Whether You’re a Democrat or Republican, Your Social Media Is an Echo Chamber | Hacker News Reader

Whether You’re a Democrat or Republican, Your Social Media Is an Echo Chamber

nautil.us

36 pointsprostoalex47 comments

We've looked at this exact issue from a PR perspective as well. In the media generally, there are some outlets that are blatantly one sided one way or another on certain issues, essentially just covert mouthpieces for certain organizations. What we've found is that it's not worth the effort to actually respond to hit pieces from those outlets, because they are only picked up on social media in circles of people that only talk to each other and are already incredibly biased against us. By even responding to the article in any way, we are just extending the shelf life of the piece within those circles. So there are now entire outlets we completely ignore from a PR perspective because it is simply a waste of our time and entirely counter-productive to respond to. We only respond to legitimate articles that are actually picked up by social media circles that we care about, which we have essentially mapped out.

There are no outlets that are not blatantly one-sided. If you believe so, your perspective has been narrowed by a filter bubble so that even minute variations of the same message seem great to you.

Any media with a sufficiently large number of consumers is indistinguishable from propaganda.

Well, I have a few friends that don't share my opinions on political things, and I do try to read their posts. It can be hard sometimes. It's easier to read extremely different points of view when they're not your friends, I think. But also easier to dismiss the alternative ideas too, I think.

And I think that's why it's harder to read friend's posts. You're wanting to see things from your friend's point of view, so you can be a good friend, but normally those opinions given by some random asshole on the internet would allow you to call them a moron and scroll past it.

When I try to strike a neutral chord, analyzing policy promises or detailing scandals of both political candidates in single sentences/paragraphs each side takes my inclusion of any criticism of their candidate, regardless of the fact I've also criticized the other candidate, to imply I am "on the other side" and am a supporter of the candidate that they are against.

It's been nearly impossible to make statements like "both candidates have historically low voter confidence", "neither candidate this debate spoke honestly or at length about their policy positions", etc without being called - in a denigrading way - a "Clinton supporter" or a "Trump supporter", as though they were curse words.

I've alienated many of my friends by posting nonpartisan policymaking documents, news that isn't from their favorite self-righteous outlets, and realpolitik explanations of the context of various ongoing policy questions (proxy war aspect of Syria, containment and historical aspect of Korean Peninsula, containment aspect of TPP/South China Sea, economic and political warfare in Venezuela, food security wrt Haiti, etc, etc).

My understanding is that as the technology to convince people of ideology increases in its capability, competing applications of that technology by power centers will achieve ever-increasing divisions.

That is to say the ideological spectrum, and current division, isn't a representation of a natural social occurrence as much as it is a proliferation of technologies by information agencies and corporations. Tens of billions of dollars a year are spent in America trying to influence opinions, and this effort has been succeeding.

A race to the intellectual bottom.

I recently found out that Orwell was really concerned about the effects of radio. We've since had 70 years of television and I can count the number of titles that cover the subconscious effects of that sort of communications on one, maybe both hands.

Most of what we now call "ideology" isn't even ideology. I don't know how people who don't understand the basic heritage of most of the ideas they hear even listen to anything. Most of the points of disagreement between two competing ideologies aren't that significant in the end analysis. They are at least small in number, and should be understandable well by proponents and opponents alike. But run on the track of narrative, and they gain a lot of power.

But I view the idea that this is a reflection of anything approaching actual "power" to be questionable. It's holding a mirror up to people and asking them to approve. There's no "gain" from it, outside of areas where we're attempting to measure opinion. Now, it does get people elected. But look how well that is going.

I miss people like Wm. F. Buckley and Christopher Hitchens, who would acknowledge their biases and even explain the reasons behind them. There is a PBS "Independent Lens", "Best Enemies" that seems to identify the exact point at which the present era began - the 1968 "debates" between Buckley and Gore Vidal. ABC "won" ratings with it and it's been downhill ever since.

I remember reading a definition from a DoD document for 'legitimacy': "the willingness of people to act according to the will of a government without coercive compulsion."

In the same vein a definition for 'power': "The degree to which outcomes can be influenced into a desirable state."

The ability to build and dissolve legitimacy absolutely is power. The ability to build consensus and through that consensus change outcomes absolutely is power.

I sort of disagree - I think the collective wisdom of a people is latent and needs only be discovered. It may contain inconsistencies which require professionals to help with, but the problem with your way is that people can seek power for its own sake. I think it's been shown that "desirable" is extremely fungible. Sometimes "desirable" becomes "regrettable", later on.

I thank you for those definitions, though - that's some cogitatin' for me to be done there. They're kind of value-free definitions. Can't tell if that is bad or good.

To be clear I'm not stating what I believe is the ideal for the world.

I'm describing how I perceive that the world - power - and information demonstrably work today.

Understood - and I got that quite clearly. I don't know why, but I still think of this as a discovery process and less "architecture". I think "architecture" is in fashion now.

Both sides relish in demonizing each-other, reducing the other side to simple statements like deplorable or corrupt beyond measure.

I shutter to think of a time when presidential candidates refuse to even acknowledge that the other is a human, or correct obscene errors in judgement[1] borne from descending into the echo chamber and never coming out.

That said, tribalism is as old as time immemorial. An echo chamber is not inherently harmful but the content going into it can be -- more to the point, it behooves our leaders of communities (and the world at large) to acknowledge each-other in a manner that shows the best of us maintain a base minimum of dignity and restraint.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrnRU3ocIH4

This. I feel that that was the last instance of bi-partisan civility in US politics.

Heh. Listen to the boos.

Social media also makes it easy to get exposed to opposing views.

I make it a point to subscribe and follow people/groups with very opposing views to mine (as long as they are articulate).

Such a thing was not very possible to do before social networks, and being exposed to such thing have changed my mind several times (or at least moved me to the middle ground).

I think that's a great approach. Personally I haven't been on social media for a couple years now (for various reasons including concerns over data privacy) but I considered having all those opposing views at hand to be one of the principal benefits of social media - in fact, that was the main reason I stayed on social media as long as I did.

> Such a thing was not very possible to do before social networks

I would say it was definitely possible, it just took a bit more effort. (Since leaving social media I've made a point of reading left-wing and right-wing opinion sites side-by-side. It's very illuminating.)

That said, it does seem like for the average user the tendency is for social media to become an echo chamber.

Edit: formatting

I wish I had an echo chamber. My social media has a lot of my friends and family from all over the political spectrum. I have sworn off Facebook until after the election, because all of the crazy out there makes me really mad. It's like listening in on someone else's echo chamber full of crazy.

Real engagement and connection is hard work. It's mentally and emotionally exhausting, and only occasionally useful.

"To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle." - George Orwell.

Related: I ran across an article I wanted to post the other day, but it's a really, really long read. Anything that takes 30-60 minutes to read is non-workable on HN. By the time anybody has read it, it's off the page.

This is from 2 years ago. It's about how people naturally form groups, social media or not. What technology is doing is automating and accelerating a bug/feature in our genetic makeup.

If you're interested in this topic, after you read the linked article, check this article out as well.

http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything...

The echo chamber is becoming even worse this election season. I've seen numerous friends post "If you support Trump -- you are an awful human being, please unfriend me". Personally, I at least like to see what other people are thinking.

I must have an uncommon group of friends... I hear all sorts of views from friends/family that I consider ludicrous on a daily basis on Facebook.

I hear that stuff too. IMHO, I'd like to hear well-reasoned arguments for "the opposing view" but it's typically just memes.

That's the problem isn't it. I do have people that I care about on FB with different views, but they often just share inane memes that are not really grounded in reality. To be fair, I see a lot of trite memes from people I mostly agree with too, though.

I think the "bullshit asymmetry principle" comes into play too: it takes 2 seconds to share some lame conspiracy garbage about how the pope was really born on Uranus or whatever, but in most cases takes a bit more work and fact checking to refute the BS.

With fundamental core values getting different priority, anything that is a well-reasoned argument to one side is nonsense to the other side.

I support Trump and I get to hear on my facebook 10x a day why my support means I am a racist, sexist, uneducated, redneck, world-hating idiot.

If I may, have you read any of Scott Adams analysis of the techniques in use?

It is not like it is specific to Trump; he just does it to a greater degree than others.

Yup - I've been reading his blog since 2014 or so. Why do you ask?

So if the guy is simply a refinement on a carnival barker , I can't take him seriously.

Then...don't read his blog?

No. Trump. Trump is the carnival barker.

But nicely done :)

I disagree, but you're free to think that. What he does is effective politics. All politicans do it. Look at the recent wall st transcripts of Hillary clinton and see how she talks to them, versus how she talks to "everyday Americans".

The thing about the "echo chamber" or "filter bubble" argument is that it is always about other people.

The actual title of this article says it all, "To Rescue Democracy, Go Outside" -- this is paternalistic drivel, written only for the writer to be able to elevate themselves above the unwashed masses.

I'm not in an echo chamber. I live far away from my home country, speak three languages, and meet 20 different nationalities daily.

The author on the other hand, being deeply embedded within one of America's most prestigious educational institutions, is having his every thought filtered by his immediate social environment. I'm certain he doesn't "mix" with the rabble:

>So what would happen if the way we interacted with each other forced us to mix with people of different groups? If we didn’t allow ourselves to dive ever deeper into self-reinforcing groups? What would happen if we mixed primarily through that quaint and old-fashioned technique, namely moving about in our physical environment, encountering opinions and perspectives that we did not pre-select? Could we counter the devil’s brew of single-community media combined with physical segregation? My research at MIT strongly suggests that the answer is yes. In businesses, on the street, and in peer groups, ideas are shaped more by face-to-face interaction than by digital media.13, 14

written only for the writer to be able to elevate themselves above the unwashed masses.

I'm not in an echo chamber.

Okay

My city is an echo chamber. Ithaca, NY is quite liberal, although once you drive 20 minutes in any direction, rural upstate New York is as conservative as Alabama. And yet our district's representative is a Tea Party schmuck - who pays absolutely no attention at all to "the extreme Ithaca liberals" - because of gerrymandering.

So given that, it's not unreasonable to think that the people I meet and befriend in this city also share liberal views, even while entire communities around Ithaca have completely different beliefs.

Sometimes it scares me how politicized everything is becoming. Just the perception of being "the wrong kind" of voter could deter liberals from moving to the south to get away from cold winters, while conservatives would imagine themselves having trouble fitting in in (liberal) economic powerhouses like San Francisco.

I just want the mechanisms of society to function efficiently, and for people to be able to disagree with each other's political opinions without souring everything else.

People don't have enough to do.

The question that nobody seems to be willing to ask is the following: who cares?

People don't like to experience cognitive dissonance so they stay within a group of people who do not cause cognitive dissonance.

When people are particularly intellectually adventurous, they Google things like "[something I believe] criticism" and they try to see the other point of view.

I have to apologize for being lazy in not developing the idea myself to make it justice, but certainly someone has a well developed counterpoint to offer to all that fear mongering about "filter bubbles" and "echo chambers"? Why, for instance, are people calling them that, instead of "safe spaces", or "friends bubbles", or "intellectual neighborhoods"?

I'm aware of a few books (Eli Pariser's) and papers (Brynjolfsson's paper on balkanization, most notably), but it seems like there's not much research done on that question. Any pointers welcome.

It's not the others that cause cognitive dissonance. The dissonance is caused when your in-group AGREES with the others.

Without an in-group, the others are just datum to digest and process.

Without others, the in-group is just casually asserting the supremacy of its models over reality.

But can there be groups of humans without resorting to status-seeking? It appears to be worth it ( read: people still do it ).

The point of being in the in-group is being in the in-group, not the defense of some deep principle. If it's a sufficiently murderous in-group, then being in the in-group equates to staying alive.

    > The question that nobody seems to
    > be willing to ask is the following:
    > who cares?

I think a lot of people are asking that question, and the answer seems pretty clear to me: people care because this echo chamber effect seems to vastly increase the divide between groups. It makes it easier to dismiss opposing views as crackpot and evil who disagree because you're always surrounded by a steady roar of agreement. That increasingly bitter divide, and the accompanying increasingly entrenched and unswerving beliefs, are things I find deeply worrying.

Social media didn't invent this, of course, but it's made it much more prevalent.

All of entertainment is based on cognitive dissonance. I'm not convinced people don't like it. I think maybe they like it a bit too much. You get a hit of endorphins from it.

I'd be hard pressed to put numbers to it, but if people go through 10 conflict/resloution cycles in a day just from episodic TV, how much more is that than what our grandparents had ( or their grandparents if that is what it takes to get you back to before the barrage of entertainment product began, or at least began as much ).

The mechanism of Balkanization is about leadership using a divide and conquer strategy to maintain a power base. Then again, specifically the Balkans had Tito ruthlessly disappearing troublemakers. The Russians may have been bastards, but they kept a lid on it outside Yugoslavia. Stalin wasn't the horror he was for no reason.

The problem with the "physical space" solution is that it eventually becomes an echo chamber as "undesirables" achieve outplacement.

Even if it doesn't move people out, the pre-existing biases of physical space causes an echo chamber regardless. Before social media, people had no problem demonizing the people of different races and religions who were not geographically close, and with far more destructive consequences than partisan bickering in the US. Face-to-face interactions may only provide more diversity in a few remarkable places.

Jonathan Haidt has done a lot of work on this problem:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vs41JrnGaxc

I would like to see peaceful political secessionism happen, so that as we sort ourselves out ideologically we can also sort ourselves out physically and sovereign-ly.

Not very practical, is it? I think the process is fractal down to the basic fundamental tribe-size of 100 or so. The transaction costs of tribes of 100 interacting without a larger macro social network would be substantial.

Yes, any potential innovation can be made to seem ridiculous by sufficient over-application.

In the real world, secessionism appears to be on the rise, with Brexit and the ongoing Spanish situation. Let us hope that Scotland is next, and we have an increasing number of templates for peaceful devolution of sovereignty.

I think there is much to recommend this. Sadly, most of that is people's sense of identity, a generator of all manner of irrationality. But we work with what we have, I suppose.

Edward Longshanks took (rather forceful) exception to Scots secession. Abraham Lincoln took (even more forceful - why was the Anaconda Plan abandoned, anyway?) exception to Southern secession. I know Texas secessionists ( glancingly, not well ) and I tend to quote Sam Houston to them. They're not to be taken seriously. Yet.

I see no reason to think the pattern would abate. Brexit isn't in that set because the Eurozone is barely even a convenient fiction. It's a con job, the sort it would take an H.L. Mencken to characterize properly.

I can't even choose a pet narrative of how it is we should be organized in that way. I just know how it is - we're in really big chunks. I credit the sort of peace we now enjoy somewhat to the size of those chunks.

I have the opposite experience. I tend to click on content that I disagree with, to investigate the claims being made, and don't engage much with content I already know I agree with. As a result, my feed is more or less a list of posts guaranteed to infuriate me.

But it's a matter of sublimating that fury, isn't it? You really do have to give (most) people benefit of the doubt.

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