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The Fediverse is an opportunity learned societies can't ignore

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Re: The Fediverse is an opportunity learned societies can't ignore

#221

Post by irq-1 »

p-e-w wrote: post #87
kromem wrote: post #53

After spending a number of months on Lemmy as my primary social media, I actually think the fediverse makes one of the biggest issues of social media much worse. There's a very real and dangerous trend towards extremist positions as a result of social media bubbles. I'm sure most people have noticed how large family gatherings have shifted over the last 15 years, and how some family may no longer even be invited as a…

The supposed "social media bubble" is a silly myth. The exact opposite is the case: On even the most algorithmically filtered social media platform, you cannot avoid encountering opinions and viewpoints that are dramatically different from what you find in your real-life circles. The real bubbles are your family, your workplace, and your friends. Most of them are the same nationality, roughly the same social class, a…

> you suddenly read a comment

That phrase is hiding the real issue: on the internet, people engage with what they want to, and ignore what they want to. Attention, respect, engagement don't result from 'suddenly reading a comment'.

When there was only establishment newspapers and media they presented (what they considered) a balanced and responsible view. Now they've lost control of information and communication. Journalists dug deep to find a problem with the internet, and landed on 'the bubble'. The bubble is when people lack a balanced and responsible view...

There is just enough truth to 'the bubble' to keep the idea alive. On the internet it's easy to find radical information, and restrict your information sources to what you want. Back when everyone read the newspaper it kept public discussion narrowly focused [1]. Now we have lots of people who 'do their own research' and hold radical views. Also, the views that were suppressed under the establishment media are public and accessible to everyone.

There have always been people who live in their own little world, or bubble, but now it's much larger number. From the view of companies and social establishments that controlled the news this is a huge problem. From my view of society, I now sympathize with the US being a republic rather than a pure democracy, and I never thought that would happen.

[1] The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum..." -Noam Chomsky

Re: The Fediverse is an opportunity learned societies can't ignore

#222

Post by glenstein »

account42 wrote: post #194
glenstein wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could not have said it better myself. The bubble idea is a myth and, as we've seen here, when people attempt to articulate it, it cashes out as something astonishingly shallow. It's such a lazy analysis that it overlooks countless ordinary and familiar examples that are not controversial or problematic at all, niche communities of every variety, convergences of common interest where the commonality is a baseline of c…

[flagged]

Can you help me see the light by engaging with the substance of what I said?

Re: The Fediverse is an opportunity learned societies can't ignore

#223

Post by kromem »

Foreignborn wrote: post #99
kromem wrote: post #53

After spending a number of months on Lemmy as my primary social media, I actually think the fediverse makes one of the biggest issues of social media much worse. There's a very real and dangerous trend towards extremist positions as a result of social media bubbles. I'm sure most people have noticed how large family gatherings have shifted over the last 15 years, and how some family may no longer even be invited as a…

This "filter bubble" is not true, and does not seem to be the issue people think it is. We interact with more diverse people online outside of our bubble. It's actually our real life that's the bubble, and bubbles aren't necessarily bad. Link to paper: https://www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10.1073/pnas.2207159119

You didn't read more than the headline, did you? Directly from the abstract:

"When individuals interact locally, the outcome is a stable plural patchwork of cross-cutting conflicts. By encouraging nonlocal interaction, digital media drive an alignment of conflicts along partisan lines, thus effacing the counterbalancing effects of local heterogeneity. The result is polarization, even if individual interaction leads to convergence. The model thus suggests that digital media polarize through partisan sorting, creating a maelstrom in which more and more identities, beliefs, and cultural preferences become drawn into an all-encompassing societal division."

So the paper is supporting exactly what I'm saying. That in your local community you need to engage with differences of opinion to successfully navigate local social structures, but that online with an expanded network you can interact with only like minded people.

Yes, the overall bubble is larger online than in real life, but as a result it allows for self-selecting subnetworks which align with confirming your biases and further radicalization rather than compromising with differences of opinion.

Re: The Fediverse is an opportunity learned societies can't ignore

#225

Post by kromem »

ipaddr wrote: post #105
kromem wrote: post #53

After spending a number of months on Lemmy as my primary social media, I actually think the fediverse makes one of the biggest issues of social media much worse. There's a very real and dangerous trend towards extremist positions as a result of social media bubbles. I'm sure most people have noticed how large family gatherings have shifted over the last 15 years, and how some family may no longer even be invited as a…

By fragmenting you move off of a global platform with family and into a silo of like minds. That change means there is no need to pollute the global newsfeed with opposing views. Everyone can agree on a common dominator and family will start getting invited back to dinner.

Right, because we all know the antivaxx member of the extended family never brings the topic up in person...

People radicalized have their entire identity structured around a need for confirmation.

When you only talk about a specific topic 24/7 online, what happens in person is that you still bend over backwards to tie every possible subject into that topic. A QAnon believer sees it everywhere and points it out to family. A flat earther is going to make some comment about NASA at dinner guaranteed.

It existed previously in cult behavior, but that sociological structure has now been distributed from small local gatherings to global reach online.

Re: The Fediverse is an opportunity learned societies can't ignore

#226

Post by shiroiuma »

Double_a_92 wrote: post #141
p-e-w wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The supposed "social media bubble" is a silly myth. The exact opposite is the case: On even the most algorithmically filtered social media platform, you cannot avoid encountering opinions and viewpoints that are dramatically different from what you find in your real-life circles. The real bubbles are your family, your workplace, and your friends. Most of them are the same nationality, roughly the same social class, a…

The difference is that with your real-life social bubble you try to not embarrass yourself, so you only discuss your more moderate views with them. While on the internet if you support some extremistic view, you can just shout it out without much consequence.

The other problem is that ideas are contagious, so when a few wackos shout out their extremist views, other people start thinking this may be normal, and more and more of them become sympathetic to it. This is why so many Americans believe in crazy BS conspiracy theories like "adrenochrome" now; in the pre-internet days, this stuff couldn't go very far. This is why those family gatherings have gotten so bad: decades ago, very few people believed in "extremist" stuff, but because of social media and other internet media sources, many of those views have become somewhat normalized so that a large portion of the population believes them.

Re: The Fediverse is an opportunity learned societies can't ignore

#227

Post by anigbrowl »

boudin wrote: post #113
anigbrowl wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Email succeeded because there wasn't anything better, and of course it's become baroque in the meantime as the need for security and other features have been added. What worked 50 years is not going to work today just because it's technically similar, the environment has changed and it's foolish to ignore that.

There is still no replacement for email though. It still very much work today and is the only solution to send message over the Internet, regardless of the person you want to reach. Non federated networks will never reach the adoption of email.

You're missing the point; it did indeed succeed and is now embedded in our digital infrastructure because it got there first. But it does not follow that launching something else today using the same model will be able to get the same uptake, because there are many competing offerings.

Re: The Fediverse is an opportunity learned societies can't ignore

#228

Post by boudin »

anigbrowl wrote: post #227
boudin wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is still no replacement for email though. It still very much work today and is the only solution to send message over the Internet, regardless of the person you want to reach. Non federated networks will never reach the adoption of email.

You're missing the point; it did indeed succeed and is now embedded in our digital infrastructure because it got there first. But it does not follow that launching something else today using the same model will be able to get the same uptake, because there are many competing offerings.

I don't see many competing offering. I can think of XMPP, Matrix, I'm sure there are a few others but it's definitely not many.

You're right that the environment changed, but not for the best. Many people would jump on a federated messaging network, not because it's federated but because they won't need to use dozens of app and accounts to communicate. It is more the business incentives that are not there.

Email surely has succeeded because SMTP was the de-facto communication protocol when Internet developed, but it is still successful and relevant because it is still the de-facto communication protocol.

Re: The Fediverse is an opportunity learned societies can't ignore

#229

Post by Foreignborn »

kromem wrote: post #223
Foreignborn wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This "filter bubble" is not true, and does not seem to be the issue people think it is. We interact with more diverse people online outside of our bubble. It's actually our real life that's the bubble, and bubbles aren't necessarily bad. Link to paper: https://www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10.1073/pnas.2207159119

You didn't read more than the headline, did you? Directly from the abstract: "When individuals interact locally, the outcome is a stable plural patchwork of cross-cutting conflicts. By encouraging nonlocal interaction, digital media drive an alignment of conflicts along partisan lines, thus effacing the counterbalancing effects of local heterogeneity. The result is polarization, even if individual interaction leads t…

I indeed read the paper. No snark needed.

I disagree with your interpretation of the stable plural patchwork that you’ve represented here as supporting your claim. However, the nuance in difference of our opinion isn’t that important in the grand scheme.

For your last two paragraphs, I think you are actually describing social sorting - which the paper asserts as the underlining mechanism for which polarization happens online. The filter bubble is colloquially known as not seeing differing opinions online, yet as the paper states is untrue. Online we counter more diverse opinions. That’s what I wanted to point out.

Best of luck to you.

Re: The Fediverse is an opportunity learned societies can't ignore

#230

Post by Jerrrry »

SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #214
Jerrrry wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are helping the troll string up a straw man, no one has mentioned blacks aside from him. And the left is completely ideologically unable to be around a black person without first acknowledging their privileged presence by an oppression tirade of apologizing blithering woke-double-speak. The left and the right are equally racist for similar reasons, for example; they both think blacks should had gotten the vaccine…

Dude I’m literally just saying that I don’t get how calling black people the n word is some kind of bubble. Basic human decency is a crazy social filter I guess. I feel like this jump is hysterics.

You don't understand how social bubbles THEMSELVES lead to kids normalizing the 'n' word?

You and OP are confusing "safe spaces" for "bubbles"

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