Crisis- Echo Chambers, Algorithms and Social Media Regulation

Written by Asish Sridhar

Edited by Advik

Illustrated by Shresha Kumar

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Social media has become a significant part of our lives, with our parents and grandparents on Facebook, and all of us on Instagram, at least based on my echo chamber. Whatsapp has also become the go-to messaging app in India which is fortunately available for everyone unlike the people sending green messages in the US (google it). 

Over the years, we have become more acutely aware about the dangers of social media, such as misinformation and the addictive nature of it. One phenomenon that is not brought up, is the subtle echo chambers present.  We have become a part of these echo chambers and accustomed to them, not realising how much they shape our worldview and opinions. I discuss a few well-known examples of how social media users should be careful about the sources of the content they consume in terms of echo chambers app algorithms and regulation by the companies who own the apps.

Echo-Chambers

An echo chamber is defined as an environment in which a person encounters only beliefs or opinions that coincide with their own. Technically speaking, we all are in our own multiple echo chambers, whether your home is an Apple ecosystem or your family follows a particular party.  When you are with people with similar beliefs or even belief systems your existing views(who knows whether it was yours in the first place) are reinforced, and alternative ideas are not considered as you are not directly exposed to them. Typically, this is associated with online internet groups such as political groups on Reddit, but there are a few more popular instances which caused significant coverage in the media.

A Recent popular echo chamber which took the world by storm was with the rise of the “Andrew Tate Stans”, with hundreds of Morpheuses uploading clips to help you self-aware Neos to get out of the Matrix. There was an endless stream of reuploads and edits of them last year. Soon enough, clips like the Tate brothers laughing, were edited in as a reaction to things which may match their “image”. Andrew Tate, who is known for playing an edgy and “brutally honest” satirical character has also become widely synonymous with the word “misogynist.’’ Several of his clips which show clear evidence of sarcasm are taken out of context, to suggest that these are his actual beliefs on women. But who actually has the time to cross-check and find the source material? So eventually your opinions slowly get twisted and your base shaped due to the “anchor effect”. 

Social Media Algorithms

If you like something, you give them more of it. If you want to recommend something the user likes, recommend a video that other people who have liked the user’s video also liked. It seems obvious on the surface; how a person can get the best videos and how YouTube can increase their watchtime.

However, there is a dark side to this, especially in terms of political stimulants and types of videos like self-help. For instance, we currently have a dire situation in Gaza in which the 3 parties involved in the conflict are Palestinian nationalists, Islamic militant groups and the Israeli government . Now imagine a person in Israel. They are likely to be influenced by the people around them to support Israel. A similar scenario plays out vis-a-vis support for Palestine.  These two groups are at the heart of the situation, and definitely have a lot of information to work with and think about before making a decision. However, for a third party like us, we depend on media outlets which are highly influential. Now the catch for these videos is that, quite often the news channels talk about issues that will get the most attention and most views, not always which event is more important or dire. Hence, the delivery of news and the controversial content talked about will naturally have a tendency to become warped and one-sided to “entertain” rather than to inform.

Social Media Regulation

There is another interesting aspect to this. During the US Senate hearing between social media companies like Facebook and Tiktok, there were a lot of issues raised about manipulative practices used by the company for profit. One such trend which TikTok was accused of; was that the content in China was more educational in nature and celebrated scientific achievements, whereas content in America was more unproductive, attention grabbing and more focused upon releasing dopamine. This was owing to  its addictive, personalised and predictive algorithm. To further showcase the difference; China has a kids version of TikTok with a time limit, but in the US, children are kept constantly scrolling and watching arguably useless content. It became almost like crack or junk food. Even though TikTok is banned in India, YouTube and Instagram have their own TikTok contemporaries in Youtube Shorts and Reels. So this type of short form content is being replicated and invested in.

Now with the recent developments in AI, we saw the actors strike in Hollywood. AI will soon be capable of effortlessly substituting voices and facial expressions and misinformation is bound to rise along with propaganda. 

So, after witnessing quite a few incidents in the recent few years, we can see that social media is no longer constricted to portable entertainment on the phone but has become a significantly influential platform which can shape our beliefs, thoughts and ideas without us even realising. And now, more than ever, with AI’s level of automation, virtual content will become almost indistinguishable from reality and fake news and misinformation will be very difficult to recognise. Hence, we may be entering into an exciting age but a dangerous one as well. 

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