LIVING IN BUBBLES

‘Abraham Lincoln is well-known for having surrounded himself with people who disagreed with him. He did so to ensure that ‘yes men’ wouldn’t allow him to run rampant, as he saw the value in having others provide diversity of opinion.’

-Josh Misner

Professor

North Idaho College

Almost everyone knows Facebook.

And likewise, if you’ve ever posted a word on the world’s most massive social media platform, you’ve heard of the “fake news” accusations leveled at Facebook.

Press columnist Sholeh Patrick addressed the subject just last week, trying to help readers determine what’s real and what’s nonsense on Facebook and other websites.

The quick background story is that, in the search for more advertising revenue in the run-up to the presidential election, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg allowed either misleading or totally false stories to appear on the everyday news feeds sent to Facebook’s 1.1 billion users.

Given that research has shown 44 percent of Americans claim to get their “news” from Facebook, it was an astonishing revelation — and there have been claims that Facebook essentially won the exceptionally close election for Donald Trump.

That’s a matter sure to be debated by historians and political scientists, but a couple of local academics are equally nervous about another side of Facebook’s policy — the fact that the media platform tailors its news feeds to the likes and preferences of each individual, meaning that people with different social or political views will see entirely separate “news” streams.

“One thing we always have to maintain is a dialogue between opposite views,” said Tony Stewart, longtime instructor at North Idaho College and founder of the Coeur d’Alene Human Rights Coalition. “This is a cliché, I know, but we should be able to agree to disagree, and do it agreeably.

“That’s one of the foundations of democracy.”

Stewart doesn’t bother with internet rumors. He sticks to mainstream media for his news, but a lot of Americans are taking a quicker and easier way to see what’s happening in the world.

Unfortunately, they may be getting a biased version of people and events. And it’s happening deliberately.

“When Facebook first began ... it was nothing more than an unfiltered feed of pictures and statuses scrolling by,” said Josh Misner, professor of communications at NIC and Gonzaga University (also a former pupil of Stewart’s).

“But then Zuckerberg had a brilliant idea. If he could create an algorithm that learned from users’ clicks and preferences, eventually peering into the deepest recesses of our internet caches, he could keep people scrolling longer. And that translated into higher potential revenue from advertisers.

“Enter the era of algorithm and exit the era of choice. Zuckerberg has been quoted as saying that, soon, Facebook will know you better than you know yourself — and I, for one, believe him.”

Stewart and Misner, even coming from different generations, see the danger in hearing or reading things that only seem to reinforce your own feelings and beliefs.

“Other social sites have followed (Facebook),” Misner said, “developing algorithms that only show users what it ‘thinks’ they want to see, based off what we click on.

“It’s not hard to see how quickly one can wind up in an echo chamber, where suddenly you look around to see that you are surrounded by ‘yes folks.’”

The fairly obvious result is that Facebook and other social media platforms have created alternate realities for different sets of users, and it has shown up in an extremely divided — and often rancorous — American public.

“Do I blame social media for having divided us?” Misner said. “No, that’s way too easy. The fault lies in ourselves. How often do any of us actively seek out information that challenges our assumptions?”

Fighting against that tendency takes some effort, but Misner vividly recalls an NIC class taught by Stewart.

“Oh, that was really, really interesting,” Stewart said. “We would sometimes have discussions or debates, and we’d have students argue on behalf of a position that they didn’t really believe.

“But having to research that opposing point of view, and see where the argument came from, they learned that there really are some values in both sides of an issue.”

One place Stewart and Misner differ is in their view of the future, and whether or not these alternate realities in the country will ever again find a way to reconcile.

Misner worries that Americans are hooked on their technology and are becoming slaves to whatever social media feeds them.

“Until we, as a collective society, have something of critical importance motivating us to challenge our viewpoints out of personal necessity,” Misner said, “then I think the divisions resulting from these echo chambers are only going to worsen.”

“Perhaps that’s nihilistic of me, but we simply don’t seek out discomfort like Lincoln did. His was an act of supreme character, which requires a certain level of comfort with uncertainty that most of us don’t seem to possess.

“Until we start opening up our bubbles to receive more influence, those bubbles are going to turn into concrete barriers.”

Stewart, meanwhile, continues to believe that people can meet somewhere near the middle – but probably not with their computers and smartphones.

“I’m an eternal optimist,” he admitted. “The great majority in this country are not fringe people. If dialogues can begin, everyone will begin to see one another’s points of view.

“The best way is at the neighborhood or community level – because when you actually know somebody personally, you’ll listen to them. And they’ll listen to you.

“That’s where it has to start. Not on the internet.”