Society/Culture Social Media echo chambers

[iBeng]

Echo chambers are not a new phenomenon but with the growth of Social Media they are becoming easier, bigger and more dangerous.

I was doing some further browsing on some of the police reporting from America and came across a forum the officers use, registering using their personal police IDs to ensure its kept from public eyes. The reported content is...disturbing to say the least. The use of these echo chambers isnt just for enforcement personnel, its been seen to be used by movements such as Brexit, Antifa, BLM, political parties/factions and any group that generally allows only its supporters to participate.

This article has a good breakdown of what it is:

The problem of living inside echo chambers

Rush Limbaugh is said to have presented the world as a simple binary – as a struggle only between good and evil. That worked, as a philosopher explains, because many people live in echo chambers.

theconversation.com

Huffpost as an article regarding the Police wide Echo Chamber, their use of "far-right" in the description is probably not accurate so I would take that with a pinch of salt.

How much of this is going to influence democratic processes in the future and what will its impact be on critical thinking vs following the herd?

 

[hamohawk1]

It has ramifications both ways, as people are reaffirmed in their beliefs, and often consume media relative to their views.

 

[iBeng]

It has ramifications both ways, as people are reaffirmed in their beliefs, and often consume media relative to their views.

Ive noticed Twitter has recently added a new function where you can Tweet publicly but only those who you follow can respond. Makes it difficult for anyone outside that scope of view to input information that might disrupt the echo, so to speak.

The main culprits are Facebook and general closed internet forums. Bigfooty isnt to bad, things like Instagram are less adaptable for chatting and sharing information as well. They are not something that can be easily curbed either, since they are prime examples of free speech, although sites like 4Chan have had issue sin the past.

 

[WealstoneRaider]

It’s just a symptom of the extremely polarised societies we now live in. Got a hunch though that social media and the internet at large stokes much of this division. Twitter is full of mainly vocal far left, while you could argue YT has a lot of stuff catered for the right and their comment sections are often very right wing. It seems that meeting somewhere in the middle and trying to discuss differences of opinion rationally is becoming less and less frequent.

 

[iBeng]

Saw this pop up as an example of what these echo chambers can produce:

Stuff

i.stuff.co.nz

What this particular group or movement will grow to will be something we have to wait and see but the nature of its formation makes it easy to remain anonymous. This raises the issue of internet privacy and accountability.

I personally don't think the internet should be regulated to such an extend and the sheer feasibility of doing it would be a logistical nightmare. There are quite a few investigative documentaries where detectives and online behaviour experts infiltrate some of the more depraved echo chambers of world wide pedophilia rings. These forums are often ways for like minded persons to share their disturbing practices with almost impunity.

Theres no real easy answer for this one that doesnt land between total online surveillance and complete freeforall content allowance and it's not a problem that will go away.

 

[Scotland]

Most people are too thick to articulate a decent argument, so a lot of the time you have a choice between people who agree with you or people who don't but can't explain why so just tell you you are wrong because racist, sexist, right wing, left wing etc. Yay internet.

 

[iBeng]

Most people are too thick to articulate a decent argument, so a lot of the time you have a choice between people who agree with you or people who don't but can't explain why so just tell you you are wrong because racist, sexist, right wing, left wing etc. Yay internet.

It really creates a feedback loop. People looking for a group of like minded people who accept them and reinforce their thinking.

The only real way to at least curb it is through straight up education from a young age. My daughter is 5, me and my wife have already got a preplanned method to introduce her to the idea of exploring an ideal thoroughly. We are not going to keep her for everything she could be exposed to, kids are kids, and some exposure is beneficial in improving her critical thinking.

 

[Scotland]

There's also a counter to social media echo chambers, and that's people that pathologically seek out conflict.

I've seen crap like Constance Hall posts appear on Facebook. My reaction is '* that, keep scrolling as fast as you can'. But guarantee if you go to the comments there will be people who would never ever follow Constance Hall arguing with people who do. What a waste of mental energy. I guess it's a form of trolling, but it's less 'hur hur you are all stupid' and more actively trying to engage people in debate who will NEVER change their point of view. A bit like going to a club board on BigFooty and trying to convince everyone that your team is better, theirs has a s**t list etc. Why bother?

 

[FireKrakouer]

Good thread, I had thought about posting similar.

I recall seeing an article about the leader of a horrific pedo ring getting arrested. He told the court about how he was originally disgusted by his urges towards children and resisted them, until he found pedo communities on the dark net. He said it normalised the behaviour for him and made it seem acceptable.

People gravitate towards content that makes them feel justified in their behaviours. There is a community on Reddit for everything, even those condoning meth usage. "It's actually improved my life, cured my adhd blah blah blah". There are mental health "support" groups where people reassure each other that it's fine and normal to not get out of bed or shower for a week.

No matter how destructive a habit may be, there's always an internet echo chamber somewhere that enables it. Another horrible example are the Incel forums. These guys one up each other on who can be the most hateful, praise mass shooters, etc.

I don't know what the solution is tbh.

 

[DashinD]

I’m far more concerned about this sort of stuff than climate change. And I’m no climate change denier or down player. At least there is a logical solution to climate change (turn off the fossil fuels) even though it is challenging to implement in the short-medium term.

I have no idea how to slow down the social media beast that is so divisive to our society. Really scary stuff.

 

[The Passenger]

I liked the principles behind the application Kialo - https://www.kialo.com/ - and I did participate in it for a while but I found the UI not particularly intuitive and a bit clunky. It's also highly moderated so not exactly a bastion of free speech but I understand the desire to have a more civil discourse and not have anonymous people running around a virtual city endlessly calling people *******s - something no normal person would do in real life - makes an environment of free speech (or text as it is) impossible. In an internet sense it's shown that it's not really possible to have both.

Might give it another go at some point. Regardless, this isn't the sort of social media appetite most people have. The desire for a Facebook, Twitter, Instagram level of discourse is too strong.

 

[Roobs321]

I’m far more concerned about this sort of stuff than climate change. And I’m no climate change denier or down player. At least there is a logical solution to climate change (turn off the fossil fuels) even though it is challenging to implement in the short-medium term.

I have no idea how to slow down the social media beast that is so divisive to our society. Really scary stuff.

They are easily the 2 biggest issues for mine: climate change and media & information illiteracy/echo chamber laziness.

A lot of my non-intellectual male relatives I've found have been very vulnerable to following a herd. They just prefer to see the world as a cartoon, won't challenge their thinking. Left or right. The women I'm related to tend to be more educated and accountable to their thoughts, although it is hardly a gender (or race or sexuality or even economic) thing. Critiquing is something you didn't really learn much about in high school, and a lot of professions don't really use it actively. People either never learn to think for themselves, or fall into bad habits. A lot of people are helpless to it, whether that is intravenous Fox News or falling down social media rabbithole crevices or mindless unnuanced 'problematic'/cancelling.

 

[M Malice]

We all suffer from to varying degrees confirmation bias.

 

[Reynolds Number]

Sleeping Giants and Mad*inggWitches show lots of things wrong with echo chambers for particular sides. Literally against freedom of speech and do not accept people who think differently and have different cultural beliefs (despite what they think about multiculturalism).

 

[iBeng]

Ive seen the term "Echo Chambers" starting to pop up around the internet in the last week or so, I suspect some people are starting to see how places like Facebook are beginning to dictate their bias a bit too much.

Hopefully a sign of a turn around.

 

[Patrick Bullet]

They are easily the 2 biggest issues for mine: climate change and media & information illiteracy/echo chamber laziness.

A lot of my non-intellectual male relatives I've found have been very vulnerable to following a herd. They just prefer to see the world as a cartoon, won't challenge their thinking. Left or right. The women I'm related to tend to be more educated and accountable to their thoughts, although it is hardly a gender (or race or sexuality or even economic) thing. Critiquing is something you didn't really learn much about in high school, and a lot of professions don't really use it actively. People either never learn to think for themselves, or fall into bad habits. A lot of people are helpless to it, whether that is intravenous Fox News or falling down social media rabbithole crevices or mindless unnuanced 'problematic'/cancelling.

I'd add coronavirus to complete the Top 3 issues.