The long-term effects of ugly political discussions on Facebook (2014)
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
The social cost in my friendship group of airing conservative views, has for the last few years been quite great. If you are not completely on board with the currently promoted view, you are accused of "wrong think" and chastised. The best strategy, as differing views on politics are rarely worth losing long-time friends over, is simply to shut up. Unfortunately this reassures the group in their unquestioned beliefs. It reminds me of Taleb's minority rule [0]
When it comes to anonymous polling and voting, for this kind of group there is a massive disconnect between their perceived reality (reduced dissent or differing opinions due to social cost) and reality. It is a shame, both sides lose.
A large part of why I love HN and other pseudo and fully anonymous forums is that you are able to engage in proper discussion, disconnected from this social suppression.
Yet it happened: https://www.yahoo.com/news/conservatives-look-winners-surpri...
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It’s November 2008, after President Barack Obama’s first election, and one of professor Ruth R. Wisse’s undergraduate students comes in to speak with her.
“I really did want to tell you that I’ve been feeling very guilty,” says the student, a freshman.
“About what?” asks Wisse, an outspoken conservative faculty member and prominent Yiddish scholar.
“Well, I worked on the Obama campaign,” the student says.
Wisse laughs, and replies, “You and everyone else—why would that necessarily make you feel guilty?”
“You see, I’m for McCain, and I voted for McCain.”
Wisse was now puzzled—and intrigued. “Well, why did you work on the Obama campaign?”
“Because I so wanted to be with my roommates and with everyone else.”
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/10/1/conservatives-sc...
I am not saying it means your friends are being wise or balanced, it's just that what they are doing is not censorship.
I guess the Brendan Eich situation would be a decent example of the kind of censorship I am referring to, where we now seemingly cannot respect the right of others to have opinions and beliefs that are vastly different from our own.
>Also, there's no indication that person's friends actually pressured / shamed the person into working for Obama.
If only overt and direct kinds of social pressures mattered, then we wouldn't be having similar discussions about structural and subtle forms of racial bias, gender bias, etc.
It's not the intent of the giver of (unintended) pressure that matters, it's how the receiver interprets and responds to it.
I'm impressed by both the community at the moderation that allows this to happen.
> It is a shame, both sides lose.
No both sides don't lose... One side wins more and the opposition drums up support, by not challenging the winnings sides arguments, opinions and beliefs. You don't win arguments by attacking people.
The simplified rhetoric pigeonholes issues into bipolar ideological frameworks. As a result, political "discussion" does not reflect the reality of complex networks of opinions, people, and ideas. Instead, it reflects a shallow mask of "us" and "them." Nuanced, rational discussion does not stand a chance against the uncontrollable biases of ingroup/outgroup psychology.
Once someone forms an opinion, and finds validation of it from within a group, they have joined the ingroup. At that point, it will be nearly impossible to move them to the outgroup. Hearing any opinions from the outgroup will only drive them further into the ingroup, as they retreat to the echo chamber of their peers and emotionally reconfirm their own beliefs instead of critically engaging opposing viewpoints.
Of course, I'm mostly talking about the "ingroup" of "feminists and SJWs" (I hate that acronym because it seems hypocritical to criticize SJWs for reductionism and then give them an acronym). Right now the "regressive left" is certainly the most guilty of seeking affirmation from ingroup dynamics, and the group most unwilling to engage with the opposition.
However, I think every single human is subject to the same biases of ingroup/outgroup psychology. The "SJW" group is only the most recent example of a group whose opinions are pigeonholed, amplified, and ultimately opposed. But many of the people crusading against political correctness are guilty of the same unwillingness to consider the other side.
This dynamic has always existed, as long as humans have been a social species. It's how society evolves. But it sure is messy.
(visualization of the political polarization in congress: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/04/23/a-stu...)
The system seems to be the most divided it's ever been.
Presidential candidates are forced to align themselves with their respective groups.
It's a shame really. Were probably missing out on a lot of good ideas from candidates who are afraid to offend their base and think outside the box.
You can't be a pro-choice republican, etc.
If Donald Trump doesn't win at the contested convention (if there is one), I wouldn't be surprised if the entire party split.
The same goes for the Bernie Sanders supporters (if Hillary wins the dem. nomination, which she will), but to a lesser extent. There are many Bernie supporters who see Hillary as the same kind of person as Donald Trump, and would never vote for her.
This election is going to be interesting.
I bet the voter turn out will be similar, but I also bet that the actual people who are voting will be different. There are many people who simply won't vote, and there are also many people who are voting for the first time.
Group think, stereotypes, reductionism, compartmentalization. All of this makes it easy to make decisions, tough ones, without thinking hard or stepping out of our comfort zone. Even better, we get social recognition and adoration if we use the mental training wheels, isolation if we publicly don't.
We need, as a society, to avoid mental laziness in order to fix this problem. Sadly, it's built-in, easy and everyone's doing it.
PS. Not strictly saying computer mouse use is the fast-food of ui navigation. Just a metaphor.
For myself, I don't engage on this stuff on social media. But my mother gets all riled up arguing with her "republican jerks" and "trumps" on facebook. But in the end they all go out and drink too much and have a grand old time. It's a different mentality.
SJWs pushed out the CEO of Mozilla, made GitHub stop rewarding people based on the merit of their work, and pressured companies to hire under qualified minorities over other more qualified people[1]. Even if they don't have a strong presence in other industries, they have completely dominated tech companies to the point where people fear using a race or gender to describe how someone looks.
1. Assuming equal qualifications from each group, there will be more qualified non-minorities than minorities by definition.
http://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/11451378/smug-american-liberali...
I personally have no interesting in aligning with an anti-SJW ingroup, because it seems like a waste of time, and they tend to attract people on the other kind of the spectrum, which isn't ideal either.
The camps are essentially a feature, not a bug - though probably not a good feature. The majority of political posts exist to reinforce that tribal identity, sending up a signal and hoping you get some back.
Actual discussion about alternative policy options and their consequences is a small-time hobby most people don't care to partake in. The adversarial behaviors re: "political discussion" make a lot more sense once you stop lumping both types of posts under that single label.
People regard these ideas as being like in kind if they're in the same group, but every party/religion/human construct is a motley assortment of dissimilar beliefs. They're just beliefs. Every belief should be held up to scrutiny.
I think understanding how to logically reason and knowing the human psychological traps that we all fall into help us avoid them. Things like being individually cognizant about the Bystander effect, Ingroups/outgroups and the Broken Window theory help me make informed decisions every day. I'm sure I fall into all kinds of logical antipatterns, and I want people to point them out, not simply nod, grimace or unfriend me.
I'm going to make a political observation, so apologies.
I grew up in the south. I know a lot of bible-belt conservatives. I know the feeling of being embarrassed when somebody you like says something ignorant and trivializes a complex issue. It makes you want to wince.
As a third-party guy now, I'm feeling that same embarrassment for my left-wing friends. My right-wingers just shut up: perhaps they have some other site they go to and vent. Who knows? But my friends on the left, at least some of them, are insufferable. Most of the few people I've muted were on the left, posting multiple times per day from political sites, going on at length about how they hate various right-wing group X. With a couple of folks, it's to the point that I suspect mental illness.
So much of what I see on FB that qualifies as politics from all of my friends is just simple virtue signaling. It's taking 3 seconds and cross-posting an idiotic and over-simplified argument or attack against other folks simply because it's easy to do that and it lets folks publicly know that you're one of the "right people" (It's actually a form of bragging)
Facebook is a great way to have an ongoing family newsletter. It sucks as a tool for reasoned political discourse.
That question fascinates me, as I've heard it before from my left-friends. As far as I know, most of my right-friends don't have a site they go to, or commentators they follow. They just do their own thing, and politics isn't as central to their identity or lives. They value doing things, where my left-leaning friends seem to value interesting conversation & debate.
In Australia, we had a political commentator called Andrew Bolt, who I guess is like Australia's Fox News. But the only people I've ever heard watching his show were politically-left friends, who seemed to enjoy being offended & outraged at what was said, and debating it with their friends. They seemed convinced that's what right-leaning people watch, but my right-leaning friends can't be bothered with it, or most TV / newspaper discourse.
A year or two ago, I added the first newspaper editor I worked for, way back in the 80s. I didn't remember much about the guy, except he was smart, nice, and gave me a break. (I went from freelance writer to tech guy)
Once we were friends on FB? Holy cow. This man was a committed communist, seemed to hate the culture he was living in, and every day was posting the most provocative stuff. (I am fine with whatever opinions you want to hold. It's just odd to have the editor of the local business magazine declare his support for communism.)
I commented a time or two -- I got sucked in. Then I realized that this was only a sad, lonely plea for attention. He could use Facebook to tweak people, and as long as they responded, angry or not, he got engagement.
He's one of those I muted.
Contrast this to another friend, whom I had also lost touch with. Turns out he is a local businessperson and conservative.
Heck, I hardly ever hear from him. Maybe a post or two every month. It's usually bland or jocular in nature.
I guess if you're engaged in some traditional local social organization, you might lean to the right. You might also have a lot of opportunities to chat outside of the internet. If, however, you're engaged in more progressive, national social organizations, you might lean to the left. You might also view the internet as a means to stay motivated and help motivate others.
Edit: I've been moving towards B myself.
On the internet, it is easy to type out long comments, cherry-pick and refute the ideas of the person on the other side, and sometimes be incredibly rude to them. But performing the jugglery of coherently defending your point while talking frankly, without being rude, in person, is a skill that seems to be conspicuous by absence in Americans today. I have noticed way too many people recently who post 200 things on Facebook/Twitter/Pinterest/Instagram, and yet are unable to keep up a decent conversation for more than five minutes without uncomfortable silences or pulling out their phones.
Anyway, I don't see any evidence that people were ever able to speak frankly without being rude, nor that silence being uncomfortable is anything but a personal problem. Maybe you think silence is uncomfortable because you aren't properly socialized?
As a rue of thumb, if windows, limbs, and necks aren't being broken, the discourse is still relatively civilised.
I don't believe there's evidence to support the idea that there was ever a golden age of mainstream political civility. I think there may have been a golden age of literate and moderated political journalism, but that was always distinct from the kinds of things that happened - and still do happen, in some ways - to people who happen to be in the wrong out-group.
The idea that those people can all participate in the discussion without the fear of direct fist-to-the-face violence, is to me a positive.
I'm pretty sure you already felt that way?
It's one thing to have a debate on the internet, where all the information in the world is basically at your fingertips and you have a chance to review your comments before posting them.
It's another thing to do this on the fly in real life.
The other thing that's emerged is C) Outrage addicts and D) Trolls. They don't care about the politics, may not even have much in the way of firm politics, but they're bored and maybe not entirely sane; and now with the internet, they have a global platform.
As for your A/B scenarios: the latter seems more common amongst my peers, but it may actually be indirectly caused by the former.
I frequently see people opting out of political discussions just to avoid being tag teamed by a group of political extremists.
I think the fundamental issue is that many people want to be accepted and liked by everyone, which is impossible once you start expressing your political views. Therefore, we take the safe option of remaining silent.
Joke's on them.. I unfriended plenty of people for being sick of their never taking a stance on anything meaningful. There is no safe option, at least not with me. Or as the title of that documentary about Howard Zinn goes, you can't be neutral on a moving train. Besides:
> She had blue skin, and so did he. He kept it hid and so did she. They searched for blue their whole life through, then passed right by - and never knew. -- Shel Silverstein
Of course this includes not being on FB, or not talking about politics in social settings, if that is what you want. But it's also the reason I wear my heart and mind on my sleeve.. I don't miss any of the people I "lost" that way, and I wouldn't want to miss any of the people I gained through it.
I unfeed people who post inflammatory stuff.
IMO, the medium could be great for compare-contrast type things - "I think tradition <x> is important because <y>" but it seems like less and less of that happens now.
My take: my now unfriended friend can dish it out, but can't take it.
His take (via some third parties): I'm a close minded evil conservative [1].
Yes, I come across posts from friends (and acquaintances) that I don't agree with but I won't unfriend any of them over it. There are 50,000 other channels I can "watch" and I'm certainly capable of changing the channel. Pity more people don't realize that.
[1] Libertarian actually. My friend is, in his own words, "a liberal pinko Commie." Make of that what you will.
That's no small part of why my friends and I do that, anyway.
My feed is a lot less unpleasant now, but we're both that much more isolated in our echo chambers. Granted, I think the acoustics are much nicer in mine, but a breadth of discourse does, one hopes, help to keep one's mind ... if not more open, at least more aware of what other people are thinking.
Since he is your uncle, you have an inroad available of meeting him to hopefully patch things up. But be aware that you might have to try and understand his point of view rather than labelling it, and writing him off as a bigot.
I don't know the full story, but I've become somewhat skeptical when I hear things like this.
E.g., "He was a druggie!" Yeah, no. It was Percocet, because his hip was profoundly fucked up from all the jumping around on stage he'd done for decades. As a Jehovah's Witness, drug abuse was strictly against his faith, and he didn't even allow guests at Paisley Park to drink or smoke tobacco. That kind of thing.
See how making an assumption about someone and proceeding with that as a premise leads to mistaken beliefs about the events in their lives?
In your post you suggested that your uncle was saying racist things. You imply his racism and I bet it comes across quite strongly when you speak/type.
Worse than passing judgement on someone is passing judgement and then communicating it passive aggressively. Word games, used so that the other person can't properly address what was said.
""" I [deactivated Facebook for] three years and regret it. I realize now that I should have just shaped my use to fit my needs: unfriend or unfollow people I don't care to follow, write more messages rather than scrolling through the newsfeed, and join events and groups more deliberately.
Now I actually use it to keep in touch with people I care about, rather than just pretend that's what I'm doing. I missed out on some things during my three years with Facebook off, and although I learned so much from having done it, I wouldn't do it again. """
People feel affronted when these things are talked about. I think that's why we have these political/religious/economic strongholds/echo-chambers where no one will disagree with you so you feel powerful in your conviction. In all honesty though, we know our positions have holes, but never talk about them as a society.
I think if we talked more about thing we disagreed about, we'd realize we're wrong or not quite right about everything. Untouchables would go away. The problem is hard illogical convictions and echo-chambers where we allow ourselves to let our guard down.
Not talking about things as a society is the problem, not the solution. We shouldn't get upset and break off relationships when people do.
IMHO of course.
Edit: rewording
I don't want this to sound like stereotype-bashing, but I do notice that politics in the US seems to be incredibly polarized. There seems to be very little in the way of "difference of opinion", and more .. O is the antichrist, H is a criminal, B is a communist, T is going to bring on the apocalypse/ww3/economic collapse armed with little more than ignorance and arrogance ..
It's hardly surprising people find political conversation divisive, when they see someone who disagrees with them as not having a differing opinion on one or two key issues, but as supporting a regime that's going to destroy their way of life (.. which never ends up happening).
For example, the people of New York probably have very little in common with those of Tennessee.
For example, it's easy for a liberal in Massachusetts to label a conservative in Arizona a "bigot" for wanting to close the border, but the liberal in Massachusetts has probably never experienced the issues of illegal immigration in the way that someone from Arizona has.
This is why I think more power needs to be given to individual states rather than the federal government.
[1] https://www.facebook.com/derekbreden/posts/1670541883212714
It is interesting that discussions can be hugely enriched by discussing differing opinions, and at the same time very threatening. Especially if there is limited trust. Interesting to consider when sharing things at home, at a party, at the office, and in random groups.
Yes, these things turn ugly. But I think there are a lot of people who have strong political opinions but have not been forced to communicate them (and defend them) in writing. Instead, they'll just tell a joke to a few friends that they know share the same view.
The old complaint about television was that there were no segmented conversations anymore. It used to be that grown-ups talked about one thing with the kids around, other things with just adults, and still other things with close friends. Television changed all of that. Now every type of conversation was fair game for everybody. This is probably one of the main driving factors for the youth-dominated culture of the past several decades, but I digress.
Facebook is doing that about politics -- and to some extent, religion. You don't get a special set of friends you make those atheist or conservative jokes to. It's everybody, all the time. This is forcing folks either to 1) learn to defend their views in longform discussions civilly (which is very rare), 2) have lots of flame wars with people (I disagree with the article. I think some of these folks can be fairly close), or 3) just shut up and self-censor.
I've been privileged to be on a couple of sites where open and civil discourse was promoted, and I miss those experiences. I learned a lot and managed to change my opinion on a couple of things.
Facebook is not that kind of site. At first I thought I could cultivate reasonable discourse in my comment feed. I could not. Then I tried a private group, thinking a smaller group could self-moderate. Perhaps some could, but mine could not. The more people realized they might be in error, the more abusive they became. Now, for me, it's just jokes, travel pictures, and humorous family stories. About once a month somebody will sucker me into a political/religious discussion. I always apologize and bow out.
I love having difficult conversations. I like being challenged to think differently about the world around me. But for this to happen implies a high level of written respect for other participants that simply doesn't exist on the site. I eventually decided to become a no-politics guy on FB because it made me a worse person. It made me angry at people that I liked. How many times can you explain concept X to a friend before you don't have to again? Well, the answer is an infinite number of times if the other person doesn't want to hear it. So discussions have no progress. No matter what you do or say, a couple of weeks later you're going to be doing and saying that all over again. I do not have the infinite patience required to do this, and hell, I like these people! Easier just to dumb down my content so they can consume it.