Echo Chambers and Algorithms

Envision a world filled with misinformed, violent, radical rioters who only accept aggression as responses. This describes the crowd which stormed the Capitol on January 6th, 2021. The January 6th attack is marked as one of the biggest events caused by radicalization on social media. Since its 3-year anniversary, radicalization has only seen a significant increase on social media.

Studies over content algorithms have proven that companies maximize profits by presenting users content that is accustomed and controversial which increments time-spent on platforms. Due to these flawed algorithms, many have filed lawsuits highlighting that platforms do not protect its users from any offensive content. These cases have led to the now-common verdict that companies are not liable under Section 230 of the Communication Decency Act (CDA).

Technology's Significance

Because of how algorithms on social media are developed, many who desire to find communities with similar beliefs are able to do so and keep up with this content. Users are able to scroll upon platforms for hours—liking, posting, sharing content as they please to stay in the loop filled with their interests. The issue proposed with this is users with strong offensive beliefs are able to spread offensive ideals without any consequences.

An echo chamber is an environment where users are prone to encountering information that reinforce their beliefs. On social media, echo chambers have caused a loss of diversity within the political world. Echo chambers have played a significance to political polarization because many users are exposed to content that leads to confirmation bias.

With over 4.89 billion users, 100 million Instagram stories are used, 510,000 comments are posted every minute on Facebook, 456,000 posts are posted every minute on X. These mind-blowing statistics provide insight as to how much occurs on social media.

The January 6th Connection

With such high numbers, users are prone to find communities and forums where they are able to access information and post content as they please. This content is not monitored and therefore can lead to extreme levels of radicalization.

Before the January 6th attack, users on TheDonald, Telegram, and Parler, had spread the message of Donald Trump, who posted a tweet to rally in Washington, but added a twist to it. They insisted on a violent attack against the Capitol.

The Polarization of Political Parties

Political polarization is defined as the shift of political attitudes to the ideological extremes. Social media companies are not responsible for any political polarization, yet they exacerbate it. The algorithms created by Big Tech companies are designed to maximize profit.

The use of these algorithms are meant to allow users to share content similar to each other so that they stay on platforms for as long as they can. With this, many users are able to share lots of their beliefs on platforms such as Facebook, who exacerbate polarization through parties forming ideological differences.

The Consequences

Proliferation of polarization is seen to be linked with social media as groups are able to spread ideals and create echo chambers on a basis of confirmation biases amongst users. In more recent years, many have seen groups such as Republicans, fall victim to echo chambers causing massive ideological extremes.

As political parties are pushed away from aligning agendas and following their partisanship, this has damaged policy making in the status quo. Many politicians start to disagree with one another due to misinformation spreading like wildfires. With the status quo being disrupted, this interrupts the flow of the country itself. The country will start to fall behind and not be able to compete because of a bipartisan political system turning into two political extremes with no cooperation.