{"id":221,"date":"2017-11-13T15:20:06","date_gmt":"2017-11-13T15:20:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forbes.co.il\/e\/?p=221"},"modified":"2021-06-29T13:26:53","modified_gmt":"2021-06-29T13:26:53","slug":"the-anti-social-network-how-facebook-encourages-radicalization-and-social-polarization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forbes.co.il\/e\/the-anti-social-network-how-facebook-encourages-radicalization-and-social-polarization\/","title":{"rendered":"Facebook Encourages Radicalization and Polarization"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Mark Zuckerberg. Not a media company – so no need for ethics?\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Photo by Max Morse for Techrunch<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Ever since the Internet entered our lives, it has fulfilled the vision of the global village. When Facebook, the largest social media network in the world, was established in 2006, it looked as if this vision was taking itself one step further: not only did it give people the possibility to connect to information from all over the world, it also brought with it the opportunity to communicate with different people from around the globe. For many, Facebook was seen as a promoter of pluralism, as someone that puts the spotlight on an array of diverse ideas, even those less popular. But much has changed since then, and a decade later, Facebook and pluralism are somewhat of an oxymoron.<\/p>\n

In June 2016, three American researchers confirmed what we already knew about social media, or at least what we suspected. In their article, quantitative evidence was found proving that social network users tend to promote their own beliefs and narratives, and create polarized groups that resist information incompatible with their own worldviews. The study found that users belonging to different communities tended not to interact with one another and instead remained connected only to friends with a similar view as their own.<\/p>\n

In this way, closed communities centered on different narratives formed what the researchers called an \u201cecho chamber\u201d \u2013 and in these communities, users held similar views. There was no discussion or dialogue between members of the different communities.<\/p>\n

Enjoy Your Peaceful Echo-Chamber<\/h3>\n

According to the study, Internet users tended to search for information that strengthened their own personal views and rejected opposing information. When false information is deliberately inserted into these \u201cecho chambers,\u201d it is absorbed and appears reliable as long as it fits with the initial narrative. If you translate this into everyday Internet surfing on Facebook, it basically means that we hide and even remove from our friends list anyone that has different views than we do. On paper we seem enlightened and liberal \u2013 some of our Facebook friends are on the opposite side of the political map, we have friends from all over the world and are open to hearing a variety of opinions \u2013 but only so long as their opinions are similar to ours.<\/p>\n

During difficult times, the issue was particularly striking \u2013 Operation Tzuk Eitan, for example, proved that another war was taking place in the social networking arena. A study by Dr. Nicholas John, a lecturer in the Department of Communication and Journalism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, examined the characteristics of Facebook\u2019s use of about 1,000 Jewish users during the war and found that one in six people removed a follow or \u201cunfriended\u201d a Facebook friend. 60% did so following the publication of content they did not agree with, and 52% did so because they encountered posts they defined as \u201coffensive.\u201d It was also found that those who held more extreme political views \u2013 left and right \u2013 tended to block or delete more friends than those with more neutral political views.<\/p>\n

\u201cFacebook gives us the ability mainly to forget that there are people who think differently than we do, and when already know that there are those who think differently from us \u2013 it does not really change our opinion,\u201d explains Dr. John. \u201cPeople marry other people that are similar to them, connect with people similar to them. This is expressed also on Facebook. While it is possible to understand how other cultures are run and how other people think through the Internet and Facebook, the user decides on his own if others are acting and thinking in a way he deems right. I can be exposed to someone else, but that doesn\u2019t mean I\u2019ll accept him more openly.\u201d In other words, theoretically, we can share posts with a user from Afghanistan, but in practice, we don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe belief that technology has the potential to bring people closer together is an illusion,\u201d John continues. \u201cThat\u2019s what they said about the telegraph in the 19th<\/sup> century, that people could better understand one another, and then wars would no longer exist. They said it about the television, too \u2013 that children would be exposed to diverse characters and will in turn become more patient. In practice, it just doesn\u2019t work that way. If we do expose ourselves to opinions differing from our own, we\u2019re doing so only to strengthen them. That\u2019s exactly the reason why a left-wing Internet user goes into right-wing rapper, \u2018The Shadow\u2019 Facebook page \u2013 to strengthen his own opinions, and that\u2019s also why a right-wing person will surf the \u201cHaaretz\u201d website.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"The<\/a>
The “echo chamber”\u00a0inflates certain phenomenon far beyond their true size<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Enjoy Your Stay<\/h3>\n

The private tendencies to seek opinions that will strengthen our own and will also give us social credentials, we must also add the Facebook algorithm: a computer brain that filters the information coming to us. The result: a handful of people responsible for this algorithm, determining what information reaches us and what information does not.<\/p>\n

The idea behind this is, of course, economic: Facebook\u2019s goal as a commercial company, after all, is to make money. Its economic model is based on the fact that people enter the social network on a regular basis and expose themselves to advertisers who pay Facebook. In that case, Facebook is interested in us using its website as often as possible for as long as possible. How do they do that? By creating a more comfortable and pleasant space than life in the physical world, where, whether we like it or not, we must be aware of the presence of the other, even if we dislike him.<\/p>\n

On Facebook, unlike in the real world, the other person simply disappears. We do not have to know that he and his different opinions exist. And if they exist, we will not at all be exposed to its complex concepts, but only to a stereotypical curiousness perceived by us and by the virtual group we belong to.<\/p>\n

Facebook\u2019s algorithm identifies which content we like, among other things, according to the amount of likes, comments, and shares we engage in, and expose us to similar content. In other words, Facebook exposes us to more and more of the same thing. Of course, Facebook wants us to be stay online for as long as possible and to become involved as much as possible so that they can earn as much as possible. Presenting information contrary to our own perception will not serve this purpose.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not happening only on Facebook, it\u2019s also happening on Google for that matter \u2013 we get a personalized flow, and there\u2019s a complex algorithm behind it,\u201d explains John. \u201cWe don\u2019t know exactly how it works, but we remember that Facebook\u2019s loyalty belongs to the shareholders, and that\u2019s a business in every sense. And a business, it must earn money by selling advertising space and by promising these advertisers that as many eyes as possible will be exposed to their ads. And in order for us to stay as long as possible on Facebook, it shows us only what we want to see. Which may be cats on a skateboard, but also news content that we like to consume.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why Facebook insists not to define itself as a media company \u2013 because if it does, it must have ethics. Facebook also knows what we read outside of the Facebook website and knows what our political opinions are and what things we want to read. That\u2019s how it knows what to provide us with in the most unprecedented personal form.\u201d<\/p>\n

[forbes-ad-680×90]<\/p>\n

The Element of Surprise<\/h3>\n

A similar situation occurs in traditional media as editors and new anchors not only present reality as it is, but are also able to construct and create it. But if we once believed that unlike the press, television, and radio the Internet is an open democratic space that allows us all unlimited access to unlimited information, the automatic algorithms are those that decide for us what we see and perhaps even worse \u2013 what we don\u2019t see. All of this encourages the \u201cspiral of silence\u201d, a theory explaining that because people want to be like the majority, they won\u2019t make their voices heard if they feel their opinion is different from popular public discourse.<\/p>\n

As early as 2014, the PEW Research Center conducted a survey on American\u2019s reactions and comments on the Internet regarding NSA (The United States National Security Agency) and the agency\u2019s broad espionage affair with civilians following the exposure of former employee, Edward Snowden. About 86% of the respondents said they were willing to discuss the matter with family, friends, or public meetings, but only 43% expressed willingness to discuss it on Facebook. \u201cThe meaning of this type of self-censorship may be that important information is not being transmitted,\u201d the research center said. \u201cMany hoped that the social networks would create new paths that would encourage a broader discourse and broader spectrum of opinions, but we see the opposite \u2013 a spiral of silence that exists on the Internet as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a result, we tend to imagine a certain reality created by Facebook\u2019s newsfeed, which is personalized, even if reality is completely different. Through the newsfeed, most of us consume the news that comes to us, but the newsfeed is more like a newspaper of close friends and much less of a reliable news source. The content that appears there is often posts and articles we enjoy reading that match our own opinions \u2013 and this is also the reason why it seems to us that an article shared by a few of our Facebook friends is actually a national consensus.<\/p>\n

This resonance inflates a certain phenomena far beyond its true size: a few years ago, for example, the videos of the \u201cNew Land\u201d movement received hundreds of thousands of Facebook views, but in practice, in the 2013 elections, the movement did not exceed the necessary threshold. A similar situation occurred in the last elections in Israel: users on the left-wing side of the political map saw their Facebook newsfeeds and understood that the \u201cMachane Hazioni\u201d party is closer than ever to winning the elections. So much so, that when the right-wing party won, it stunned Internet surfers with left-wing views. \u201cI don\u2019t think that today, people are surrounded with more people similar to themselves today than they used to be,\u201d Dr. John said. \u201cBut because it\u2019s on the Internet, we assume this to be true.\u201d<\/p>\n

If even those with key roles in the media and Facebook personalities have quite similar views, it creates the illusion of a very homogeneous environment, which obscures other people\u2019s voices. This can also happen on the right side of the political map, but these people are less represented in traditional media.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Fake News for the Masses<\/h3>\n

Dr. David Levin, a lecturer at the School of Communications at the College of Management of the Open University, agrees. We accept a press whose basis is very “Tel Avivish,” that is more or less in the opposition, and when that\u2019s reflected on Facebook, we\u2019re sure it\u2019s reality, it\u2019s the truth,\u201d he says. \u201cBut we do not see and can not see many things, for example the zeal and motivation of right-wingers to go vote on election day.\u201d A similar situation occurred in the last presidential elections in the United States, but that was where false news came into the picture: among the many reports and publications regarding the candidates in the race for the White House, which spread quickly on social media networks, there were also quite a few false news items.<\/p>\n

The day following President Donald Trump\u2019s election, the anger at the fictional reports was clearly directed at those who gave them a platform \u2013 Google and Facebook \u2013 claiming that they influenced the election results. It was Facebook, more than Google, which attracted the fire and was accused by some of the political commentators in the United States of nominating votes for Trump as a result of false publication. For example, it was reported that the pope expressed support for Trump, and that the FBI agent who investigated the Hillary Clinton affair, murdered his wife and committed suicide. It was also reported that Barack Obama and Clinton intend to act leniently toward illegal immigrants who vote for Democrats.<\/p>\n

Although the responsible news bodies strongly denied the reports, commentators claimed that these stories had already shaped public opinion before the elections \u2013 especially in light of the fact that 44% of adults in the United States are exposed to the media via Facebook, and many consume news from a small number of sources, all with an agenda they agree with. Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, did not ignore this criticism.<\/p>\n

Although he claimed that more than 99% of the information people see on the social network is true, and rejected the idea that false information influenced voters, he still announced this January that the popular news topics that Facebook has been introducing to its users will stop being personally matched to fit users.<\/p>\n

\u201cFacebook takes this issue very seriously, at least on the informational level. Zuckerberg published a manifesto in which he spoke of how important it is for Internet surfers to be exposed to diverse opinions, even those they may not agree with. He believes that Facebook should act on this. The question is, what will they actually do about it,\u201d says Dr. John.<\/p>\n

Why Were We Surprised When Trump Was Elected?<\/h3>\n

According to Dr. Levin, personalized news has existed in the form of one version or another since the early days of the Internet. \u201cYou know in advance that you aren\u2019t buying the whole cow, but only a glass of milk,\u201d he says. \u201cUnlike a print newspaper, you have the possibility of selectivity within digital newspapers. What\u2019s more, Facebook initiates active action \u2013 inserting into our Newsfeed only articles that seem interesting to us. There\u2019s this interference of an external agenda in what we see, and this is an intensification of what is happening on the regular sites.\u201d<\/p>\n

He explains that today, people are much more aware of bias in the traditional media and are also much more suspicious of the media. \u201cPeople read today with much more criticism, but Facebook is different \u2013 it\u2019s difficult for us to identify \u2018fake news\u2019 because through Facebook we read content that looks exactly the same as what we\u2019re used to. And if they are identical in content to what we consume, it\u2019s all good.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition, Dr. Levin explains, \u201cWhen you read a newspaper, there is preoccupation around it. It becomes an activity often accompanied by a sort of ceremony.\u00a0 We devote time to this and even sometimes read an article contrary to our own beliefs. On the other hand, surfing on Facebook is almost like flipping through channels on TV \u2013 we don\u2019t devote much time to what we\u2019re reading, and we do this all day, flipping through Facebook using our mobile phone as the remote. It\u2019s much easier, then, to block opinions we don\u2019t agree with and hide behind our own keyboards.\u201d<\/p>\n

The result: the creation of a number of small virtual communities in which its members share similar opinions and identical world-views. Dr. Levin calls them \u201cSmall Spaces.\u201d This refers to short talk spurts that have no place in traditional media,\u201d he explains. \u201cAnyone who takes part in these small spaces and receives only what he received from his friends on Facebook is certain that this is reality, and then he becomes confused. The newspapers in traditional media present a certain situation which is appropriate for people who think the same way they do, but they are not away of the \u2018small spaces\u2019 in which the media is deciphered in an opposing manner.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe question is: who was surprised? Trump\u2019s supporters are ‘Archie Bunkers’ \u2013 the American middle class, the manual workers who feel that the government treats everyone well except them. They are hardly represented in traditional media, and when they are, it is often done so in a negative way. Research shows that they probably have their own digital places where they accumulate power and legitimacy and are also assisted by Facebook. This doesn\u2019t happen because of Facebook, but Facebook does give them a platform and new content that encourages their own perception and creates a discourse that we, in the traditional media, are not exposed to.<\/p>\n

Emotional Prism<\/h3>\n

But the greatest danger of this conceptual closure is not necessarily the surprise that may occur on the day of counting votes after elections. The real danger of the \u201cecho chambers\u201d effect is anti-democratic: deep social polarization and gaps that will grow among different populations. When we, with or without help from the Facebook algorithm, choose to filter out the messages we receive from our Facebook friends, we encourage situations of social radicalization \u2013 extreme rightists, extreme leftists, extreme vegans, extreme pacifists, and all the rest \u2013 all the result of a divided social network that provides everything with the most comfortable and suitable living and thinking environment, to the point of disgust and fear of the other. Extremists have always existed, but when we reinforce our positions among a large group of people,\u00a0 we are strengthening these positions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sociological implications of small and closed Facebook groups are definitely extremism and polarization,\u201d says Dr. Omri Herzog, Head of the Culture, Creation, and Production Department at Sapir College. \u201cIf there is a collective agreement on a certain opinion, it will always be extreme. If I\u2019m a fan of a soccer team and am at the game with all of the other fans, I will intensify my admiration. In this way, not only am I not exposed to other positions, I also do not perceive that any other positions are legitimate. That\u2019s why we see so much verbal violence on Facebook”.<\/p>\n

“Many talk about Facebook in the context of multiculturalism, ostensibly the most democratic open arena there is. But in reality, Facebook encourages polarization \u2013 with the option of hiding, deleting, and blocking other members, and of course its filtering algorithm. In fact, there is no exchange of different ideas, which is Facebook\u2019s potential, and we react to one another with hostility and a sense of threat when we are exposed to another person\u2019s opinion. Many times, when someone seeks multiculturalism, this happens instead \u2013 different communities that dislike one another. A culture of hatred and threat develops.\u201d<\/p>\n

What is a Friend<\/h3>\n

Hertzog claims that while it is impossible to create a link between the two, the development of close-minded thoughts on Facebook makes us witnesses of different signs in our culture, of violent behavior towards opinions different than ours. We encounter this in demonstrations, for example, which have become more and more violent in political discussions and even in the Knesset. \u201cThe discourse has become more heated and does not really exist between people from different areas,\u201d he says. \u201cWhen I meet face-to-face with someone different from me, I can\u2019t act violently towards them. I can\u2019t ‘unfriend’ him and make them disappear \u2013 and in the army or at school we meet people different from us. Facebook has changed the rules of the game. We\u2019ve been in front of our computer and mobile phones for so long that Facebook has become a very central emotional prism in our day-to-day lives. Facebook changed the definition of the world friend, and also the way we react to opinions different from ours.<\/p>\n

The radicalization, Herzog stresses, is not necessarily the result of opinions, but of the show of opinions: \u201cI have to put on a show in order to get more likes, and the standard always gets higher and higher. So there\u2019s much less patience and tolerance towards opinions different from ours, but regarding the question of how the online world affects us in the real world there are still no answers. Although the subject has been investigation, there are different and contradictory findings.<\/p>\n

If, for example, I watch violent content, will I be violent in real life? Some will say that there is a very clear buffer between the two, because the online world is actually who we are, and we can do whatever we want online and expose our true passions, but we wouldn\u2019t actually go out into the real world and act on this. And there are others that would say that of course this is a direct relation between the two worlds. Does Facebook actually bring human nature to light, where in real life this human nature is censored and has limits, or is Facebook creating its own dynamic, arousing in people feelings of jealousy, hatred, and fear because it promises no consequences? It\u2019s difficult to know what came first.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is not what Mark Zuckerberg intended: Instead of connecting people around the world, Facebook has become a source for polarization and angst, where people come to hear ideas similar to their own and always left frustrated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":226,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[20,16,17,19,18],"class_list":["post-221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-echo-chamber","tag-facebook","tag-mark-zuckerberg","tag-media","tag-trump"],"yoast_head":"\nFacebook Encourages Radicalization and Polarization - Forbes Israel<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This is not what Mark Zuckerberg intended: Instead of connecting people around the world, Facebook has become a source for polarization and angst, where people come to hear ideas similar to their own and always left frustrated\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/forbes.co.il\/e\/the-anti-social-network-how-facebook-encourages-radicalization-and-social-polarization\/\" \/>\n<link rel=\"next\" href=\"https:\/\/forbes.co.il\/e\/the-anti-social-network-how-facebook-encourages-radicalization-and-social-polarization\/2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Facebook Encourages Radicalization and Polarization - 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