About a year ago, we were having a conversation about the fake news of the day, as we tend to do, and we were talking about how the social media bubbles that everyone lives in seem to be getting tougher. One of us posed the questions, ‘what if the people who are so extreme in their views and their online bias left the mainstream platforms all together? What if the likes of Facebook and Twitter could be a place to come for balanced news, but the extremists had their own place to go?’
We had semi-joked, ‘what if those people who believe in every meme that attacks people who aren’t like them had their own platform? What if the that’s where all the crazy conspiracy theories lived and died and didn’t leave the bubble? A conversation with someone who believes in those crazy ideas would go something like…
‘You know that Bernie Sanders is funded by George Soros through dirty money from New Zealand. Why else do you think America is having a fake pandemic, but New Zealand isn’t?’ says the man with the crazed look in his eyes.
‘Oh, that’s a very interesting theory you have there,’ we say, slowly taking a few steps backwards. ‘And where did you come across such an idea?’
‘On Redhat, of course! It’s the only place where the TRUTH can live online!’
Well, this week we got out answer because this happened:
During the week of the American election, we had another conversation and we reassessed the idea of people with fringe ideas having their own social media platforms when we started hearing reports about what was happening in those platforms, and it was deeply disturbing.
We saw the likes of Ello, MeWe, Gab, Liker, and Parler pop up as alternatives to the social media giants. All of them positioned themselves as less corporate and allowing the user to have better control over their own data and content. Ello called itself the Ad-Free social media, Liker called itself the smarter and kinder social media, whereas MeWe, Parler and Gab described themselves as unbiased social platforms for free speech. And so of course, all of the far right Fake News spreaders who got themselves banned from Facebook and Twitter for sharing what they seemed to believe was the truth flocked to places like MeWe, Parler and Gab, where all the far left Fake News spreaders ended up going to Liker. Sadly, no one really went to Ello in the end.
If Facebook’s algorithm is set up to keep you in a bubble of the content it thinks that you will like, what happens when the platform you are on is literally a bubble? No outside ideas coming in to possibly show you the errors of your thinking, no moderation from the platform itself to filter out the misleading and dangerous content? A literal echo chamber of ideas, getting louder and louder, making the users angrier and angrier, without them even noticing what was going on, like the metaphor (and urban legend) of the frog in the pot of water that slowly heats up without the frog knowing.
We may have a lot to say about the big social media platforms and how they can be dangerous, but one of their saving graces is that they are big and contain a lot of different voices with differing opinions. The algorithm bubble may keep that uncle of yours posting fake meme after fake meme about Nancy Pelosi always being drunk, but at least your uncle has people who think and feel like the rest of his family who comment with corrections (which he ignores) to shed light on the dubious nature of the memes. In a platform like Parler, those ideas lack any mediating outside voice.
In the wake of Trump’s loss at the election, Parler saw their user numbers group. While we originally thought the people on Parler and Gab would get bored that they didn’t have any ‘snowflakes’ to pick on and would end up attacking each other very quickly, before that could happen, they decided instead to plan events with the intent of physically attacking the people who didn’t think like them. People from all over American, drummed up with a passion that bounced around their virtual walls, filled with ideas from Qanon and the media darlings of Fox News and One America New Network, angry Trump supporters who were absolutely convinced that they had actually won the election, despite all the evidence, decided to come together to descend on the Capitol Building.
Calling itself the Wild Protest, the events were planned out and discussed on Parler and Gab and even on a website (since take down) itself called Wild Protest. The people in the group discussions were opening talking about what kinds of weapons to bring along, and soon the Wild Protesters started frequently using words like Revolution.
If all your friends jump off a bridge, would you do it too? For these people, it seems that the answer is, ‘Yes.’ Together, they have all formed a cult that has grown more than a little dangerous. Since the events of Wednesday, the people who have been arrested have had with them weapons like homemade napalm, molotov cocktails, illegal firearms, and multiple pipe bombs.
This week, after the events had unfolder and while the dust was still settling, we discussed where things could possibly go next in the battle for media literacy following the rise of these dangerous echo chambers, and we have come to one conclusion:
Interventions.
If you have a loved one whose beliefs have become dangerous of violent, perhaps it’s time to stage an intervention, just as you would with a friend whose drug or alcohol use has gotten out of control. We need to find a way to bring these people back into the real world so they can integrate safely back into society before someone else gets hurt.
Failing that, we and they are going to have to deal with the consequences: There will likely be many more violent protests from ill-informed and manipulated people which can only result in their incarceration and prosecution.
As we have said many times previously, remember to talk to your friends and family. If they are starting to get angry and go down a dark path, you could just be the light and the insight they need to see what’s really going on. We know it’s exhausting, but don’t give up.
Don't Believe Everything That You Meme 