The Echo Chamber
Hey guys, I'm doing a project trying to analyze the theoretical political echo chamber that seems to have been so prevalent recently. If you wouldn't mind filling out this quick survey, I would really appreciate it! Its just four questions, shouldn't take more than two minutes of your time. I'll be posting this on other IRE forums as well, so if you've filled it out in one place, please don't fill it out again!
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Z6G2K3C
Thanks!
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Z6G2K3C
Thanks!
0
Comments
https://countingdownto.com/?c=2341194
I mention this because I was surprised to see that Facebook doesn't actually list my political category, which is weird because they should have plenty of information on my political leanings to work with. I'm UK based, so I wonder if Facebook UK just doesn't classify/show our political info in the way that Facebook US does.
I will also note for reference that at least in the UK, liberal/conservative means the same thing that it means in the US, our left is just a bit farther left than yours and our right is a generally softer right. (E.g. our alt-right hasn't become the mainstream right, and we have an explicitly socialist mainstream political party.) TM is a conservative, so if you're somewhat familiar with her politics you could compare her conservativism to DT's conservatism as a reference point. It would be extremely controversial, even unthinkable for example, for any politician in the UK to imply they don't believe in universal healthcare, regardless of whether they were liberal or conservative. It's not that we have a different term here for people who think that healthcare isn't a human right, it's just that those people legitimately don't exist.
— Oscar Wilde
"I'll take care of it, Luke said. And because he said it instead of her, I knew he meant kill. That is what you have to do before you kill, I thought. You have to create an it, where none was before."
— Margaret Atwood
https://countingdownto.com/?c=2341194
It does seem to have some more useful information if I click on 'Your Interests'. Although one of those interests is 'Calorie', which feels like a hella depressing social critique in and of itself.
This supports my experience that Facebook is not an echo chamber tbh, at least not for me; note that it lists my interests as being both the Labour Party (far economic left, socialism) and the Conservative Party. It also says (in a different category from the one shown here) that I'm interested in Canada Goose, which is an organisation I actively campaign against.
I wonder if the reason Facebook doesn't list my political stance is that I engage with with information from a wide variety of sources? It isn't for me to offer conclusions for @Antidas' project, but I don't experience the Facebook echo chamber. I wonder if this also has something to do with my demographic, because most of my friends are WASPs and I am not (I'm 0 out of 4 on those categories). I would think there's more of an echo chamber in White America, or even in black neighbourhoods. I'm aware that the US is very segregated.
I would control for factors like being part of a majority group within your geographic region if you were to make another survey. Because for example I'd imagine that an African American living in a predominantly African American neighbourhood has far more of an echo chamber when they share stuff related to BLM, for example, than a Trinidadian immigrant living in a predominantly white area. I have a friend in the latter category and he's often confided in me privately that it frustrates him that white (liberal) friends on facebook seemingly don't have anything to say at all any time an African American gets shot, but that everyone loses their shit when it's an African lion.
— Oscar Wilde
"I'll take care of it, Luke said. And because he said it instead of her, I knew he meant kill. That is what you have to do before you kill, I thought. You have to create an it, where none was before."
— Margaret Atwood
The interests pane is different, afaik, that's more just about what you've clicked on which is why it can give conflicting information where the categories are labels for who facebook thinks you are. Interests likely feed into those categories but if the categories were that contradictory they'd be useless for advertisers.