Thread by @cre8fire

As an addendum to this thread from yesterday, I want to expand on the idea of information isolation as it applies to social media. Do you think social media sites help break through propaganda and information isolation? Think again. Not only does it isolate, you choose to isolate

yourself, by choosing who you follow, like, interact with, etc. Social media is basically designed to show you what you want to see. If you don't like it - you will unfollow. Those who truly annoy you get blocked. Now consider that in relation to your political views. If you have

strongly held beliefs about politics, you will self-select people and sites to follow that match your preconceived notions of the world. Social media sites - all of them - will show you a feed of items where you will have selected all sources because you already agree with them.

Consider the effect on your views from seeing only information you agree with. Thus here we are - millions of us, with diverse views, but on systems that feed us only what we want to hear. Literally - it's their business model, secondary only to selling you what you want to buy.

What is the solution? I don't have it. How do you convince the comfortable to become uncomfortable, on purpose? Confirmation bias is seductive - people WANT to be right, and absent intrusive reality, they will assume that they are and that any "fact" saying otherwise is false.

This is why cult deprogramming is so hard. The truth is often boring, and conspiracy theories and political drama are interesting!

"Just having someone tell you you're right and don't listen to people - it just leads you down that path so fast. You want to be right so bad." npr.org/2021/03/02/972…

If you have a few minutes, listen to the previous interview. It shows a great example of how even baby steps to bring the truly isolated back are difficult. They just refuse to believe they are wrong, and isolation allows a LOT of wrong to build up, creating layers of protection

for the false beliefs. Every justification at every level is a firewall.
"debunked myths (such as Obama being born outside the USA or the spurious link between MMR and autism) are maintained in the mind, because it's cognitively simpler not to challenge existing understandings."

"even mentioning the debunked information while correcting it with the truth is enough to reinforce the original lie, which calls into question exactly how worthwhile newspaper corrections are."
wired.co.uk/article/changi…

I hate to leave this thread this way, without a hopeful solution, but so far I have none. I fear it is in the process of getting worse before it (hopefully) gets better. The more that see it - the more that resist being isolated - the better. That's what we've got.

@threadreaderapp unroll please