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[Louella Dougans]

I read a thing recently, that said there's a technological echo chamber in place at the moment, that people don't always know about, or fully appreciate.

it mentioned facebook, and how friends updates that match your opinions are more visible than friends updates that contradict your opinions. So, over time, you end up only seeing things that you already agree with.

same thing happens with web adverts, google things, etc. Like all those adverts for EVE that appear on things. Because you play(ed) EVE.

so it goes all groupthink and echo chamber, and stuff.

[Mizhara]

I read a thing recently, that said there's a technological echo chamber in place at the moment, that people don't always know about, or fully appreciate.

it mentioned facebook, and how friends updates that match your opinions are more visible than friends updates that contradict your opinions. So, over time, you end up only seeing things that you already agree with.

same thing happens with web adverts, google things, etc. Like all those adverts for EVE that appear on things. Because you play(ed) EVE.

so it goes all groupthink and echo chamber, and stuff.

Saw a video on the subject and the conclusion was frankly quite frightening.

[Matariki Rain]

This might deserve a separate thread.

New York Times: The Trouble With the Echo Chamber Online

However, here's an attempt at testing those claims, from the aggregate-blog Critical Thinking Applied: Is Google “Protecting” You From Exposure to Opposing Views?. The author wanted to demonstrate the effect and couldn't.

Anyone have more good info on this?

[Wanoah]

This might deserve a separate thread.

New York Times: The Trouble With the Echo Chamber Online

However, here's an attempt at testing those claims, from the aggregate-blog Critical Thinking Applied: Is Google “Protecting” You From Exposure to Opposing Views?. The author wanted to demonstrate the effect and couldn't.

Anyone have more good info on this?

I'm not so worried about the Google personalisation: its effects do seem somewhat subtle after all. The tests carried out in your second link seem to suggest that they are even more subtle than I thought! Still, the social networking sites are more demonstrably an echo chamber, and maybe that's at the heart of my dissatisfaction?

To be fair, I entirely understand people retreating from public discussion into the safer world of social networks where's there's no dissent. A glance at the comments underneath every Youtube video is enough to justify genocide after all: why the hell would you want to engage with them? For me, forums have always represented a kind of middle ground: broader range of views and opinions but with a specific set of things in common that allows meaningful discussion.

[Matariki Rain]

Yeah, I do understand the desire to "retreat to household", cocoon, nest, whatever, when the wider world seems to be going mad. It seems quite a rational response, although not unproblematic.

[Misan]

I went ahead and split the thread as it does merit it's own discussion and I don't necessarily want to derail the discussion on the decline in forum use and all that.

As someone who uses Twitter mostly to follow people who link interesting content you will tend to self-select for the kind of things you want to see on the whole. Though you do certainly have the ability to choose other sources, but you'll have to find them yourself as you would rarely get a suggestion to follow them. Granted I (and most of the people I follow) use twitter more as a promotional/sharing tool rather than a place to discuss stuff.

May have more random thoughts later.

[Vikarion]

Echo chambers do worry me, but what worries me more is the tendency of people to dislike encountering opposing viewpoints. If it weren't for our tendency to hole up with our own biases and viewpoints and decry everyone outside of them as either evil or stupid, we would be quit of far more problems than Google personalization.

[Bastian Valoron]

Came across this article which is a good read and relevant for the topic:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/01/30/120130fa_fact_lehrer?currentPage=1
It discusses for instance why conflict and chaos are good, how the composition of a group affects creativity etc.

[Misan]

Really nice article, thanks for the link. After reading it I can see why I feel like I've been making more progress creatively right now, as I've spent a lot of time reading stuff far outside my usual field of interest. I'd be curious to see/hear how much this applies to online communities, as the article is focused in on physical spaces and face to face interaction.

Just reading the article gave me some random (if ambitious) project idea for later. Thanks.

[Louella Dougans]

I was thinking about this again, and looking at some blog things.

And the thing that struck me, was that a lot of blogs have moderated comments, such that if the blog owner does not like a particular comment, they are under no obligation to publish that comment on their blog and address any point that is made by a commentor.

which strikes me as a very polarising thing. by taking away the ability to reply to something, then people would just talk past each other. And if there is a search filter thing in effect, then you might not see the counterpoints.

[Ilsenae Alexandros]

I was thinking about this again, and looking at some blog things.

And the thing that struck me, was that a lot of blogs have moderated comments, such that if the blog owner does not like a particular comment, they are under no obligation to publish that comment on their blog and address any point that is made by a commentor.

which strikes me as a very polarising thing. by taking away the ability to reply to something, then people would just talk past each other. And if there is a search filter thing in effect, then you might not see the counterpoints.

The best blogs only censor comments that are blatantly insulting or hate-speech and do not offer anything to the discussion.

[Ulphus]

And the thing that struck me, was that a lot of blogs have moderated comments, such that if the blog owner does not like a particular comment, they are under no obligation to publish that comment on their blog and address any point that is made by a commentor.

I know someone who writes a political blog, and who turned off comments altogether, because the amount of work involved in moderating them was impacting the rest of his output. It was just not possible to assume that posters would not be obnoxiously abusive.

[Bastian Valoron]

I was thinking about this again, and looking at some blog things.

And the thing that struck me, was that a lot of blogs have moderated comments, such that if the blog owner does not like a particular comment, they are under no obligation to publish that comment on their blog and address any point that is made by a commentor.

which strikes me as a very polarising thing. by taking away the ability to reply to something, then people would just talk past each other. And if there is a search filter thing in effect, then you might not see the counterpoints.

Most comments are like "I really like your blog, it offered me insights, keep up the good work. ... <link to herbal product page>."

[Misan]

Yeah, it's tricky really. Ideally comment moderation should actually be left off to reduce the friction of making the decision to comment in the first place. Otherwise people either don't come back to check or it becomes too much :effort: to try to admin all the comments if you actually have many.

Turning off comments can be a good idea for many blogs if they are just trying to broadcast information. Not as useful if you are looking for community engagement, but if you have other strong channels that could still work I guess. vOv