How valid is the claim that people coming or going to blue sky/mastodon/X/Truth Social will cause echo chambers to increase? is it bad?
Nearly all social media is full of eco echo chambers.. I still post and follow stuff on several of the platforms. There is very little nuanced conversation.. Seems like it is more and more just an up vote or downvote storm, or people claiming one thing or another without any supporting evidence.
And that makes me genuinely sad. When I joined Lemmy, I was a little put off by the leftist bent here, but then I realized that I appreciated being challenged on my views, especially since people here are generally nice about it.
I wish I could find something like that for conservatives as well. Better yet, I wish there was a place like Reddit or Lemmy where all views were respected, provided claims are supported with evidence. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be compatible with the world we live in, and that makes me sad.
Seems like there aren't many centrist communities where you can have nuanced discussions.
Being a Reich Winger is incompatible with rational or thoughtful discussion.
Reich wing ideology boils down to subservience and deference to authority, not knowledge.
You can probably post on 7.62x54r.ru. Reddit had a decent number of anti-establishment leftists who would join up with conservatives on shared issues. I haven't seen any spaces like that on Lemmy.
Happy to see the word “nuance” being used… wish there was more of that too. This whole binary with-me / against-me mentality will bring us all crashing down.
I look at it this way: I don't let in the crazy person on the street screaming racist garbage into my house, so I also don't have to listen to or engage with that person on the internet, either. That doesn't make my house an "echo chamber."
For a long time I tried to treat "internet people" with some level of "respect" so to say. That is, I didn't spend time blocking people and whatnot. But now? Screw em. I don't have time to listen to nonsense, so if someone tries to come in to a conversation in bad faith, it's very easy to block and move on.
Or on short-form social media like Bsky or Masto or whatever if someone posts a racist thing. Or a bigoted thing. Block and move on.
Those trolls live off of engagement so just don't give it to them. And those same trolls are the ones complaining about "echo chambers." "Waaa, no one wants to listen to my racist nonsense. It's an echo chamber!" No, you are just a trash human, and no one is obligated to listen to you.
Those trolls live off of engagement
Not anymore. Back in the day trolling was a recreational activity done for fun. Deny the fun, cut off the troll's food. Now it's being done for political purposes, so cutting off the fun no longer functions since it no longer strikes at the primary motivation.
The result for the people who block them is still the same, though: they no longer see the troll garbage.
Deplatforming works.
It decreases the spread. Cutting form the engagement means free people who aren't already subscribed to that content will see it, since there's fewer people arguing with it. Which means those who are susceptible to falling for it have less chance to even encounter it, meaning fewer fall into it.
Even if the incentive to create the trolls has changed, the counter to letting it spread hasn't.
No social media site controlled by Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg is going to be a healthy experience. You will have much more varied content anywhere else.
I don't know that it'll affect the echo chamber effect; you create that through your subscriptions, and avoid it by browsing "all." What will be impacted is the amount of simply shit content, both from idiots and from bots. Moderators' jobs will get harder: the bots follow the people.
even if it doesn't isn't having more twitters bad? because it causes more places of toxicity to exist
People need to be civil. On every platform they have shown that they can't be (or have no good reason to choose to be).
Moderation is the key, but moderation is challenging. That's why self moderation (keeping yourself civil) is very important. Which loops us back to the beginning.
It’s a valid claim, IMO. The libs leaving Twitter all seem to be VERY into Orwellian practices like “official block lists” and other absurd self-owns.
I assure you that official blocklists are a very fringe viewpoint.
So fringe that BlueSky officially lists the most blocked accounts on BLueSky IN THEIR API: https://vqv.app/
So fringe that millions of people subscribe to them.
So fringe that over 1700 people upvoted this list on Reddit: https://old.reddit.com/r/BlueskySocial/comments/1gtqtd3/and_remember_you_can_block_all_magarelated/
Echo chambers are on par with human nature: we fear the unknown and flock to like-minded people. It takes a degree of discomfort to read something you don't agree with (explained rationally and with civility) and trying to argument in kind - it's easier to down-vote and here we are...
Groups of any kind are echo chambers. That's why they exist.
The echo chamber is a good thing. For some reason, everyone thinks I'm obligated to read their opinions that disagree diametrically with mine, constantly, non-stop, from hundreds of thousands of bots working for propaganda. I don't.
You are both right and wrong there.
You need different opinions in your life, otherwise your echo chamber will tend to move to more extremist. Pretty soon you think those "others" are evil and so you are willing for anti-democracy coups by your side, or to fight wars to kill those infidels or other evil things. You need a steady input of other opinions to remind yourself that reasonable people can disagree and that is okay.
Also sometimes you are wrong. Few people have the guts to read a well reasoned opinion and admit they are wrong, but it is one you should be willing for.
Of course there is far more possible opinions than you have time to read. So eventually you have to say I don't have time to deal with this subject and shut it out. So long as you avoid the problems of an echo chamber they are fine. Be aware of them though and make sure you are not falling into those traps anytime you shut something out.
I recognize and demand that everyone has an opinion, that everyone can speak their mind. And I have the right to have mine. And so, when all of Twitter is full of russian bots on the government payroll, there are hundreds of thousands of them, in all languages, I'm not kidding and not dramatizing. What i supposed to do about it? Read it all? Or retire to the echo chamber? I'm withdrawing, for now here, and if anything, from social media
The freedom of speech crowd isn't real big on the other half of the equation. Freedom of association. No one is obligated to listen to anyone else's bullshit. They're free to be butthurt about it, I'm free to not give a shit.
I think having a marketplace full of alternatives helps prevent that kind of entrenchment somewhat. Here is my problem though, who decides what an echo chamber is? I like a good back and forth conversation, but hate bad faith arguments. If people talk stupid shit, how much tolerance should one reasonably expect?
The problem isn't different opinions, or even radical ones, it's these opinions garnering more clicks and views, incentivizing them as a result.
The reddit model works well for discussions but the mod fiasco ruins everything.
I doubt that it can be any worse than tech companies with financial incentives doing it. Surrounding yourself with like minded people will surely cause some bubbles like that but since when is letting a targeted algorithm funneling us for ad revenue a better option? I don’t personally think it’s a big deal and guessing that people are just upset that their obsession with mass engagement is getting shook.
For all the great enforcement problems KOSPA has, at least it incorporated Filter Bubble Transparency…
Far right radicalization will get worse if progressives leave X. Conservatives will stick around simply because they aren't banned and then the white supremacists will be free to start pulling them without push back.
Well that's kind of baked-in to social media. If you'd otherwise talk to lots of different people in person, read much etc and now come to the internet and choose any of the mentioned platforms... That'd be bad. You're now in a smaller filter bubble. If you're already in some echo chamber and for example switch from mastodon to bluesky... that's a minor change. The situation is a bit different if you change from a nazi platform to a regular one. It's still not good. But better.
You should see the Gab echo chamber, it's absolutely horrifying.
One thing to bear in mind is that, whenever someone accustomed to one platform explores another, they’ll tend to ascribe any differences between the communities to the other platform being an echo chamber of some kind.
I've been on Bluesky very early on, and with the mass exodus of liberals from twitter, they are recreating their own toxic echo chambers on Bluesky now and it's bleeding through into every post they disagree with.
It's like saying everyone who drinks water will die. It's correct, but it's not a problem.
Echo chambers exist everywhere.
Being around too many antagonistic people is stressful.
"The impact of election stress: Is political anxiety harming your health?: Psychological science shows that politics can harm our physical and mental health, but the positive aspects of political engagement can lead to greater well-being"
"In polarized communities, they found that bonding ties, or bonds between people who are similar (in this case, politically similar), were linked with better physical and mental health (International Political Science Review, Vol. 75, No. 3, 2022). Bridging ties—connections with dissimilar people—were associated with worse overall health for people who were politically isolated."
https://www.apa.org/monitor/2024/10/managing-political-stress
There's a big difference between analyzing your enemy and letting them shout at you constantly. I can research conservative evangelicals attitudes without having to let one set up a loudspeaker next to my house.
The conservative troll types are also the ones most likely to try and argue about echo chambers because their style of rage farming doesn't work if everyone avoids them.
IMO smaller populations lead to a stronger echo chamber effect. I've definitely noticed that the echoness of Threadiverse communities is generally a lot higher than corresponding subreddits and I suspect the small size plays a major role.
Natural end result of social media and user tracking search engines is echo chambers.
Unpopular opinion: It's time to bring back church.
No algorithms controlling you; locally based and strengthens community; a broad spectrum of rich and poor meeting and being seen; opportunities to care be cared about on a weekly basis; opportunities to develop social skills and to really make an impact in your community based on social missions like food banks and myriad activities. Plus, you meet people not because you want to change their minds, but because they're just there, trying to be better people. And then once in a while, good conversations turn into minds changed.
Context: I used to be Mormon and left because I no longer believed, but I now see a hell of a lot of good in church, as long as it isn't a control freak over your life and sense of self.
Unpopular opinion Well you got that part right.
Many churches have a bible that the church want's you to believe without question. Which is known as faith. It is better to question everything.
Oh, I've questioned everything.
It works because you've got people who share a potent, vast common ground — being Christians.
I don't know how it could get any worse than now. Basically we're all in echo chambers whichever platform you use. Including Lemmy.
Agreement with "consensus" of whatever bucket you're placed into is rewarded, and disagreement is punished. Even if only by upvote/downvote. Switching platforms won't change much.
If you stray from world, things are a bit better. World, however, hasn’t seen a ban or anti-free speech action they didn’t embrace fully. World is a cesspool of smug libs that refuse to engage with anyone they perceive to be on their left or right.
I think you’ve been in an echo chamber for too long.