The social media echo chamber problem is strengthened by a simple algorithm mistake which Facebook and seemingly all of the social media platforms have baked into their cores. The Wall Street Journal recently shed light on part of the problem —Facebook chases “engagement,” by feeding folks more and more “sticky” extreme and enraging content, to keep them glued to the Facebook platform — and Facebook’s ads longer. Facebook categorically can’t fix this problem, because it’s at the core of their entire business model — which is likely why they chose to do nothing.
But there is a second side of the problem, and I’d argue a more important part— the “silo” problem. Facebook (and other social media) ranks every post on a political spectrum from left to right on a 5 step scale. They rank each user that way too. You can see how they rank you in your profile’s “Ad Preferences,” if you’re curious. They use these values to feed us posts that fall within those parameters. Before social media, polls showed folks were often had strong opinions on single issues. Often they held points of view that didn’t align completely with a party. One might be anti-abortion, yet also anti-gun for example (even if only one or the other motivated them to the polls — so-called single issue voters).
