Echo chamber

There has been a lot of talk about echo chambers lately, and I wanted to share my totally unoriginal thoughts on the subject.

It should surprise no one that I didn't encounter the term "echo chamber" until sometime around 2015. It was being applied to what was happening in politics and social media, and at the time, I was much less educated politically as a 24-year-old white male.

I used the term to refer to people that got sucked into the addiction of social media like Facebook or how Google would return search results based on its understanding of a person. It seemed to be a rather useful term in these situations and applied well. Large swaths of people were being exposed to only one side of the news, one side of the story, and it was the one they agreed with. This is a lot of what led to issues (along with good old-fashioned racism) around the Black Lives Matter movement and protests that followed indiscriminate killings of Black people by police. One side was reporting the murders and injustice while the other was reporting mass riots in an attempt to other the people and the movement.

Needless to say, it worked and has continued to work perfectly through every significant event. Social media like TikTok and Facebook are doing an excellent job of keeping people emotionally invested in things they either agree with or get outraged by. The perfect hook. All perpetuated by algorithms designed by people with personal beliefs, agendas, and biases – deliberately including them or not.

It was always going to be a system that led to division and hate. Which is why we're seeing a change today with people becoming increasingly anti-algorithm.

Echo chambers became a weapon of the extremists until it didn't.

A lot of the reason echo chambers worked to radicalize people before, in either direction, was because it made everyone feel intelligent and gave them an enemy to target. Remove that enemy, and you're left with a bunch of angry people yelling into nothing, which is a lot less fun.

Suddenly, the echo chamber becomes a lot less useful as an extremist tool. What's the point of all this anger and yelling if there's no one around to see it? Having two opposing groups sitting at the same social network table shouting across the divide is what fueled the echo chamber. Conversations on each side became about "did you see what the other side is doing?" Put up a wall between the sides, and suddenly all of the hatred feels empty and purposeless.

Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok – they all thrive when everyone is on there disagreeing loudly with each other. So, why is it that Bluesky is blowing up when it is the antithesis of the winning social media model?

A different kind of echo

Social media networks never really tried to build blocking systems that work perfectly because it goes against their goals. It was never about users building communities, at least not for the big ones. It was about engagement, good or bad. The best example is what happened with X recently and how it altered blocking. It became less useful and downright harmful to users dealing with harassment. But it increased engagement on posts since hateful people could still see them and engage with them.

Bluesky is different because it went out of the way to empower users. That and the moderation team is doing a great job kicking people off of the platform quickly when a particularly bad actor shows up.

Where is Mastodon in all of this? Well, like Mastodon, it's complicated. Users have more agency to block and follow, but there is less control due to federation. If you're in a server that decides it doesn't like a different server, it can just block them unilaterally for all users of that server. Then, as a user, you'd have to leave that server to follow the other server again. A process that can lose you followers and post history. Bluesky doesn't have that option, for better or worse. But Bluesky does have abundantly better moderation tools and more user agency, at least from my perspective.

Because of following lists, block lists, labels, and custom feeds, Bluesky feels more like the user is in control of what they see. It's been such an impact that Threads is attempting to give users custom feeds and a better algorithmic timeline. However, Threads will never replicate what Bluesky has because it's against its self-interest. Bluesky users can even pick different algorithms and have multiple timelines – something Threads will never do.

So, that brings me to an important question: is the echo chamber we're building on Bluesky a bad thing? If echo chambers are what led to so much hate and division before, what is different about this one?

Well, I think it lies in what the echo chamber is for. Not only are users seeking refuge from hate, they are looking to promote progressive ideas across a wide spectrum. It's not that everyone on Bluesky agrees on everything, it's that we can all agree that fascism is bad and we don't want a part of it. Honestly, that's the only real echo chamber I've witnessed on Bluesky – one of love, tolerance, and respect.

The reason why Fox News and extremists on X are upset at this situation is because they believe their views deserve a platform in every town square. But if there's one thing we've learned as a society, you never give Nazis a platform.

So, while Bluesky is an echo chamber for one political ideology of progressivism, love, and tolerance, it is a melting pot for many ideas across many people. A social media platform shouldn't need hate and controversy to thrive. Let's hope that can remain true of Bluesky.

I'll let our friend Darth sum it up for me:

i do not want supporters of a racist fascist rapist bigot anywhere near me tbh i do not think that is an unreasonable position tbh

— darth™️ (@darthbluesky.bsky.social) Nov 21, 2024 at 12:23 AM

The thing is, no one should be getting their world view from social media. Social media should help reinforce or broaden that world view, but you should be forming your world view based on real information obtained from books, journalists, and educators (which are all the enemy of the extremists). I think the problem with a lot of these angry people on X is that they get their information from X, which is what makes them ignorant and hateful.

Social media should be a fun place to hang out and meet like-minded people. Whatever you use it for, there is no room for hate, and I am okay with being a part of that echo chamber.

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