<
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20211017/18143347766/new-research-shows-social-media-doesnt-turn-people-into-assholes-they-already-were-everyones-wrong-about-echo-chambers.shtml>
"We recently wrote about Joe Bernstein's excellent
Harper's cover story,
which argues that we're all looking at disinformation/misinformation the wrong
way, and that the evidence of disinformation on social media really influencing
people is greatly lacking. Instead, as Bernstein notes, this idea is one that
many others are heavily invested in spreading, including Facebook (if the
disinfo story is true, then you should buy ads on Facebook to influence people
in other ways), the traditional media (social media is a competitor), and
certain institutions with a history of having authority over "truth" (can't let
the riffraff make up their own minds on things).
We've also seen other evidence pop up questioning the supposed malicious impact
of social media. Yochai Benkler's work has shown that
Fox News has way more
of an impact on spreading false information than social media does.
And even with all this evidence regarding disinformation, there are also people
who focus on attitude, and insist that social media is responsible for
otherwise good people turning awful. Yet, as was covered in an fascinating
On
the Media interview with Professor Michael Bang Petersen, there really isn't
much evidence to support that either! As Petersen explained in a useful Twitter
thread, his research has shown that there's no real evidence to support the
idea that social media turns people hostile. Instead, it shows that people who
are assholes offline are also assholes online."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
