On "Echo Chambers"

The preferred nomenclature is alt-holes.

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This is great and admirable in the real world. When someone is in a corner, they need all the help they can get. Online, where they can just walk away from the keyboard, and show restraint by not engaging the trolley, the last thing the situation needs is a brigade coming to the rescue. In fact, it only feeds the trolley, who gets a thrill out of getting more people worked up.

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I’ll be lazy and use the Wikipedia definition:

An echo chamber is a metaphorical description of a situation in which information, ideas, or beliefs are amplified or reinforced by communication and repetition inside a defined system. Inside a figurative echo chamber, official sources often go unquestioned and different or competing views are censored, disallowed, or otherwise underrepresented.

This seems to be the case to some extent anywhere people exist; we’re influenced by each other and generally a predominant narrative emerges. BoingBoing’s articles are explicitly liberal and feminist, so you’re not going to have the same views represented as in US society. This is a very good thing IMO, and I think a lot of the frequent commenters, especially the women, would not want to stay long in an environment where all views were represented equally. From a more practical perspective, it helps discussion if the Overton window doesn’t welcome all opinions.

On the other hand, there’s no evidence that views are being censored or disallowed if they’re not abusive. Complaining in the lounge is one thing, but people are very cautious about flagging and generally all that will happen is a lot of people responding and a few snarky gifs. It’s not nice to feel the weight of opinion against you, but you get to say your point and like the comments you agree with, and everyone else has the same right. One of the things about the lounge discussions is that people are generally responding to the arguments in thread and leaving any complaining about the person themselves to a more private discussion.

official sources often go unquestioned

I can’t see how anyone could level this accusation against the BBS. Cory’s headlines and articles can be sensationalist, but they’re constantly being criticised by new and regular commenters. There’s the common response “are you disappointed in BoingBoing?”, but that’s generally for whiny comments about liberal bias and clickbait headlines. Where it’s a more factual criticism, the response tends to be more supportive. Discussions generally involve quite a bit of fact checking and reading around the issue, and headlines and articles have been corrected when they’ve been found to misrepresent the facts.

I think one of the biggest things is that people here argue in numbers for positions that are much more rare in society, while rejecting positions that are generally accepted. Someone coming here might expect general approval for what they see as moderate positions, and get strong criticism instead. But I really don’t see the BBS as on the extreme liberal side, and some of the things people decry as liberal nonsense in the US are defended by conservatives elsewhere.

Another thing that encourages me is that there are quite a few threads like this one, actually examining the evidence for other views. MRAs are generally dismissed, but their talking points and perspective have been discussed in a fairly sympathetic way. Trump supporters are attacked by some people, but there have also been a number of discussions about their particular concerns and attempts to see them in a more empathetic way. The same goes for criticisms from the right like political correctness.

I think one sign of an echo chamber is when groups become polarised and just trade insults at each other. This is happening everywhere to some extent, but given the general surrounding culture, there comes a point when being welcoming to everyone is not worth it, and providing a controlled environment that is tolerable and inclusive for those normally excluded is what you need to do.

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Dogpiling is an issue that’s hard to adjust to. On an online forum it results from people acting independently rather than them acting together. If an awful comment has six responses, it’s because six people individually thought it was awful enough to respond.

I’ve tried recently to read all the existing responses to a comment before responding myself to see if I’m just echoing something already said and if I’d really be adding anything by chipping in my disagreement. But I’m just so clever, you see, that my contribution is worthwhile!

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This is the kind of echo-chamber behaviour that I generally see around here…

More being dismissive of absent people holding different opinions, rather than shouting those opinions down when they actually come up for discussion.

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and those are users who tend to get eyerolls from the those of us on their side…

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Dismissive indeed. Trying to laugh instead of crying.

Now having seen this particular thread I think that it’s worth mentioning that most echo chamber comment flurries happen in the spur of the moment where not much thought or time is given to comments. I have been guilty of this whilst commenting between work tasks etc. We all don’t have the luxury of sitting in Starbucks drinking lattes contemplating such things as Libertarian laissez faire commenting. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

Brevity is a problem. Twitter language is an example of that very issue.

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I live in Texas. I speak to those people every day and say the same thing to their face. But I do think it’s neat how if someone like me makes fun of the Trump supporter echo chamber they are accused of echo chamber thinking.
I AM dismissive of those people and for good reason.

He said to the echo chamber.

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I do not think I shall be able to disagree with you on anything ever again, my darling!

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So you hope to combat the “echo chamber” of lazy commenting and overbroad slights by insinuating everyone is a “latte drinking” elitist?

The proliferation of coffee stands in rural WA would indicate that blue-collar America enjoys coffee just as much as whatever caricature you’re trying to inject into the discussion. But how persons actually live is much less interesting than the stereotypes.

It also implies incorrectly that persons of any particular view aren’t evenly distributed among class.

If I’m misunderstanding or misreading you here as I think I might, I apologize. The intention is rather unclear.

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No. Combatting an echo chamber requires the inclusion of contradictory ideas and persuasions.

Where I have seen the least amount of echo chambering is on local news sites with open unmoderated comment boards. Sure there is the hate but, rarely do you see mirroring of ideas.

To combat the echo effect the aperture needs to open wide. BB’s aperture is pretty narrow therefore echoes abound. Especially in Trump threads.

In rural Va there are very few coffee shops. Shops that sell guns, ammo and bait however are plentiful. The coffee house reference was in reference to free time and caffeine to develop more rounded and complete thought therefore avoiding an echo effect. However, spending a shitload of money on lattes does imply elitism to some.

What contradictory ideas and persuasions are beyond the pale?

What limits does and should one have with intolerance for garbage opinions?

There’s plenty of classist, racist, sexist, homophobic, generally hostile to many posters discussion that i’d be glad to send to the virtual cornfield.

Why and how should it be un-narrowed?

Should persons agree with your views? How are you not currently able to post about Trump?

The issue many people have is that they are necessarily judged for many opinions, and that is okay.

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And to this end, the main persons complaining or being complained about are the ones spending the most time on the site. While hit and run posting is not productive, the complaints generally target persons with more free time to argue.

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If that’s a shining example of anti-echo chambers, you can have it. They’re awful places where trollies abound. There’s no attempt at understanding or exchange of ideas. They’re just venom pits.

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I agree yet it is an example. Do you have another one?

I ask because that’s the point here in this thread right? To find a way to develop a community where there is less echo and more constructive dialog across bridges. Perhaps some amount of echo is not a bad thing after all as it provides group hugs and a perceived safe communication arena.

A hive of hatred and shitposting is a great example, agreed.

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Well, maybe a better example would be the comments on Youtube, since they’re universally despised, and don’t seem to be just about US left/right politics. The comment sections on my local news sites seem to be now just right wingers screaming into the void. There are very few lefties who bother taking up the charge to fight against the hate.

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I live in a large dense urban area inside a swing state that voted blue so my local news site is a bit more diverse perhaps. Ugly it is for the most part but, there are both level headed lefties and righties (very few) that sometimes take up the fight on hate. Honestly I can’t spend any time there due to the over abundance of how you say “the right wingers screaming into the void”. Incoherent ramblings are just scary after a while.

Hate does seem to be a strong repeller or attracter in echo logic. We are attracted to those of like mind and repelled by those of unlike mind. BBs strength is opening multiple creative and interesting forums to create a bridges between the two.

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