“Do your own research.” A good instinct. Democracies work best when citizens are informed. But over the last years, the phrase has taken on a new role. Very few do actual research. They search Google, watch YouTube videos, ask AI. None of those are bad tools. But search results and AI outputs aren’t research. They show you patterns, increasingly based on what you’ve clicked before. So the answers become self-reinforcing. The more you search on an idea, the more the internet shows you things that confirm that idea. It feels like research. But its just confirmation loops powered by algor