If there's one thing I've learned it's that the outrage never goes away. The type of people who fixate on outrage in their Facebook feeds are the same type of people who decades prior would cruise around town picking fights in person. I'm unconvinced that Facebook is meaningfully changing this dynamic.
I'm also unconvinced that the filter bubble is meaningfully different than what's come before. Humans have been sorting themselves into like-minded communities since before we could read and write. Do you remember the hive-minds of the 80s and 90s? If anything they were far more extreme because of the difficulty in proving anything, back before google and wikipedia. There was a lot more extremism and hate based violence back then. A LOT, LOT more, and no interventions like Facebook is at least attempting to provide.
Facebook has some new angles on old patterns in human behavior, yes. I think the people who're trying to show that it's made things work have a lot of work to do to make a compelling case. Facebook's biggest transgression is probably that it has chronicled this behavior and has dragged it into the light.
If there's one thing I've learned it's that the outrage never goes away. The type of people who fixate on outrage in their Facebook feeds are the same type of people who decades prior would cruise around town picking fights in person. I'm unconvinced that Facebook is meaningfully changing this dynamic.
I'm also unconvinced that the filter bubble is meaningfully different than what's come before. Humans have been sorting themselves into like-minded communities since before we could read and write. Do you remember the hive-minds of the 80s and 90s? If anything they were far more extreme because of the difficulty in proving anything, back before google and wikipedia. There was a lot more extremism and hate based violence back then. A LOT, LOT more, and no interventions like Facebook is at least attempting to provide.
Facebook has some new angles on old patterns in human behavior, yes. I think the people who're trying to show that it's made things work have a lot of work to do to make a compelling case. Facebook's biggest transgression is probably that it has chronicled this behavior and has dragged it into the light.