The Echo Chamber

Antidas

Hey guys, I'm doing a project trying to analyze the theoretical political echo chamber that seems to have been so prevalent recently. If you wouldn't mind filling out this quick survey, I would really appreciate it! Its just four questions, shouldn't take more than two minutes of your time. I'll be posting this on other IRE forums as well, so if you've filled it out in one place, please don't fill it out again!

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Z6G2K3C

Thanks!

Quean

Hm... I kind of assumed that the labels 'liberal' and 'conservative' in this survey refer to their US meaning, not European ones, and answered accordingly. Where I live, these are not considered polar opposites, the main divisions run differently. 

Antidas

Quean said:

Hm... I kind of assumed that the labels 'liberal' and 'conservative' in this survey refer to their US meaning, not European ones, and answered accordingly. Where I live, these are not considered polar opposites, the main divisions run differently. 

Interesting! Yes, I do refer to the US meaning. I wasn't aware the terms meant something different in Europe, thanks for letting me know!

Kestrel

I engage very heavily in political discourse on Facebook; in fact I would say that's mainly what I use it for these days, as a tool for promoting activism. Lord knows I'm not on there because I actually like people, I just naively hold out hope that maybe with more information out there they might one day become more likeable.

I mention this because I was surprised to see that Facebook doesn't actually list my political category, which is weird because they should have plenty of information on my political leanings to work with. I'm UK based, so I wonder if Facebook UK just doesn't classify/show our political info in the way that Facebook US does.

I will also note for reference that at least in the UK, liberal/conservative means the same thing that it means in the US, our left is just a bit farther left than yours and our right is a generally softer right. (E.g. our alt-right hasn't become the mainstream right, and we have an explicitly socialist mainstream political party.) TM is a conservative, so if you're somewhat familiar with her politics you could compare her conservativism to DT's conservatism as a reference point. It would be extremely controversial, even unthinkable for example, for any politician in the UK to imply they don't believe in universal healthcare, regardless of whether they were liberal or conservative. It's not that we have a different term here for people who think that healthcare isn't a human right, it's just that those people legitimately don't exist.

Quean

Well, in Poland it's all messed up, I'm afraid. Liberals are what you would in the US call 'neo-cons', conservatives expand the welfare state and the left cannot seem to make up its mind as to what it is. 

Antidas

Kestrel said:

I engage very heavily in political discourse on Facebook; in fact I would say that's mainly what I use it for these days, as a tool for promoting activism. Lord knows I'm not on there because I actually like people, I just naively hold out hope that maybe with more information out there they might one day become more likeable.

I mention this because I was surprised to see that Facebook doesn't actually list my political category, which is weird because they should have plenty of information on my political leanings to work with. I'm UK based, so I wonder if Facebook UK just doesn't classify/show our political info in the way that Facebook US does.

Yeah, I'm not too sure what's going on with Facebook. Mine doesn't show up either, and I comment/share on political articles frequently. A few years ago when it first became common knowledge, I checked and I did have a designation as "liberal" at that point. On the other hand, for my fiancee, who doesn't involve herself in politics much, Facebook had a designation for her. I included the question in the hopes that I was in the minority but so far it seems to be the opposite - most people don't seem to have any designation there. My guess is facebook removed the ability to easily see their labels for people and have it hidden away somewhere, if not completely inaccessible now.

Changu

I wanted to answer your survey, but I don't use social media for reading political commentary.  Don't even have a Facebook profile.  I do read quite a few blogs, but ones that tend to confirm my political beliefs, or at least my view of reality on the ground.  What a strange world it has become where the first disagreements aren't "how do we proceed?" but "where are we proceeding from?"  Can't even agree with the other side of the aisle about what actually happened yesterday.  Certainly didn't feel like that 10 years ago.

capheus

I think FB has restructured the way user data is displayed in settings - I found mine after scrolling way down to the bottom of “Your Categories,” listed as “US Politics (Very Liberal),” buried under more trivial categories like, “Frequent Visitors: Buffet Restaurants.” (Don’t judge me I just wanna eat my money’s worth 😠)

Kestrel

capheus said:

I think FB has restructured the way user data is displayed in settings - I found mine after scrolling way down to the bottom of “Your Categories,” listed as “US Politics (Very Liberal),” buried under more trivial categories like, “Frequent Visitors: Buffet Restaurants.” (Don’t judge me I just wanna eat my money’s worth 😠)

That's where I was looking. I have categories like 'WiFi users', 'Mobile network or device users', 'Facebook access (browser): Chrome' but nothing at all on politics. Actually almost nothing on even my hobbies or any other obvious aspects of my lifestyle, except regarding recent geographical locations I've visited and the fact that I do so frequently.

It does seem to have some more useful information if I click on 'Your Interests'. Although one of those interests is 'Calorie', which feels like a hella depressing social critique in and of itself.



This supports my experience that Facebook is not an echo chamber tbh, at least not for me; note that it lists my interests as being both the Labour Party (far economic left, socialism) and the Conservative Party. It also says (in a different category from the one shown here) that I'm interested in Canada Goose, which is an organisation I actively campaign against.

I wonder if the reason Facebook doesn't list my political stance is that I engage with with information from a wide variety of sources? It isn't for me to offer conclusions for @Antidas' project, but I don't experience the Facebook echo chamber. I wonder if this also has something to do with my demographic, because most of my friends are WASPs and I am not (I'm 0 out of 4 on those categories). I would think there's more of an echo chamber in White America, or even in black neighbourhoods. I'm aware that the US is very segregated.

I would control for factors like being part of a majority group within your geographic region if you were to make another survey. Because for example I'd imagine that an African American living in a predominantly African American neighbourhood has far more of an echo chamber when they share stuff related to BLM, for example, than a Trinidadian immigrant living in a predominantly white area. I have a friend in the latter category and he's often confided in me privately that it frustrates him that white (liberal) friends on facebook seemingly don't have anything to say at all any time an African American gets shot, but that everyone loses their shit when it's an African lion.

Sairys

Hm, I don't see a label for me either, I'm in Aus so I think the categories for politics might be targeted at the US maybe?

The interests pane is different, afaik, that's more just about what you've clicked on which is why it can give conflicting information where the categories are labels for who facebook thinks you are. Interests likely feed into those categories but if the categories were that contradictory they'd be useless for advertisers. 

capheus

[Thought I figured something out about how FB was showing this info, but realized I was wrong. Nothing to see here!]