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by Bluecobra 713 days ago
I get what you are saying but what is the end result when someone is so shielded from the outside when they decide to block everything that irks them and stuck in an echo chamber?

What if the user is a conservative voter and considers anything counterpoint to their world view the worst part of the internet and removes all instances of it from their daily lives? Not to say that isn’t already happening but they are consciously making the choice, not some AI bot. I can see something like this making the country even more polarized.

1 comments

Same as it ever was.

Growing up as a southern evangelical before the internet, I can promise you that there has never been a modern world without filter bubbles.

The concept of "fake news" is not new, either. There has been general distrust of opposing ideas and institutions for as long as I've been alive.

And there's an entire publishing and media ecosystem for every single ideology you can imagine: 700 Club, Abeka, etc. Again, this all predates the internet. It's not going anywhere.

The danger isn't strictly censorship or filter bubbles. It's not having a choice or control over your own destiny. These decisions need to be first class and conscious.

Also, a sure fire way to rile up the "other team" is to say you're going to soften, limit, or block their world view. The brain has so many defenses against this. It's not the way to change minds.

If you want to win people over, you have to do the hard, almost individual work, of respecting them and sharing how you feel. That's a hard, uphill battle because you're attempting to create a new slope in a steep gradient to get them to see your perspective. Angering, making fun, or disrespecting is just flying headfirst into that mountain. It might make you feel good, but it undoes any progress anyone else has made.