Stop Online Echo Chambers!
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TLDR: Social media is trapping us in our own bubbles , making us increasingly narrow-minded. We are developing a platform to stop online echo chambers by diversifying and rationalizing online discussion.
If you believe that using the internet should make us more open minded or just want to help stop online echo chambers, donate to this campaign, share this link, and visit the7th.us to register for our prelaunch! We receive anything that you give, whether we reach our goal or not. Also, check out our cool t-shirts here!
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In the past several months, we have been appalled by the one-sided nature of what we have been seeing online.
Ad nauseum, we've been hearing the same take over and over again. You can call it the result of filter bubbles, walled gardens, echo chambers, or outright censorship .
Whatever it is, it's gotten absurd, and it both obscures and distorts what people actually think.
The 2016 U.S. presidential election is a great example:
For example, 53% of white women supported Trump, and 30% of latinos .
Furthermore, many counties that went for Obama in 2012, went for Trump in 2016 .
What caused the shift in those counties? Why didn't we hear these voices until well after the election if at all? Why was it virtually impossible to access and engage with rational opinions from across the spectrum on the issues?
Why is it so difficult to tell where people really stand in an era where we have unprecedented internet access?
Perhaps you might think that some of these voices, however seemingly rational, shouldn't be heard, like these pro-life feminists kicked out of the women's march. Or this man who felt that Beyonce had one of the greatest music videos of all time. However, if the election taught us anything, it's that you don't convince anyone by drowning them out. Except for yourself.
The world is fascinating because there are a myriad of perspectives and observations- which is why it is a shame the internet has become so totalitarian. It actually makes the internet more boring. Even worse, despite the Internet's potential to introduce us to different ideas and broaden horizons, social media actually is causing us to be more narrow-minded than ever.
It is also tearing us apart.
We are working on a dynamic new project that aims to mitigate the current echo chamber-like, restrictive nature of social media. We are inventing a platform that allows for easy discovery and sharing of multiple, divergent viewpoints on a given subject. It will be an interactive way to share and explore opinions around current events, headlines, and other user-generated topics of interest.
Our platform rests on two main principles:
1. Diversification- when a trending conversation occurs, we track and display the multiple, main viewpoints as the discussion develops. We display the percentage of support for each view.
Tracking and displaying multiple viewpoints will mitigate such absurd trends like "Tom Brady is the GOAT."
It will also allow women to be heard like those in the women's march who support equal rights and equal pay, but are pro-life. Allowing multiple voices to be clearly heard in a conversation is advantageous because it is less easy to stereotype a group of people (i.e. feminists, conservatives, liberals) when they are not represented as a monolith.
2. Rationalization- when topics trend, posts and links showing facts and providing context will be made easily accessible to all viewing the headline.
A prime example where this would be useful is in the much debated travel ban. A poorly publicized fact is that the executive order is an extension of an Obama era bi-partisan legislation , and therefore, does not mention any country explicitly except for Syria.
Making highly relevant facts such as these rise to the top in important debates will make it easier to classify headlines such as this and this as misleading.
Thus, our rationalization functionality will lead to more direct and productive conversations around important issues by appropriately contextualizing the matters.
Currently, NO social media platform exists right now that does what we are trying to do. As this guardian article notes "far from breaking down global barriers and exposing us to challenging new opinions, these [social media] platforms simply make it easier to find like-minded people in whatever corner of the world they were hiding before."
1. Twitter is a massive echo chamber. Sadly, they also have resorted to practicing naked censorship as Dilbert comics author Scott Adams notes.
2. Facebook manipulates trends, and by design, viewpoints are primarily limited to those in your immediate friend circle.
3. Unlike our platform, which is organized around headlines and current events, Reddit is chaotically organized around communities and general topics. Plus, the CEO himself has been caught red handed editing user comments.
We can't give everything away about our product before launch, but in light of the horrible, disturbing censorship noted above, here are some of the principles that we will stick to, no matter the iteration of our product.
Directory only: We don't tell you where to go or what to think. We just give you the map of the landscape.
Contextualization: Facts float to the top. Thus, it is easy for users to frame a situation.
Retraction: Viral posts merit viral corrections. When a user wants to make a significant amendment to a post, the reversal will be attached to the original posting and everyone will be notified.
Democratization: Opinions will not be more heavily weighted simply because of how many followers a user has. This eliminates the self-reinforcing cycle of only a few dominating the online conversation.
User Direction: No manipulaition of trends or facts. User activity alone decides what trends and for how long something trends.
Free: No fees of any kind.
We take this issue of reducing online echo chambers to make the internet more open minded very seriously.
By making it easier to access varied content and points of view, we hope to provide a valuable and interesting service that will help broaden the Internet's horizons.
Hopefully, this will lead to a greater respect for our differences and to more productive discourse when we disagree.
However we cannot do it alone- we need your help!
Your contributions will help defray our overhead, talent acquisition, development, and legal costs. We greatly appreciate any support! Your help is critical to this project's success. For context, it took $85,000 to run Facebook in its first summer (item #16 in the link).
All donors will be invited to be amongst our first users in an exclusive pre-launch. Donors will have the opportunity to participate and shape the experience of our main launch.
Visit our website at the7th.us and sign up for prelaunch!
Check out our cool t-shirts - donations of $37 or more get one shipped to you, free! Or you can just purchase directly here.
Help us spread the word, and share this campaign!
We appreciate contributions of any amount. Nothing is too small or too large. Thank you again!
If you believe that using the internet should make us more open minded or just want to help stop online echo chambers, donate to this campaign, share this link, and visit the7th.us to register for our prelaunch! We receive anything that you give, whether we reach our goal or not. Also, check out our cool t-shirts here!
---------------------------------------------------------------------
In the past several months, we have been appalled by the one-sided nature of what we have been seeing online.
Ad nauseum, we've been hearing the same take over and over again. You can call it the result of filter bubbles, walled gardens, echo chambers, or outright censorship .
Whatever it is, it's gotten absurd, and it both obscures and distorts what people actually think.
The 2016 U.S. presidential election is a great example:
For example, 53% of white women supported Trump, and 30% of latinos .
Furthermore, many counties that went for Obama in 2012, went for Trump in 2016 .
What caused the shift in those counties? Why didn't we hear these voices until well after the election if at all? Why was it virtually impossible to access and engage with rational opinions from across the spectrum on the issues?
Why is it so difficult to tell where people really stand in an era where we have unprecedented internet access?
Perhaps you might think that some of these voices, however seemingly rational, shouldn't be heard, like these pro-life feminists kicked out of the women's march. Or this man who felt that Beyonce had one of the greatest music videos of all time. However, if the election taught us anything, it's that you don't convince anyone by drowning them out. Except for yourself.
The world is fascinating because there are a myriad of perspectives and observations- which is why it is a shame the internet has become so totalitarian. It actually makes the internet more boring. Even worse, despite the Internet's potential to introduce us to different ideas and broaden horizons, social media actually is causing us to be more narrow-minded than ever.
It is also tearing us apart.
We are working on a dynamic new project that aims to mitigate the current echo chamber-like, restrictive nature of social media. We are inventing a platform that allows for easy discovery and sharing of multiple, divergent viewpoints on a given subject. It will be an interactive way to share and explore opinions around current events, headlines, and other user-generated topics of interest.
Our platform rests on two main principles:
1. Diversification- when a trending conversation occurs, we track and display the multiple, main viewpoints as the discussion develops. We display the percentage of support for each view.
Tracking and displaying multiple viewpoints will mitigate such absurd trends like "Tom Brady is the GOAT."
It will also allow women to be heard like those in the women's march who support equal rights and equal pay, but are pro-life. Allowing multiple voices to be clearly heard in a conversation is advantageous because it is less easy to stereotype a group of people (i.e. feminists, conservatives, liberals) when they are not represented as a monolith.
2. Rationalization- when topics trend, posts and links showing facts and providing context will be made easily accessible to all viewing the headline.
A prime example where this would be useful is in the much debated travel ban. A poorly publicized fact is that the executive order is an extension of an Obama era bi-partisan legislation , and therefore, does not mention any country explicitly except for Syria.
Making highly relevant facts such as these rise to the top in important debates will make it easier to classify headlines such as this and this as misleading.
Thus, our rationalization functionality will lead to more direct and productive conversations around important issues by appropriately contextualizing the matters.
Currently, NO social media platform exists right now that does what we are trying to do. As this guardian article notes "far from breaking down global barriers and exposing us to challenging new opinions, these [social media] platforms simply make it easier to find like-minded people in whatever corner of the world they were hiding before."
1. Twitter is a massive echo chamber. Sadly, they also have resorted to practicing naked censorship as Dilbert comics author Scott Adams notes.
2. Facebook manipulates trends, and by design, viewpoints are primarily limited to those in your immediate friend circle.
3. Unlike our platform, which is organized around headlines and current events, Reddit is chaotically organized around communities and general topics. Plus, the CEO himself has been caught red handed editing user comments.
We can't give everything away about our product before launch, but in light of the horrible, disturbing censorship noted above, here are some of the principles that we will stick to, no matter the iteration of our product.
Directory only: We don't tell you where to go or what to think. We just give you the map of the landscape.
Contextualization: Facts float to the top. Thus, it is easy for users to frame a situation.
Retraction: Viral posts merit viral corrections. When a user wants to make a significant amendment to a post, the reversal will be attached to the original posting and everyone will be notified.
Democratization: Opinions will not be more heavily weighted simply because of how many followers a user has. This eliminates the self-reinforcing cycle of only a few dominating the online conversation.
User Direction: No manipulaition of trends or facts. User activity alone decides what trends and for how long something trends.
Free: No fees of any kind.
We take this issue of reducing online echo chambers to make the internet more open minded very seriously.
By making it easier to access varied content and points of view, we hope to provide a valuable and interesting service that will help broaden the Internet's horizons.
Hopefully, this will lead to a greater respect for our differences and to more productive discourse when we disagree.
However we cannot do it alone- we need your help!
Your contributions will help defray our overhead, talent acquisition, development, and legal costs. We greatly appreciate any support! Your help is critical to this project's success. For context, it took $85,000 to run Facebook in its first summer (item #16 in the link).
All donors will be invited to be amongst our first users in an exclusive pre-launch. Donors will have the opportunity to participate and shape the experience of our main launch.
Visit our website at the7th.us and sign up for prelaunch!
Check out our cool t-shirts - donations of $37 or more get one shipped to you, free! Or you can just purchase directly here.
Help us spread the word, and share this campaign!
We appreciate contributions of any amount. Nothing is too small or too large. Thank you again!
Organizer
the7th Group
Organizer
Fremont, CA