this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2023
19 points (77.1% liked)

Ask Lemmy

26831 readers
1430 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions

Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try [email protected]


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected]. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I don't know. And frankly, I don't think that anyone does, even if assumers are extra eager to vomit certainty on the solution, and then wallow on their own vomit. [As such, take everything that I'm going to say with a grain of salt - it might be completely wrong.]

It's perhaps even impossible to avoid echo chambers, based on the article hinting that the formation of echo chambers might be actually a human tendency that goes beyond social media or online environments.

That said, I have two infographics for you guys. One explores echo chamber (circlejerk) formation from the inside; another, through enforcement of "higher ups". (Open the pics individually to enlarge them.)

If Lemmy is to avoid echo chambers, I believe that it would need mechanisms that:

  • attract people with minority views
  • discourage attrition between users with different views
  • increase the visibility and accountability of selective rule enforcement (the public modlog already does wonders for that)

The federative nature of the platform already helps a bit, I think, since nobody got the power to meddle with the whole Lemmyverse. And the ability to defederate is also part of that, as you can selectively cut off instances trying to enforce some echo chamber, that helps to protect minority views.

I also think that echo chambers are often further reinforced in social media through the cultural acceptance of three irrationalities, that might as well call "character flaws". They are:

  • eagerness to vomit certainty. I think that reasonable = doubtful people coexist better with different points of views.
  • oversimplification of complex matters. It's often a mechanism used to shun off everyone who doesn't think exactly in a certain way, as automatically defending the opposite view. ("You either like apples or bananas! If you say that you love bananas you're assumed to be an apple hater, REEEE!" style.)
  • genetic fallacies ("[person] said it's chrue than its chrue lol lmao"). Because it's that sort of thing that the intellectually lazy use to brush off their doubt, so it tends to compound with both points above.