- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
Once upon a time, newly minted graduates dreamt of creating online social media that would bring people closer together.
That dream is now all but a distant memory. In 2024, there aren’t many ills social networks don’t stand accused of: the platforms are singled out for spreading “fake news”, for serving as Russian and Chinese vehicles to destabilise democracies, as well as for capturing our attention and selling it to shadowy merchants through micro targeting. The popular success of documentaries and essays on the allegedly huge social costs of social media illustrates this.
-
Studies suggest that if individuals regularly clash over political issues online, this is partly due to psychological and socioeconomic factors independent of digital platforms.
-
In economically unequal and less democratic countries, individuals are most often victims of online hostility on social media (e.g., insults, threats, harassment, etc.). A phenomenon which seems to derive from frustrations generated by more repressive social environments and political regimes.
-
individuals who indulge most in online hostility are also those who are higher in status-driven risk taking. This personality trait corresponds to an orientation towards dominance, i.e., a propensity to seek to submit others to one’s will, for instance through intimidation. According to our cross-cultural data, individuals with this type of dominant personality are more numerous in unequal and non-democratic countries.
-
Similarly, independent analyses show that dominance is a key element in the psychology of political conflict, as it also predicts more sharing of “fake news” mocking or insulting political opponents, and more attraction to offline political conflict, in particular.
-
n summary, online political hostility appears to be largely the product of the interplay between particular personalities and social contexts repressing individual aspirations. It is the frustrations associated with social inequality that have made these people more aggressive, activating tendencies to see the world in terms of “us” vs “them”.
-
On a policy level, if we are to bring about a more harmonious Internet (and civil society), we will likely have to tackle wealth inequality and make our political institutions more democratic.
-
Recent analyses also remind us that social networks operate less as a mirror than as a distorting prism for the diversity of opinions in society. Outraged and potentially insulting political posts are generally written by people who are more committed to express themselves and more radical than the average person, whether it’s to signal their commitments, express anger, or mobilise others to join political causes.
-
Even when they represent a relatively small proportion of the written output on the networks, moralistic and hostile posts tend to be promoted by algorithms programmed to push forward content capable of attracting attention and triggering responses, of which divisive political messages are an important part.
-
On the other hand, the majority of users, who are more moderate and less dogmatic, are more reluctant to get involved in political discussions that rarely reward good faith in argumentation and often escalate into outbursts of hatred.
-
Social media use seems to contribute to increasing political hostility and polarisation through at least one mechanism: exposure to caricatural versions of the political convictions of one’s rivals.
-
The way in which most people express their political convictions – both on social media and at the coffee machine – is rather lacking in nuance and tactfulness. It tends to reduce opposing positions to demonised caricatures, and is less concerned with persuading the other side than with signaling devotion to particular groups or causes, galvanising people who already agree with you, and maintaining connections with like-minded friends.
I think what it all comes down to is most people don’t really want rational debate, and don’t participate in debates in the hope of learning or even to help others learn. Most people participate in debates to feel superior/“own” the other side. The result is debates that are typically lazy, uninformative, and downright mean.
I think all of us have a little bit of this desire for superiority in us and we need to consciously make an effort to suppress it.
Yes, and social media deliver on that wish by punishing nuanced opinions and anything which is not the lowest common denominator.
And they did that from the very beginning.
In the olden days what was acceptable on a web forum was defined by its owner and some mods. Everything had an alternative, people would communicate over few systems simultaneously - the forums themselves, ICQ, mail. When you were banned on some forum, you didn’t lose anyone of the people there.
It was certain that you can’t silence someone just by banning them. And conflicts were regular, so somebody and their friends would be banned or leave some place, but they were still part of a larger social fabric on some subject.
Social media style hate storms and insularity actually were discouraged. They bothered the mods, other people and in general were stopped by banning all participants for a month or so in the specific place the argument happened.
And what’s the normal behavior for social media today was unambiguously considered trolling back then. All of it.
When normies came to social media, they realized that now yes, you can silence anyone you don’t like, just have more friends or gaslight more strangers and that’s it. And you can troll as much as you want if it attracts more attention. In a social network there’s only one authority.
It was false in the beginning, people were not effectively silenced, and disinformation wasn’t that strong, but with more people moving to social media it became true.