An Observation: Black Swans and The Echo Chamber of Social Media

The way history is captured has been fundamentally changed with the rise of technology and social media. Instead of having the few literate people document history, anyone can have their Facebook posts or Tweets as historical artifacts. Everyone now has a chance for their voice and perspective to be cemented in the history books. Even more important than the opportunity for anyone to document, more is being documented now than ever before.

Social media has created tribalism at a heightened scale. We used to have alliances with the people we could see in person, but now physical location doesn’t matter. We are able to align with others who hold similar beliefs and interests across the globe. It has created two distinct camps on hot button issues that are hard to step out of without feeling some social pressures or nervousness. For a given issue, we all have a prediction of what side of the fence a person may fall on because of their position on another issue.

Social media has also allowed for echo chambers to exist online. An echo chamber is when a person only encounters one viewpoint. This doesn’t relate just to politics, but the companies who run social media platforms want their users to be on their platforms as much as humanly possible. They are incentivized to have a very large and engaged audience where they can sell targeted advertisements. Facebook, Google, and Twitter are all able to achieve this by giving their users the content they want to see and hear.

These echo chambers have been created in two ways. The first is a user bias selecting other people and accounts who they are interested in following. It is only natural to select people and organizations with who you agree on most issues. The second way comes from the algorithms serving up content that you’ll most likely agree with and enjoy. 

Like I’ve said, this isn’t all bad. I’ve been able to come across some great NBA content creators because of the recommended videos to me on YouTube. I’m sure you have been able to do the same with your own areas of interest. Even though we all may want to be able to use social platforms as a way to connect with the topics we enjoy, it’s been impossible to completely avoid politics. Political talk has been at the forefront of social media over the past 4 years.

The debate of right vs left saw some very heated, intense, and passionate moments over the past year. Whether it was during the protests after the murder of George Floyd, the anticipation of knowing who won the US election, to the insurrection of the Capitol, I was scrolling on my phone trying to get the most up to date information. I was trying to get the latest videos from the people on the ground, specifically during the protests across the country.

I understand the protests after the murder of George Floyd are still raw to most individuals and the country as a whole. I am a believer that the protests were a necessary catalyst for change in the country. The change hasn’t and won’t happen overnight, but I think one of the chief benefits of the protests was it brought everyone into the conversation regardless of their race or ethnicity. People now will have a harder ability to skirt around the issue of race; there is a larger and more vocal population now than ever before that will call out others on injustices and missteps.

I want to focus on the videos and images which came out during the protests, but I want to talk about the Black Swan fallacy first. To ancient Europeans, all swans they saw were the color white. So to them, they could unequivocally say that all swans are white because that is all they knew. Eventually, they made their way to Australia where they came across a black swan. This one black swan invalidates the claim “all swans are white”, which is what the Europeans believed to be true. Despite the millions of encounters with swans previously in Europe, it just took one swan to derail the claim.

Now let’s jump back to the videos and images coming out of the protests. There were a tremendous amount of inspiring speeches, marches, and gatherings showing support for the Black Lives Matter Movement. There were also very violent videos that came out which put the country into deep pain. Peaceful protesters who were being assaulted by police officers were caught on video and shared online. There were also videos of seemingly unnecessary property destruction and looting from protesters. 

This is where my observation comes into play. I remember clicking on one Twitter page which was retweeting videos of thousands of people peacefully protesting. Then I could click on another Twitter page to see videos of people smashing windows and cars on fire. Since we have phones in our pockets, we can now all catch “Black Swans” on video. You can’t say that all cops are behaving correctly because there is video evidence of them not. You can’t say that all protesters are peaceful because there is video of them not being peaceful. Unfortunately, in this case, there was more than just one piece of evidence for either side. You could get sucked into a black hole scrolling for hours having these videos fed to you.

The ability to scroll for hours on a certain type of content is where the echo chamber comes into play. Are the videos of panning over a peaceful crowd going to get the same attention compared to one of pure violence and chaos? Of course not. The videos of violence will have an outstated ability to be shared and viewed. The one heated moment which turns into violence negates the previous hours of peaceful protest. One protester or cop can ruin it for everyone else. Each “Black Swan” video is shared within the respective echo chambers. Specific to the protests, there were countless “Black Swan” videos that were documented. It wasn’t just one cop using too much force or storefront window being smashed, it was countless. 

Depending on what side you landed on, you can point to the protester or cop acting out of the status quo and say “See, look at what the other side is doing!” You aren’t wrong, you have the video evidence showing someone acting out of socially acceptable and legal behavior. My problem comes in to where we focus all of our attention on the outliers where the base of arguments were formed. 

I’m not trying to make the argument that we should disregard these outlier instances because I don’t believe they represent the majority of what people stand for. That would be like saying since most people don’t murder other people, then we shouldn’t care about murders. That is wrong. I have noticed that these outlier cases have caused more hatred in the country than progressive talks on how to become a better America. I’ll also be the first to say that Trump was the main instigator driving a wedge between Americans. I am hopeful with him out of the picture, we can move forward as a country and try to come together. He was the opposite of anything that I would want as a leader. He didn’t take ownership, he divided his people, and his behavior while in office should not be replicated by others.

Depending on our side, “Black Swan” videos or ideas have been socialized within our respective echo chambers. I also can’t iterate the point enough of how outliers can appear as the norm due to how social media works. Like I said previously, what will be shared to more people, the video of people milling around with cops standing on the side or the video of cops and protests fighting? We all know that isn’t the majority of the instances that actually happen, but it is the majority of the videos that people see. 

I want to reiterate again that I am not saying that we should ignore these instances of violence because they do require the necessary attention. I am concerned about videos being shared at a rapid rate and then everyone thinking that this is the standard for one group or another and is used as the basis for further arguments. With social media, the volume of these outlier pieces of information is at a higher rate than ever before because the volume of all information is at an all-time high. Then these arguments continue to drive our country further apart. This is the endless cycle that I’ve witnessed over the past 4 years. 

I wish I had a better answer on how to move forward. It is impossible to discount “Black Swan” pieces of evidence against your group as being non-existent because you have the video on repeat right in front of your eyes. Are we just supposed to ignore them and go with the overwhelming majority of normal behavior? At that point, you are turning a blind out to a serious problem which also doesn’t seem right. 

Too often you might think that the opposing group’s entire claim is off of one outlier piece of information and doesn’t represent what you really stand for. This is also a two-way street. Just as you might feel that way, I bet the other side feels that way as well. I know that I’m not above this, no one is. The only thing that I think we can do is try to understand why someone who disagrees with you thinks they are in the right. Just as much as you think you are in the right, there is someone on the other side who feels just as strongly. 

Peace and Love.