3 ms·

I agree with you but don't all the actions you mention turn Twitter into an even larger, more strict echo chamber?

jjj123 5y ago
I’m not sure you can make that assumption. Part of what makes these social networks echo chambers are the unconscious ways we navigate them: how long we linger on a post, stay in the site, etc. I’m not sure whether conscious decisions like being judicious with the follow and block buttons would pull you into more of an echo chamber than the algorithm does, especially if you’re selecting for things other than “this captures my short-term attention span.”
- rhizome 5y ago
  I think that's a cop-out. There are no objective measures of these things, the meaning of "how long you linger" or where you move your mouse are completely made-up by the coders who wrote the algorithm. They don't have to be a signal of anything, but the companies just go ahead and decide it means something. Then Goodhart's Law finishes the job.
leviathant 5y ago
To continue the analogy, I might say that rather than creating a larger echo chamber, it's moving into a well-tuning studio space. An echo chamber is cacophonous, a well-tuned room improves clarity by reducing excessive concentration of individual frequencies. Arguably, the curative approach lets me hear higher quality content from folks who have different perspectives than me, compared to just leaving the floodgates open.
tomjen3 5y ago
I think that is the difference between an echo chamber, where everybody is amplifying the content, and a gateway chamber where who gets there is heavily limited[0] but the conversation is not. In the first the conversation is limited but participation is not[1] in the second participation is limited but the conversation is not. An echo chamber is bad, but I think a gatewayed chamber is not only not bad but required for effective communication, learning and development of new ideas. You can't enforce the Chatham House Rule unless you get to choose who gets in. [0]: This doesn't have to be by any external source, it can be just by whom you choose to follow on Twitter. [1]: Everybody gets to talk about the need to defund the police or #stopthesteal or whatever position the platform supports because more voices behind your position is more power.

I’m not sure you can make that assumption. Part of what makes these social networks echo chambers are the unconscious ways we navigate them: how long we linger on a post, stay in the site, etc. I’m not sure whether conscious decisions like being judicious with the follow and block buttons would pull you into more of an echo chamber than the algorithm does, especially if you’re selecting for things other than “this captures my short-term attention span.”

rhizome 5y ago
I think that's a cop-out. There are no objective measures of these things, the meaning of "how long you linger" or where you move your mouse are completely made-up by the coders who wrote the algorithm. They don't have to be a signal of anything, but the companies just go ahead and decide it means something. Then Goodhart's Law finishes the job.

leviathant 5y ago

To continue the analogy, I might say that rather than creating a larger echo chamber, it's moving into a well-tuning studio space. An echo chamber is cacophonous, a well-tuned room improves clarity by reducing excessive concentration of individual frequencies. Arguably, the curative approach lets me hear higher quality content from folks who have different perspectives than me, compared to just leaving the floodgates open.

tomjen3 5y ago

I think that is the difference between an echo chamber, where everybody is amplifying the content, and a gateway chamber where who gets there is heavily limited[0] but the conversation is not. In the first the conversation is limited but participation is not[1] in the second participation is limited but the conversation is not. An echo chamber is bad, but I think a gatewayed chamber is not only not bad but required for effective communication, learning and development of new ideas. You can't enforce the Chatham House Rule unless you get to choose who gets in. [0]: This doesn't have to be by any external source, it can be just by whom you choose to follow on Twitter. [1]: Everybody gets to talk about the need to defund the police or #stopthesteal or whatever position the platform supports because more voices behind your position is more power.