4 ms·

I wonder if it's a similar psychological effect to that seen in the smoke filled room experiments, where someone is sat in a room and smoke starts coming under

I wonder if it's a similar psychological effect to that seen in the smoke filled room experiments, where someone is sat in a room and smoke starts coming under the door. If they're on their own, they investigate. If the room is full of actors who treat it as nothing, the one subject of the experiment tends to do nothing also. It turns out it's really hard for some people (maybe all people?) to go against the flow of a crowd. And if you combine that with the rise of clickbait, learning algorithms and social media, it suddenly becomes really easy to find yourself in a filter bubble surrounded by a very annoyed and consipiracy-believing crowd.

esotericn 8y ago
Pretty good theory. I suppose I'm uncomfortable with it, because it implies that some people just inherently have far less agency than others (disconnected from external factors like appearance, capital, etc), and that has all sorts of far-reaching implications...
jonathanstrange 8y ago
I believe this is essentially what is going on right now, and I do believe that these effects are currently the biggest threat to democracy. Fringe opinions and downright stupidity are entering the "mainstream", they are being "discussed" right now on forums like reddit's /r/unpopularopinion. But I don't believe that censorship are good solutions. Strong moderation is needed to keep a forum interesting and worthwhile reading, but that's a practical issue. Government censorship goes way too far. There should rather be laws that prohibit the use of certain online marketing tools in political campaigns. For example, it should be a punishable felony to use viral marketing in political campaigns that involves any kind of fake comments, replication bots, deliberately falsified news, or fake accounts not tied to real persons. Maybe these tools should also be prohibited for ordinary marketing - IANAL but I think in many countries they already are -, but they should definitely be strictly prohibited in political campaigns. Right now, it seems that e.g. in the US almost anything goes in political campaigns as long as no foreigners are involved, and we know from the Cambridge Analytica case that some companies act like mercenaries for hire without any conscience or care for democracy. That's what needs to be addressed, not the lunatics and crackpots on forums who will always exist.
- ascagnel_ 8y ago
  > There should rather be laws that prohibit the use of certain online marketing tools in political campaigns. For example, it should be a punishable felony to use viral marketing in political campaigns that involves any kind of fake comments, replication bots, deliberately falsified news, or fake accounts not tied to real persons. Maybe these tools should also be prohibited for ordinary marketing - IANAL but I think in many countries they already are -, but they should definitely be strictly prohibited in political campaigns. The issue is around defining what is fake and what is real, and that extremist governments will do their absolute best to twist the meanings of these words to fit their agenda.
  - jonathanstrange 8y ago
    Sure, such issues need to be decided by the judicative and a nation's constitutional guarantees for the division of power must ensure that a government cannot abuse them. If a particular government can interfere with or directly influence the particular decision of a judge, then it's probably too late to save democracy anyway. In that case there is no need to abuse laws about political campaigns, though, it suffices to put political opponents into prison and/or take away their rights to be elected, as happens in countries like Turkey and Russia.

esotericn 8y ago

Pretty good theory. I suppose I'm uncomfortable with it, because it implies that some people just inherently have far less agency than others (disconnected from external factors like appearance, capital, etc), and that has all sorts of far-reaching implications...

jonathanstrange 8y ago

I believe this is essentially what is going on right now, and I do believe that these effects are currently the biggest threat to democracy. Fringe opinions and downright stupidity are entering the "mainstream", they are being "discussed" right now on forums like reddit's /r/unpopularopinion. But I don't believe that censorship are good solutions. Strong moderation is needed to keep a forum interesting and worthwhile reading, but that's a practical issue. Government censorship goes way too far. There should rather be laws that prohibit the use of certain online marketing tools in political campaigns. For example, it should be a punishable felony to use viral marketing in political campaigns that involves any kind of fake comments, replication bots, deliberately falsified news, or fake accounts not tied to real persons. Maybe these tools should also be prohibited for ordinary marketing - IANAL but I think in many countries they already are -, but they should definitely be strictly prohibited in political campaigns. Right now, it seems that e.g. in the US almost anything goes in political campaigns as long as no foreigners are involved, and we know from the Cambridge Analytica case that some companies act like mercenaries for hire without any conscience or care for democracy. That's what needs to be addressed, not the lunatics and crackpots on forums who will always exist.

ascagnel_ 8y ago
> There should rather be laws that prohibit the use of certain online marketing tools in political campaigns. For example, it should be a punishable felony to use viral marketing in political campaigns that involves any kind of fake comments, replication bots, deliberately falsified news, or fake accounts not tied to real persons. Maybe these tools should also be prohibited for ordinary marketing - IANAL but I think in many countries they already are -, but they should definitely be strictly prohibited in political campaigns. The issue is around defining what is fake and what is real, and that extremist governments will do their absolute best to twist the meanings of these words to fit their agenda.
- jonathanstrange 8y ago
  Sure, such issues need to be decided by the judicative and a nation's constitutional guarantees for the division of power must ensure that a government cannot abuse them. If a particular government can interfere with or directly influence the particular decision of a judge, then it's probably too late to save democracy anyway. In that case there is no need to abuse laws about political campaigns, though, it suffices to put political opponents into prison and/or take away their rights to be elected, as happens in countries like Turkey and Russia.