UKC

a bit far fetched, but :

facebook -> arab spring -> syrian civil war -> massive refugee crisis -> referendum immigration scaring -> out of EU

In reply to spotter1:

Only thing I blame is the f*cktatrds with "bregret".

In reply to spotter1:

Personally I (semi seriously) think it can all be traced back to Big Brother.

Reality TV was the turning point where, as a culture, we started worshipping idiots simply for existing. That is what has led to the 'post-experts' era.

I'm not sure we can blame Channel 4 for the arab spring though.

In reply to spotter1:

No. Too many other factors at play.

But I read an interesting article last night about how Facebook and other algorithm-adjusted news feeds (eg. most of our online experiences these days) end up closing down our horizons and aligning us only with people and ideas that support our already entrenched views, rather than exposing us to new thoughts. This surely must only help increase intolerance and breed resentment in a lot of places.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/05/22/opinion/sunday/how-facebook-warps-our-...

In reply to yorkshireman:
I was thinking exactly this, Facebook is great for corroborating what you already think. Utterly rubbish at widening perspectives.

Not on FB, never have been, never will be, for this very reason.

Edit, but I do spend hours being shown what's on it, I just don't feel any need to join myself.

In reply to DerwentDiluted:



Err, am I the only one to spot a slight flaw in the logic of the above?
JW

In reply to yorkshireman:

google searches do the same. They don't just match your words to the most common sites out there, their search algorithms are massive and constantly changing, dozens of people working on them alone. They base their searches on what you've previously searched for, read, opened anything... all those cookies on your computer feeding google to try and best match what you are looking for. Which is fine if you want a fleece jacket for winter, but not so good if you want to learn something new. If you google for information, it's likely to be confirming your thinking, not expanding. Conformation bias as they say. The only solution, share you computer with someone who is the polar opposite to you in all respects.

In reply to spotter1:

On a related note: Is there a causal relationship between the fact that the older generation were most likely to vote Leave and the same generation being most likely to read newspapers?

In reply to yorkshireman:




thats quite interesting, so bascially humans have a limited capacity for containing a representation of 'others' , and facebook stresses that capacity , whereas in the past that part in peoples heads was free for more diverse input.
scary !

In reply to spotter1:

It looks like 'confirmation bias'.

In reply to summo:

It is a bit bizarre with me. I'm having difficulty convincing FB that I'm not a monarch loving, jack boot marching right wing bigot. 95% of my friends I'd class as left leaning, and I hardly ever post. Maybe 'like' the odd post and nothing to suggest I'm right wing, but suggested pages at the moment are all nob end right wing sites. Even though I click on the don't want to see this part.

In reply to Bellie:


you are either in denial or Gove has hacked you FB account.

In reply to summo:

At least its opened my eyes to the strange, weirdy pages out there. I'm only grateful for not clicking through... I'm down enough as it is with all this! Combine confirmation bias, with all these crazy page feeds, and its hard to see how the drip, drip of growing hatred can be halted any time soon.

I best ask some of my 'Friends' if they have had any offensive posts from me of late ; )

In reply to spotter1:

I blame Ted Heath myself.

In reply to spotter1:

My FB had virtually nothing about the referendum before polling day - no suggested items, nor people talking about it apart from the Fishing News page. Since referendum it's gone mad for it. So I don't think FB can be blamed for anything.

In reply to spotter1:

It probably played a part. I closed my FB account because of all the political shite appearing in my news feeds (from both sides) I initially thought about voting leave. But, after a good look through the arguments posted in the public domain of the leave campaign realised it was a crock of shit and voted remain.

In reply to Toerag:

lucky you, I think facebook must have been playing how far can we push andrew with mine.

In reply to Bellie:

You are not wrong there, spent an hour skimming various You-tubers ranting on about the new world order, and how the vote was already fixed to remain. Given the empirical evidence they are now faced with, will they now remove the foil hats?

In reply to mullermn:

[I'm not sure we can blame Channel 4 for the arab spring though.]

We can, they supported bliar, bliar got elected, bliar bliared about sadam, bliar and monkey brain invade Iraq and......................................

In reply to summo:


Or use duck duck go.
Or just use google in a locked down mode.

Either of which are sensible for dodging advert tracking anyway.

In reply to yorkshireman:




You're either the sort of person that seeks to widen your horizons or not. Facebook won't make things any better if you are already wearing blinkers, but if you have an open mind it will show you whole new worlds.

If you are hiding from social media because of the fear that it will close down your horizons you probably already have your head uried in the sand!

In reply to timjones:


You seemed to have missed out the entire point of what they said.
There is a potential issue with some social media and other search media having a built in bias which leads to reinforced opinions.
It isnt just the news feeds. Saw some interesting research around dating websites maybe doing similar. Potential partners get auto dropped due to religion/politics which in reality wouldnt have come up for several dates and probably wouldnt have mattered anyway.

In reply to timjones:



maybe you have a point, but consider how social media affects childrens brains in the critical stages of development... i think science is a bit behind on whats going on .