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.
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.
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.
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…
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.
Groups of any kind are echo chambers. That’s why they exist.
You should see the Gab echo chamber, it’s absolutely horrifying.
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.
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
If by bots you mean computer programs or AI, they are not people and should be ignored/blocked. If you mean (as seems to be common) people with a different opinion, then you need to be more careful lest you get the faults of an echo chamber.
By bots, I mean people who are employed, go to work, and get paid just for writing comments, posts, and other texts, according to the orders from their superiors. You can call them a computer program, but what they are not is a person with a certain and different point of view. They have no point of view, they write what they are told to write, and yes, there are thousands of them, and they each lead a hundred fictional people. If you still didn’t know how the bot farm in Russia works, welcome to a new world
Those still aren’t bots. Bot farms are literally a bunch of servers running computer programs. That’s not the same thing as some online sweatshop pushing disinformation manually.
Its becoming more clear that the only winning move is not to play. All of us should remember that twitter wasnt the best before musk either. Microblogging at such a large and worldwide scale is simply an outdated, deceptive, and abusive concept at this point. For a long time we have been fucking around and now we found out
I watched a video about this and it claims that social media has advanced and grown so much that our brains are still not used to it and we all act as if echo chambers are a bad thing when in reality its actually just how its been for our entire existence. Its how we are wired right now, atleast most of us besides Gen Alpha. Being active in a local tribe, community, city, etc. Not engaging with the entire world and thousands of people at once.
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.
Natural end result of social media and user tracking search engines is echo chambers.
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…
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.
yup. Lemmy.world!
I haven’t had any issues with .world. Ive had more issues with smaller instances banning people/topics. World seems like the most
blandor popular of the lemmy instances.Most of the issues I have with world are invisible because the comments are removed and the users are banned. As long as you stick with their narrative (that Trump bad and Biden/Kamala good) you won’t run afowl of them.
Cant you see everything via the modlist + API? I thought that was one of the benefits of Lemmy is that the modlist is open. I have seen people down-voted for specific comments but not banned.
Many have been banned. A leftist named linkerbaan (or to like that) was one for sure.
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/
Talk about blaming the victim. I’d challenge you to create an account and put that you’re trans in the profile. See how long it takes to get death threats. There is a reason for these block lists. Maybe people don’t want to get harassed every time they post something.
Also, where is the “most blocked accounts” list in that link?
That’s a great point that I honestly hadn’t considered.
That people create blocklists that become popular absolutely does not prove endorsement of a potential official blocklist. While an official, default blocklist may be Orwellian, unofficial opt-in blocklists that require searching for are not Orwellian at all. One knows they’re there, one chooses to block them. Your line of reasoning leads to arguing against the block feature entirely. And what’s wrong with providing transparent statistics?
All totally valid points. I just so happen to disagree with API official ban lists.
Group efforts to root out fascism or other malcontents is hardly “Orwellian”…
Group efforts to root out fascism or other malcontents
You can read those words, right? Who decides what is and isn’t fascism? Who decides who is the malcontents in society? See what I mean?
Fascism has a very clear definition. And who decides the malcontents? That’s also easy: Are you trying to harm people? Then you are a malcontent.
You are attempting to obfuscate the discussion here. We all know what fascism is. We also all know its wrong to hurt people.
You can barely detect your own biases! Have a great day. Continue with the fascist bullshit pretending you are ordained from some higher power.
Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement, characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy.
Nothing in there contradicts what I said here… There’s not fascist about preventing fascism from taking root. You’re making the same mistake made in “On Authority”, and calling revolutions where the people cast off their chains of oppression as “Authoritarian”…
It’s like saying everyone who drinks water will die. It’s correct, but it’s not a problem.
Echo chambers exist everywhere.
