17 ms·

The “Majority Illusion” in Social Networks (2016)

108 points by Reedx 6y ago

gridspy 6y ago
Sounds like a great explanation for the spread of very polarized political opinions in social media. Everyone thinks their niche opinion has obtained majority support.
- danharaj 6y ago
  Do you think this is the first time in history that there are very polarized political opinions? How do you explain it in the past? Maybe polarization comes from... polarizing circumstances?
  - banads 6y ago
    What do you think about the research in question as it relates to social media?
ThomPete 6y ago
I call this anecdotal growth mutation. You see something, you share it, a lot of other people share it. Suddenly the anecdote becomes statistically significant in the heads of everyone.
- malandrew 6y ago
  I would elide the word "statistical" from your comment but otherwise I totally agree.
- unishark 6y ago
  I see a lot of posts on reddit which basically consist of the formula "My <other political gorup> relative keeps doing <behavior our side despises>. They make me so angry." Perhaps with some extra details of being an obvious two-dimensional jerk for good measure. Always has lots of upvotes. Could be someone trying to affect opinion with fake upvotes, someone trying to fish for easy upvotes, or just organically motivated by the network's desire for anecdotes to rage about.
  - darepublic 6y ago
    If someone held a gun to my head and told me to increase my reddit karma by 10k in a week I would quickly hop on to r/politics
dang 6y ago
Discussed at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12149338 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12149338
nostromo 6y ago
This is a timely article. If I only viewed the world through my Facebook feed right now, I'd believe that everyone in the US wants to defund every police department. In reality it's an incredibly unpopular view among everyone, left, right, and center. https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2020/06/01/police-reform-america-poll https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/20... I think making this worse is that even a mild concern about this policy would be received very poorly on social media -- so nobody objects and you see a silent majority phenomenon. It's frightening that social media is a primary news source for so many people.
- saas_sam 6y ago
  Case in point: The reality that it's unpopular doesn't save you from the downvotes you're currently getting from those who wish it were otherwise.
- aabhay 6y ago
  This is a silly straw man argument you’re making. Asking every American whether they want to defund the police is like asking everybody in the US if they enjoy taking the subway to work. Only a fraction of Americans live in cities that are calling for this action. A more reasonable poll would only ask Minneapolis residents.
- gbear605 6y ago
  The requests that the protesters are focusing on now are mainly around shifting funding from police departments to other departments to do the same job but without being armed and dangerous. For instance, house calls can be done by social workers and a separate system of traffic patrollers could give out speeding tickets. “Defunding” is a misnomer that’s easy to say but not really what many protesters want. Also an end on the war on drugs would be a good step too; cost saving plus decreasing the need for police.
- crazygringo 6y ago
  Survey questions can be incredibly misleading. There's a huge difference between do you support "cut funding for police departments" (with no broader context, so sounds scary -- all risk and no benefit) vs. "move excess police funding to social services which reduce crime" or even just "remove funding for militarized vehicles and equipment in police departments". Intelligent policy decisions very, very, very rarely can be reduced to just five words. In fact, it's a well-known phenomenon that as survey questions become more nuanced and in-depth, the percentages of "extreme" views decrease dramatically, and most Americans turn out to hold largely centrist, reasonable views, totally different from what the media portrays. It's the simplistic survey questions that force binary extreme answers without context or compromise that get all the press.
ve55 6y ago
I view this as the primary reason that protests and rioting have been significantly more widespread recently. In order for someone to feel good about protesting and rioting, it helps if people around them are doing it, so that it seems socially acceptable, and so that negative consequences are less likely to occur. Normally you would need to see this physically near you, but now with viral algorithms, all it takes is one protest in one location, broadcast to a billion people, and many of them will start to believe "there's all theses protests going on everywhere, so I might do it too". In some forms this is useful, but in others it is extremely dangerous and can allow for mass unrest based only upon what uncontrollable algorithms end up promoting due to what is the most viral content. Humans evolved in significantly smaller societies than they live in today, and it's very difficult to have proper intuition about how many people are doing various things after seeing hundreds of examples of them on the Internet. As a result I notice many people making estimates about the frequency of activities that are not only off by one order of magnitude, but sometimes more like three to six.
- grawprog 6y ago
  I live in a small community outside America. On Saturday I left the mall where I'd been subject to the 'new normal' covid distancing laws shit. Stepped out into the sunshine to see over 1000 people marching down the street in one huddled mass protesting because...riots in America. I watched a car's window get smashed because they wanted to drive through an intersection and had the audacity to ask if they could drive through. While we have issues with police and abuses of power here, it's not even a speck on the radar compared to America. There's real issues here worth protesting. There's a worrying lack of housing for people here in the last year since the psyche ward and homeless shelters shut down. Businesses have been closing down permanently for months, people are desperate for work, one of the largest clearcuts ever for the area has been proposed in the watershed where the town's drinking water comes from. It contains not only the oldest tree in Canada, so old that our tools can't penetrate deep enough to age it, but some of the largest intact old growth in the province, habitat for numerous endangered species and again, directly feeds nearly every river that supplies our water. Nobody cares, nobody even acknowledges the issues outside their door. But some riots in America are worth flaunting all the measures forced on people for months because they've been riled up to believe it matters more than everything we've been told to believe for months now because social media tells then they need to care.
artsyca 6y ago
Y'all are going to crucify me for this comment but I believe we also suffer this as a technology community. We assume certain unhelpful behaviours are the norm and perpetuate toxic defaults through the majority illusion and what amounts to impostor syndrome.
agustif 6y ago
And the sackers might inspire more international sackers too
pensivemood 6y ago
I am wondering what this mean to things like setting scientific consensus? I mean, Isn't the same think applicable to any case where perception of the majority by indvidual is skewed by network effects such as these? Also, isn't it within the realm of possibility that it is much easier for a bad actor to alter this perception of the global?
082349872349872 6y ago
Not new to technological social networks. Edward Bernays wrote a couple of books on exploiting pre-computer social networks in the early 20th century.
weitzj 6y ago
About 2 years ago there was an online game/simulator where one could add “information blocks” onto network nodes and see if they become true. It nicely demonstrated how things became a “fact”. Does anybody have the link to it?
- NortySpock 6y ago
  Nicky Case "The Wisdom or Madness of the Crowds" https://ncase.me/crowds/ https://ncase.me/crowds/
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - weitzj 6y ago
    Great! This was it!
themovieinwins 6y ago
I think majority illusion has existed even before the social networks. If you surround yourself with people who share the same view on most things, aka living in the bubble, you might end up getting caught in the majority illusion since everyone you know has the same views. One of the few cases where I have listened and changed my(far right) views was when a close friend of mine talked me through the nuances of various(left leaning) views from his side. I was willing to listen to him because we were close friend by that time already. If he had tried to discuss various issues before we became friends, there is a good chance that I would have discarded all his views as wrong. The only place where people of opposing views can end up becoming friends is college afaik. It is difficult to form close bond later in adult life.
scottywilliam 6y ago
IF YOU'RE INTERESTED TO JOIN ILLUMINATI BROTHERHOOD, SIMPLY EMAIL illuminatichurchofdevil6666@gmail.com This is my testimony of how I become rich and famous today, I want to thank grand master of Illuminati for, accepting me in to brotherhood I was deeply strangle up by poverty and I have nobody, to help me, I search for help in many different ways, I see many people around me getting rich, but I did not give up because I believe that I will join the Illuminati and I will become rich , having power and famous I was scam but I did not give up, if you want to be rich powerful and famous in life you can achieve your dreams by being a member of great Illuminati brother hood, Our brother hood does not make use of human for sacrifice because that is the mentality of non members,all you need is to obey the rules and regulations given to you, be a member and make your dreams come reality by been a member, you'll be giving $2, 000,000.00 free house in any where to choice in the word, a car of your choice, The society don't force or beg people to join them, I joined because no body force me and am very happy today to be a member today because my dreams come to reality and making me one of the leading business man in the world, if you're interested to be member of great Illuminati email Illuminatichurchofdevil6666@gmail.com for your initiation, you can text/call whatsapp +1 (859) 474 7408 for initiation, i want you all to know that is free, you will not pay any money to join the illuminati, it is free to join the illuminati and get rich and successful in life.

108 points by Reedx 6y ago

Sounds like a great explanation for the spread of very polarized political opinions in social media. Everyone thinks their niche opinion has obtained majority support.

danharaj 6y ago
Do you think this is the first time in history that there are very polarized political opinions? How do you explain it in the past? Maybe polarization comes from... polarizing circumstances?
- banads 6y ago
  What do you think about the research in question as it relates to social media?

ThomPete 6y ago

I call this anecdotal growth mutation. You see something, you share it, a lot of other people share it. Suddenly the anecdote becomes statistically significant in the heads of everyone.

malandrew 6y ago
I would elide the word "statistical" from your comment but otherwise I totally agree.
unishark 6y ago
I see a lot of posts on reddit which basically consist of the formula "My <other political gorup> relative keeps doing <behavior our side despises>. They make me so angry." Perhaps with some extra details of being an obvious two-dimensional jerk for good measure. Always has lots of upvotes. Could be someone trying to affect opinion with fake upvotes, someone trying to fish for easy upvotes, or just organically motivated by the network's desire for anecdotes to rage about.
- darepublic 6y ago
  If someone held a gun to my head and told me to increase my reddit karma by 10k in a week I would quickly hop on to r/politics

dang 6y ago

Discussed at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12149338 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12149338

nostromo 6y ago

This is a timely article. If I only viewed the world through my Facebook feed right now, I'd believe that everyone in the US wants to defund every police department. In reality it's an incredibly unpopular view among everyone, left, right, and center. https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2020/06/01/police-reform-america-poll https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/20... I think making this worse is that even a mild concern about this policy would be received very poorly on social media -- so nobody objects and you see a silent majority phenomenon. It's frightening that social media is a primary news source for so many people.

saas_sam 6y ago
Case in point: The reality that it's unpopular doesn't save you from the downvotes you're currently getting from those who wish it were otherwise.
aabhay 6y ago
This is a silly straw man argument you’re making. Asking every American whether they want to defund the police is like asking everybody in the US if they enjoy taking the subway to work. Only a fraction of Americans live in cities that are calling for this action. A more reasonable poll would only ask Minneapolis residents.
gbear605 6y ago
The requests that the protesters are focusing on now are mainly around shifting funding from police departments to other departments to do the same job but without being armed and dangerous. For instance, house calls can be done by social workers and a separate system of traffic patrollers could give out speeding tickets. “Defunding” is a misnomer that’s easy to say but not really what many protesters want. Also an end on the war on drugs would be a good step too; cost saving plus decreasing the need for police.
crazygringo 6y ago
Survey questions can be incredibly misleading. There's a huge difference between do you support "cut funding for police departments" (with no broader context, so sounds scary -- all risk and no benefit) vs. "move excess police funding to social services which reduce crime" or even just "remove funding for militarized vehicles and equipment in police departments". Intelligent policy decisions very, very, very rarely can be reduced to just five words. In fact, it's a well-known phenomenon that as survey questions become more nuanced and in-depth, the percentages of "extreme" views decrease dramatically, and most Americans turn out to hold largely centrist, reasonable views, totally different from what the media portrays. It's the simplistic survey questions that force binary extreme answers without context or compromise that get all the press.

ve55 6y ago

I view this as the primary reason that protests and rioting have been significantly more widespread recently. In order for someone to feel good about protesting and rioting, it helps if people around them are doing it, so that it seems socially acceptable, and so that negative consequences are less likely to occur. Normally you would need to see this physically near you, but now with viral algorithms, all it takes is one protest in one location, broadcast to a billion people, and many of them will start to believe "there's all theses protests going on everywhere, so I might do it too". In some forms this is useful, but in others it is extremely dangerous and can allow for mass unrest based only upon what uncontrollable algorithms end up promoting due to what is the most viral content. Humans evolved in significantly smaller societies than they live in today, and it's very difficult to have proper intuition about how many people are doing various things after seeing hundreds of examples of them on the Internet. As a result I notice many people making estimates about the frequency of activities that are not only off by one order of magnitude, but sometimes more like three to six.

grawprog 6y ago
I live in a small community outside America. On Saturday I left the mall where I'd been subject to the 'new normal' covid distancing laws shit. Stepped out into the sunshine to see over 1000 people marching down the street in one huddled mass protesting because...riots in America. I watched a car's window get smashed because they wanted to drive through an intersection and had the audacity to ask if they could drive through. While we have issues with police and abuses of power here, it's not even a speck on the radar compared to America. There's real issues here worth protesting. There's a worrying lack of housing for people here in the last year since the psyche ward and homeless shelters shut down. Businesses have been closing down permanently for months, people are desperate for work, one of the largest clearcuts ever for the area has been proposed in the watershed where the town's drinking water comes from. It contains not only the oldest tree in Canada, so old that our tools can't penetrate deep enough to age it, but some of the largest intact old growth in the province, habitat for numerous endangered species and again, directly feeds nearly every river that supplies our water. Nobody cares, nobody even acknowledges the issues outside their door. But some riots in America are worth flaunting all the measures forced on people for months because they've been riled up to believe it matters more than everything we've been told to believe for months now because social media tells then they need to care.

artsyca 6y ago

Y'all are going to crucify me for this comment but I believe we also suffer this as a technology community. We assume certain unhelpful behaviours are the norm and perpetuate toxic defaults through the majority illusion and what amounts to impostor syndrome.

agustif 6y ago

And the sackers might inspire more international sackers too

pensivemood 6y ago

I am wondering what this mean to things like setting scientific consensus? I mean, Isn't the same think applicable to any case where perception of the majority by indvidual is skewed by network effects such as these? Also, isn't it within the realm of possibility that it is much easier for a bad actor to alter this perception of the global?

082349872349872 6y ago

Not new to technological social networks. Edward Bernays wrote a couple of books on exploiting pre-computer social networks in the early 20th century.

weitzj 6y ago

About 2 years ago there was an online game/simulator where one could add “information blocks” onto network nodes and see if they become true. It nicely demonstrated how things became a “fact”. Does anybody have the link to it?

NortySpock 6y ago
Nicky Case "The Wisdom or Madness of the Crowds" https://ncase.me/crowds/ https://ncase.me/crowds/
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- weitzj 6y ago
  Great! This was it!

themovieinwins 6y ago

I think majority illusion has existed even before the social networks. If you surround yourself with people who share the same view on most things, aka living in the bubble, you might end up getting caught in the majority illusion since everyone you know has the same views. One of the few cases where I have listened and changed my(far right) views was when a close friend of mine talked me through the nuances of various(left leaning) views from his side. I was willing to listen to him because we were close friend by that time already. If he had tried to discuss various issues before we became friends, there is a good chance that I would have discarded all his views as wrong. The only place where people of opposing views can end up becoming friends is college afaik. It is difficult to form close bond later in adult life.

scottywilliam 6y ago

IF YOU'RE INTERESTED TO JOIN ILLUMINATI BROTHERHOOD, SIMPLY EMAIL illuminatichurchofdevil6666@gmail.com This is my testimony of how I become rich and famous today, I want to thank grand master of Illuminati for, accepting me in to brotherhood I was deeply strangle up by poverty and I have nobody, to help me, I search for help in many different ways, I see many people around me getting rich, but I did not give up because I believe that I will join the Illuminati and I will become rich , having power and famous I was scam but I did not give up, if you want to be rich powerful and famous in life you can achieve your dreams by being a member of great Illuminati brother hood, Our brother hood does not make use of human for sacrifice because that is the mentality of non members,all you need is to obey the rules and regulations given to you, be a member and make your dreams come reality by been a member, you'll be giving $2, 000,000.00 free house in any where to choice in the word, a car of your choice, The society don't force or beg people to join them, I joined because no body force me and am very happy today to be a member today because my dreams come to reality and making me one of the leading business man in the world, if you're interested to be member of great Illuminati email Illuminatichurchofdevil6666@gmail.com for your initiation, you can text/call whatsapp +1 (859) 474 7408 for initiation, i want you all to know that is free, you will not pay any money to join the illuminati, it is free to join the illuminati and get rich and successful in life.