Could Social Media be Tearing us Apart? #DigitalSense

While social networks have allowed the sharing of controversial opinions there remains a worry that they are helping to fuel such views. 

There’s nothing new about swings in political ideology but there is something different about the way these debates are playing out across the world. While social media channels were hailed as great unifiers that would connect and bring people together, now they seem to be making us more divisive than ever before. Can the internet giants really be to blame for our eccentric political scene and, if so, do they have a responsibility to do anything about?

Thousands of years of democracy have been marked by striking changes in the dominant political opinion – driven by economics, immigration, charismatic leaders, emergency crises, other hot issues and at times even good marketing. The majorities commanded by many modern governments don’t equate to a true majority of the popular vote but, for better or worse, the system seems to have held together far longer than its Greek creators would ever have expected. Yet in the aftermath of Britain’s own Brexit vote, and as the US gears up for a debate just as divisive, the strength of opinions on all sides of the argument seems to be being hugely amplified.

Social media channels have been inescapably linked to political debate since their conception. Indeed they have played a public role in giving persecuted minorities voices to be heard and even in catalysing entire revolutions. Of course by the definition of free speech you cannot pick and choose who you give it to, so such platforms have also bred new types of trolls and enabled terrorist organisations to spread their rhetoric and recruit. Yet it isn’t just that they allow the sharing of controversial opinions – there’s a real worry they may be fuelling the development of them too.

One increasingly discussed issue is that social media naturally organises us into bubbles of people with the same opinions. Far from breaking down global barriers and exposing us to challenging new opinions, these platforms simply make it easier to find like-minded people in whatever corner of the world they were hiding before.

It’s the opposite effect of real life where all sorts of social and political differences can be swept aside when you happen to live next to someone, work in the same building as someone or meet with a mutual group of friends. If you’ve got a passion for an obscure type of traditional tapestry, it’s of course wonderful to connect with others who share the same interest – but such connections can also radicalise darker debates.

In person, we’re well adapted to conversational debate – or polite avoidance of it if it’s really unresolvable – and are able to build relationships on the overwhelming common ground that we do share. Through the flat reality of a computer screen, it’s far harder to get to that place: any sort of written debate comes across as a much more direct challenge; we share a lot less so don’t get to see the breadth of commonality; when people share opposing opinions it’s a natural behaviour to simply want to unfollow, or even block them; and ultimately there’s something inherently disarming about face-to-face contact which doesn’t seem to apply online.

This leads rapidly to a context collapse where your news and information is no longer shared alongside a representative range of opinions, but filtered to reinforce your own beliefs. It’s very hard to judge the mood of the entire country by looking at your Facebook feed, because unless you’ve done a very good job of building a diverse network, it’s probably filled with many people saying the same thing. In the context of recent polls which suggest social media is overtaking traditional channels as the preferred source of news, this isn’t merely a biased side conversation, it’s a complete whitewashing of your main news channel.

A bad workman blames his tools but it does seem these tools are also colluding against us more than people realise. If you think the trending section of Twitter is your window to the wider world, then you may be surprised to learn that by default that too is showing you personalised trends most likely to interest you. The algorithms which all major social platforms use to control which content you see optimise automatically around the content you best respond to, almost certainly again further filtering out opposing opinion.

This doesn’t just mute opposing opinions, it begins to have the effect of amplifying your own side of the argument too. These echo chambers of opinion can slowly reinforce specific angles of an argument and even encourage the public sharing of more controversial suggestions which you might be hesitant to do with a greater chance that they would be challenged.

The short attention spans encouraged by ever-updating feeds no doubt play a role here, too, elevating headlines and pithy tweets to have more importance than deep articles, fleshed out policies or manifestos. It moves the news agenda into emotive issues where headlines are shaped to be heart-grabbing clickbait, which people are more likely to share than a measured take on a complex issue. It's bringing us to an era of post-truth democracy where people buy into the headlines, even if they are clearly discredited, or perhaps even find further validation in them from questionable sources they find online.

Beyond the algorithms there’s also a wider trend in social content actually being curated by humans – Snapchat’s public stories, Twitter’s moments and Facebook’s trends are put together by hands, not pure algorithms. Facebook went through a recent scandal when it was accused of actively hiding right-wing stories from the feed and, while investigations have shown no evidence, the worry remains.

In fact there’s really no reason why platforms couldn’t have a bias, traditional media has done so for years and companies such as Buzzfeed have been outspoken in not receiving ad dollars from politicians they disagree with. The difference here is that social platforms present themselves, and are perceived to be, neutral pipes through which content and thoughts can flow. If they wish to exert a bias they should probably find a way of being more open about that.

Ultimately, it’s easy for animosity and hatred to develop against people you don’t see. You see it in offices every day when strings of annoyed emails melt away into collaboration when colleagues finally talk things through face to face. It’s easy to hate an abstract concept but much harder when that person materialises as a friend, as a neighbour, as a colleague or as a relative.

Negative views of immigration tend to be weaker in areas with very high levels of immigration, where you are more likely to be friends with a diverse group, than those with lower levels – it’s easier to blame a group when you’re not personally engaging with them.

There are always going to be big political issues to discuss but, if recent events have shown us anything, it’s that we need to be careful about how radically the nature of that debate is unconsciously changing and playing by new rules. Increased availability of information and freedom of speech a good thing, and breadth of opinion is essential to agitate and move us forwards.

My day job is convincing marketers to spend more time and money advertising through social platforms. For a change, it’s worth acknowledging when we need to put our phones down.

Originally published on The Guardian Media & Tech Network
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I am a marketer who helps global brands make sense of media in a digital world; Follow me on LinkedIn or Twitter. #DigitalSense is my attempt to cut through the hype that too often surrounds the industry. I am Digital Partner at Carat Global, an agency redefining how the world's biggest brands think about media, though these are my personal thoughts.