Part 3 🧵: Social media mutes moderates because they are often people with stronger off-line identities than extremists and spend less time on it. While extremists can only gain status and belonging on-line, moderates have much status and belonging to lose:
(1) Moderates fear saying something that will anger co-workers or family or friends. (2) They get the impression from social media that the middle is vanishing and so it is useless to speak--but statistically political moderates are not shrinking.
(3) They are often attacked with enormous vitriol as moderates. Their arguments are not answered—rather people attack them either with ‘bad faith’ readings—construing the statement in the worst way possible—or attacking their social location or identity
(i.e. “you are really just a liberal” or “as a man you have no right to…”) Bottom line: This mutes moderates and destroys social media as a place to exchange ideas. It becomes a place of identity creation, not idea exchange.
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