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.
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.
Depends on platform I suppose. Here, the level of activity is low enough that if you’re reading the comments, you’re usually reading all of them. In a major reddit sub that is seldom the case.
This was about bluesky/Twitter type social media. Things with reshare and follows to specific users, where someone you follow arguing with someone you don’t will expose you to the person you don’t follow.
Nearly all social media is full of
ecoecho 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.Eco chambers sound like a good thing.
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.
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 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.
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?
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.
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.
You should see the Gab echo chamber, it’s absolutely horrifying.
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 and 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.
