Echo chambers

Are they making us all bigots?

Echo chamber - an enclosed space where sound reverberates; an environment in which a person encounters only beliefs or opinions that coincide with their own, so that their existing views are reinforced and alternative ideas are not considered.

Bigot - a person who is obstinately or unreasonably attached to a belief, opinion, or faction, especially one who is prejudiced against or antagonistic towards a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular group.

If you’re still on Twitter (or whatever Musk has decided to call it this month), and you’re not an actual troll, you will likely have become intimate with the ‘block’ function. For the longest time I resisted. My logic was that I wanted to know what other people thought, that surely is the point of social media. It wasn’t my logic that was flawed, it is social media’s algorithms that want to incite and enrage that are flawed from every perspective except making money.

Social media exists to make money, any other benefit or outcome is secondary. Social media sells your attention to advertisers – you, me, we are the product, not the consumer. The longer you, me, we stay engaged on social media, the more money they make – it’s that simple.

If social media presented me with a stream of cute golden retrievers, I would happily stay for a few moments before going back to doing what I was doing. Show me David Seymour race-baiting, and I’ll angrily bash out a reply, poke my nose into the thread, follow other tangents before I eventually stumble over a golden retriever, calm down and go back to what I was doing.

The algorithms present me with an endless stream of not engaging content, but enraging content. I come away with a view of New Zealand and Western society as a vapid, racist, sexist, transphobic, ignorant, selfish, brutish cesspool. And parts of it are, I know. But the optimist in me knows (hopes?) that the algorithms magnify the minority voice to make money.

So, I started blocking accounts left, right and centre – well, mainly right, if I’m honest. I too was blocked but mainly for challenging fragile, white, right-wing ideology. Eric Crampton (business roundtable) claimed competitive advantage was an immutable law - like the sun going around the earth and blocked me after I told him to have a re-think.

I don’t think Sean Plunket appreciated my sense of humour.

To remind myself of what I’m missing, I have a secondary account which I use in a voyeuristic way as opposed to a troll. I check out RW puppets like Eric and Sean as well as a friend from years back who I have discovered is a racist, misogynist dickhead. Yet on a different social media platform he runs a business account and couldn’t be nicer to the people he apparently hates – what a see you next Tuesday.

So, where does that leave us? As we block out vapid, dissenting voices we naturally form an echo chamber. We hear more views aligned with ours and, over time, this will solidify our views.

The word bigot is used pejoratively, being seen as a bigot is a negative, although the word itself is politically neutral. Social media is fracturing society into ever smaller groups, turning them into bigots, and then milking them for all they’re worth. The human condition is not their concern, making money is.

I’m leaving twitter after the New Zealand election. If we vote in a left-bloc government I’ll stay for two days after just to enjoy the RW whining!!!