The widely held belief of the echo chamber has been bothering me for a while now. I don’t question the phenomenon itself. It’s happened often enough; I totally agree this is a thing. What bugs me though is the idea that the root cause is members of a group agreeing too much.
Agreement is good wtf. Consensus should be a welcome occasional checkpoint. How are you even supposed to build healthy communities if you don’t share some common ground, like say equality for all. Sealioning is not a vaccine against radicalization. If anything the constant bickering from contrarians has the opposite effect.
Diversity may be a better sign of healthy community. Diversity of age, origins, gender, whatever. I don’t believe such a community turns into a radicalization timebomb for being like-minded. We need shared values to build upon, lest loneliness swallows us all.
Nevertheless I feel that obsessing over the homogeneous aspect of an echo chamber is mistaking the symptoms for the essence. My intuition is that the danger is in the discourse itself and to a certain extent in the platform used. I can’t say I’ve made up my mind on the specifics though.
What do you think? It’s OK if you disagree lol 🤪
You must log in or register to comment.
the danger of an echo chamber is the absolute repulsion of outside ideas or contributors regardless of the factual nature of the content. the mere attempt at bringing in new information is rejected.
if you have a ‘liberal space’ and some conservative attempts to bring fascist ideas to the table, they are not flat out rejected. they are admonished for the facts inherent in fascism.
if you have a conservative space, and you bring liberal ideas your ideas are not torn apart with pertinent conservative information, you are ejected from that echo chamber
if you have a ‘liberal space’ and some conservative attempts to bring fascist ideas to the table, they are not flat out rejected. they are admonished for the facts inherent in fascism.
In the process of doing that admonishing you are inherently changing the kinds of conversations that happen in that space.
Sometimes it okay to take some positions for granted so you can have deeper conversations about specific ideas and that only happens when there is agreement about certain facts.
Constant disagreement paralyzes action and is the same tactic that people use to sterilize social movements.
when people say “echo chamber” with negative connotations, what they actually mean is “a place that has a consensus reality, and I disagree with that consensus reality”.
a forum for geologists bans flat-earthers. the flat-earthers will call it an “echo chamber”. they’ll ask why the geologists are so afraid to have their beliefs questioned. if they’re so sure the earth is round, shouldn’t they be willing to debate it?
having a consensus reality is good, actually. and enforcement of that consensus is usually necessary to maintain the health of the community. geologists want to talk about…actual geology stuff. if flat-earthers are allowed, they’ll turn every thread into a debate about flat vs. round earth, and it will drown out the actual more interesting conversations the geologists were there for.
when someone says “such-and-such is an echo chamber” you should look to see what the consensus reality of that place is, and what aspects of that consensus reality the complainer disagrees with.
recently, I’ve seen a lot of people calling Bluesky an echo chamber, for example. if you dig into it…usually they posted some transphobic bullshit and got blocked by half the site. Bluesky isn’t perfect, but one thing they’ve gotten right so far is “trans people exist, and have the right to exist, and to live their lives free of harassment” is a pretty strong part of their consensus reality. people who disagree with that are inevitably going to run back to Twitter and whine about Bluesky being an echo chamber.
I agree completely. The idea that all of humanity is going to be interacting everywhere is one of the things that is the reason people don’t like the internet. Its natural to hang with folks you like or places that you feel comfortable. internet communities should be the same. some folks who are broader in their tastes will be in more things and others will not. this is why I think its so silly that folks who are fine with the idea of subscribing seem to see blocking as some sin. its the same thing. its two types of filtering and everyone should use them as they see fit to make an experience they enjoy.
What bugs me though is the idea that the root cause is members of a group agreeing too much.
I just think you have this wrong. The root issue isn’t the group agreeing too much, and I don’t really think the collective opinion is that it is. The root issue is the belief that your constructed space of similiar world views is representative of truth, rather than bias.
People assume, since everyone in their systematically built social media space agrees, that their opinion or action is widespread and therefore acceptable. When someone is told their views are damaging, unrealistic and/or represent a tiny minority, it is easy for their ego to refute this interally: “everyone online agrees.” The pre-cherry picked answers in the echo chamber then feeds into the fallacy of majority, the ego feels justified in rejecting the statements contrary to their opinion and world view, and no discussion is had. The conversation immediately stops (even if the talking continues) and no benefit is drawn from engaging with each others world views.
The root issue is the belief that your constructed space of similiar world views is representative of truth, rather than bias.
I’m not much of a relativist to be honest. In fact I feel your statement about the root cause of echo chambers is broad to the point of swallowing itself. It’s important to differentiate opinion from fact (I’m not expecting everyone to agree with me about black licorice being delicious, or about every public policy) but I disagree that all worldviews are mostly bias. If you really think it’s all bias, how can you even state that as fact? Do you really have that much distance with your own worldview?
I think sometimes people just throw out the accusation of “echo chamber” because their ideas are bad and the community rejects them.
Someone will be like “I don’t think we should have child labor laws but the eChO cHaMbER won’t even consider it”
Sometimes this gets said even when the alleged echo chamber responds with facts and history about why their take is a bad one.
Ultimately, here and in like all other human endeavors, emotions are primary. People feel a thing, and then reach for words to justify it.
Someone’s ideas being rejected by the group? Feels bad. Is it me? Am I wrong? No, that feels worse and the ego won’t accept this. It must be them. But why? Must be an echo chamber. Cool. Now I don’t have to feel bad about myself. I don’t have to change my beliefs. I can just blame them and move on.
So someone saying it’s an echo chamber has only very tenuous relationship to reality.
To your actual point, there’s also the “jaq’ing off” and “for me it’s Tuesday” problems of community management and health. The first being someone asking questions in bad faith. The latter is similar - someone in good faith is asking really basic questions that the community has seen a thousand times before, and people respond with exasperation. From the new person’s perspective the community is unwelcoming. From the community’s view, this is the third guy today that’s stumbled upon the idea that “maybe capitalism is bad” and walking them through that journey is tiresome.
Community is hard.
Some of your post seems like it is a reaction to a specific anti-echo chamber critique, and if so that may be useful to share because some of the basic assumptions about what an echo chamber is or does seem erroneous to me. For example, when you say about echo chambers
I don’t believe such a community turns into a radicalization timebomb for being like-minded.
Who said that they do, in the first place? Radicalized and radicalizing spaces tend to be echo chambers, but most echo chambers are not those. A heavily-moderated forum about Disney characters can become an echo chamber of pro-Disney viewpoints, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to start churning out Unabombers.
Echo chamber doesn’t just mean a place with generally homogenous views, it means a space in which all but one viewpoint on a given topic has been eliminated, such that it becomes self-reinforcing and self-insulating (i.e. people in that space become more and more convinced of the viewpoint’s validity and prevalence, and people who do not share the viewpoint already become more likely to avoid the space).
Agreement is good wtf. Consensus should be a welcome occasional checkpoint.
Sure, but consensus in healthy communities is reached through everyone working together to make compromises and to convince each other, not by kicking or driving out anyone with an opposing viewpoint. And “opposing” in this context doesn’t mean inimical or hostile, it just means non-agreeing.
Consensus does not mean unanimity, it just means the agreement of the group as a whole. In a healthy group, a consensus is reached when the plan/ idea has been revised until everyone is on board with it. Kicking people out until only people who agree with the initial plan remain is not healthy consensus-building or community-building.
Sealioning is not a vaccine against radicalization.
“It’s either build an echo chamber or allowing sealioning” is a false dichotomy. You can moderate a space well to keep out bad-faith or enemy actors without creating an echo chamber.
I don’t believe such a community turns into a radicalization timebomb for being like-minded. We need shared values to build upon, lest loneliness swallows us all.
It seems like you’re using “echo chamber” to mean “safe space”, but they’re not the same thing. Beehaw is a pretty good example of this: we’ve got quite a lot of disagreement on any given major issue, but we don’t allow bad actors to remain in the space. There are myriad different Left-oriented philosophies and viewpoints and worldviews, and they’re (generally) all welcome here, but we’re not an echo chamber; you can go into any thread on Palestine and see that there is a lot of disagreement between members on the subject.
Nevertheless I feel that obsessing over the homogeneous aspect of an echo chamber is mistaking the symptoms for the essence. My intuition is that the danger is in the discourse itself and to a certain extent in the platform used.
Once again, I feel like your post is in response or reference to some specific argument or example. Who is obsessing over echo chambers? What discourse about them are you responding to? The discourse on echo chambers is going to differ quite a bit depending on who you’re talking to, and where. If you go into a conservative space like Xitter, it’s more likely to be being thrown around inaccurately to attack any non-conservative space. If you go on Reddit, it’s more likely to be talking about actual echo chambers. Echo chambers are bad, but not everything that gets called an echo chamber is one.
I was about to post this as a rant under this article, which was shared here some time ago and which doesn’t sound conservative at all. The passage that was the drop for me was:
We humans are all subject to a cognitive dynamic known as belief polarization. This is the tendency for individuals to adopt more extreme perspectives as a result of their interactions with like-minded peers.
But this had been a pet peeve of mine for a while so it was a drop that spilled the glass moment and I felt like addressing this in particular. So yes you’re right that this is an anti critique. I think what revolts me is that this sounds like a direct rebuttal against solidarity and yet another thing pushing for even more individualism and ultimately loneliness.
Thank you for sharing this, it definitely helps clarify the discussion.
I don’t think this article is really about echo chambers (and it never uses the term), I think it’s about (if I had to coin a name for it) performative conformity. The article points out how Democrats and Republicans tend to trend towards different lifestyles, not necessarily based on actual informed dislike of their counterparts’ choices, but because those things are signifiers of their group affiliation. Buying a lifted pickup to appear conservative, for example. I don’t think the author has an issue with this intrinsically, except when it becomes an entrenched position that prevents reflection on your own beliefs.
Now, the thing I heavily disagree with the author about is that “polarization” equates to “radicalism” or “extremism”. Polarization is about the degree of separation between 2 things. If everyone in American was either Far-Right or Extreme-Far-Right, there would be minimal polarization, but no lack of harmful extremism. Hell, what constitutes extremism is even based on your baseline of “normalcy”, so in order to equate polarization with extremism, you have to be erroneously conflating your own beliefs with “normalcy”. Clearly the author thinks he’s a ‘Centrist’.
Reading more about the author, Robert B. Talisse, I’m fairly unimpressed. He’s written several books on epistemic pluralism, basically arguing that there are many different, even opposing Truths, which are all valid because Truth is about pragmatic outcomes, and we should always be exposing ourselves to opposing views in order to continually refine our beliefs, a la the Scientific Method of testing hypothesis. That’s great in theory, but if a given system of belief has been analyzed and found lacking, why should we still be engaging with it?
Consequently, epistemic pluralism countenances the possibility that further argumentation, enhanced reflection, or the acquisition of more information could yield rational resolutions to the kinds of value conflicts that metaphysical pluralists deem irresolvable as such. Talisse’s epistemic pluralism hence prescribes a politics in which deep value conflicts are to be addressed by ongoing argumentation and free engagement among citizens; the epistemic pluralist thus sees liberal democracy is the proper political response to ongoing moral disagreement. [Link]
I don’t need to constantly debate Nazis to know that Nazism is still bad. I don’t constantly need to re-measure the Earth to know it’s still round, just because some fools believe it’s flat. Both in science and in philosophy, there are settled Truths, and the presence of people who fail to understand them doesn’t threaten them.
“Everything in moderation.” Too much of anything is bad. Including agreement.
Any group with similar ideas inevitably moves tward the most extreme form of that idea over time. Without people who disagree, that are able pull on the Overton Window preventing it’s movement too far, the group will become out of touch with reality.
So yah, echo chambers breed extremist views. And are a bad thing. Disagreement and debate is an important part of mental health for everyone.
Hear, hear! I couldn’t have written it better myself. I noticed a naysayer in one of the comments, but I think they will be shut down pretty quickly with that shitty attitude.
[Deleted by admin]
