Chris Bail

Chris Bail summarizes the efforts of his organization, the Polarization Lab, to attempt to identify the reason for the sharp disagreements and platforms for extremists that exist on the digital landscape of social media. On this Bail challenges(quite effectively) the notions that Big Tech is solely responsible; research indicates that like social media; not all as it appears to be in terms of culpability and that we must be forced to examine that the individual is to blame in much of what happens online. Bail uses the stories of a wide range of individuals; liberals and conservatives, moderate right and left, young and old, to hammer the point of how the creation of a social imaginary online is hardly compatible to the person in real life, and how breaking the social media prism might online come when we deplatform identity to ideas, and instead invoke honest discussion through anonymity.

While Bail's research is a must read, the solutions he proposes are less compelling to see themselves as workable given the integration of our current social imaginary into the modern-day culture. Bail even admits much as so; monetization and engagement which builds social media companies is the double-edged sword that brings audiences yet fuels extremism. The alternative Bail is suggesting; a social media that is anonymous and brings together nuanced tempered dialogue, does not attract the user base of the masses.

Perhaps the better question for us to consider that Bail is asking us to see in the data, is how the social imaginary is creating not simply false identities of who we really are, but also failing to allow others who disagree the ability to challenge our assumptions. That alone should prick our conscience to consider and pull back the curtain the apps on our phones, and maybe; just maybe, stop being so quick to demonize others.… (altro)

This is a scholarly book that reads a little dry from time to time. But I think it conveys important information. The author studies polarization of political opinions on social media. His three experiments show when you expose Twitter users to political opinions that are drastically different from their own, the users become even more firmly grounded in their existing views and often even develop slightly more extreme views. So if you want to get out of your comfort zone and understand what people different from you are thinking, he recommends exposing yourself to views that are only slightly more conservative or liberal than your own.

His study also shows that people with extreme political views will be more vocal about them, because it helps them establish their online identity. They will gain followers and get retweeted, and they gain satisfaction through that. Whereas people with moderate political views tend to not post those views at all, because they want to preserve their relationships in real life. They don't want to antagonize their friends or family members who do post extreme views online, or get into trouble with people in their workplace who would prefer their employees to remain neutral. Because of these two phenomena, social media has a lot more posts with extreme views than nuanced, moderate views, and people using social media may have a twisted perception of where the public stands.

He gave some suggestions on how to break this "social media prism" on public opinion. Basically, he encourages people with moderates to post more and to find users who differ only slightly from them in their political views. His lab's website, polarizationlab.com, provides some tools you can use to self-diagnose where your twitter handle falls on the spectrum of political views and offers two bots that will retweet such messages for you to subscribe to. He envision one day there can be a social media platform with algorithm that automatically encourages these two behaviors. He also had some suggestions for people with extreme views on how to communicate in a way that will be more persuasive for readers who hold different opinions from them.… (altro)