulation. While the problem emanates in part from the digital world, I believe the solution must come entirely from the real world. We need Americans to experience — at a formative time in their lives — togetherness with people unlike themselves.

We need to bring back universal service.

Americans between the ages of 18 and 27 should be required to spend two paid years serving our country — vesting themselves in our shared future. As a result, they’ll spend a formative time in their lives with people who come from different places, circumstances, religions, cultures, and — maybe most important — different inherited political beliefs.

I’m a veteran, and my experience in the military was central to who I am today — but the armed services must not be the only option on this menu. Young people could work in home health, or on highway crews. They could serve in the Peace Corps, AmeriCorps or the Conservation Corps. The possibilities for potential service roles are nearly endless.

We should make permanent in our shared culture an opportunity to build lifelong relationships with fellow Americans who might be totally different from us.

Because what’s happening now is that when we discuss politics, it’s as a team sport, often anonymously. It is fully dehumanizing, and it makes easy the evil work of those seeking to radicalize us. When you don’t think you know anyone like the people you’re arguing with online, or worse, when you can’t imagine knowing anyone like them, it’s a lot easier to become violent toward them or — at a minimum — just to completely dismiss their life experience and their beliefs.

Human beings are hardwired with a yearning to belong to something bigger than themselves, to feel a part of something righteous and meaningful. And when society doesn’t provide it, we go looking for it — and that’s when we’re at our most vulnerable to polarization and extremism.

It is increasingly difficult to answer the question, “What does it mean to be an American?” One in 3 of us watch the Super Bowl. Half of us order too much stuff from Amazon, and two-thirds of us have one of those “KPop Demon Hunters” songs stuck in our head right now. That is not the stuff from which unifying national identities are derived.

We are living through the longest consecutive period in American history without some form of mandatory universal service. It changes everything about our culture, from work to everyday life. We need to get back to a place where when you meet someone for the first time, your question doesn’t always have to be, “What do you do?” Instead, it could be, “What did you do in the service?” There are generations of Americans who related to each other by asking that question first.

I don’t know how we get there. I don’t know how, in our current environment, we change the law and the culture to make universal service happen. But I know it’s high time we begin seriously discussing it.

Jason Kander served in Afghanistan with the U.S. Army. He is former Missouri secretary of state and currently co-hosts the Majority 54 podcast.