Up next but much more news in twenty five minutes time ill see you then. Hi im molly could be and here in the stream are you living in a political filter bubble well there are quite a few apps for that but how much can technology do to get us out of our echo chambers. Im getting. A slew of new apps aim that exposing users to opposing political views were developed after the divisive two thousand and sixteen us president ial election heres a look at just a few you can download escape your bubble back to Chrome Extension that inserts articles into your facebook feed after asking who do you want to understand better another extension politico promises to show you the political biases of your facebook friends and your news feed based on the Political Pages that they like and for a boy or a stick experience you can try clip on twitter which swaps out your feed for an anonymous feed with a different political perspective so how much responsibility do Technology Companies have been getting people to see the quote unquote other side were here to help us discuss were joined in the studio by must be a Digital Media and marketing expert Amanda Krauss a professor of educational psychology at Hunter College and noah mehlman Senior Editor at the american conservative welcome to the stream everyone i want to get started with an example so you can lay this out for everyone this is a viral blog post from october its on my laptop here its entitled why im voting for. Donald trump so it was shared one point five million times online and as someone who spends a lot of time on the internet now were going to team up people who spend a lot of time on the internet we have never seen this in till you alerted him about it had you seen it no i never seen it and why is that are we all operating in the. I think we are yes this actually was very alarming to me was i was just interested in seeing how trump and hillary was running their campaign and you know being a liberal from new york been a my own new york with her filter bubble and was never actually seen anything about with that kind or say from fox news or in the conservative media appearing on my facebook feed and as im going through the analysis of what are the most popular articles about trump this one popped up and i was like it was just from a random blog on wordpress surprise a million and a half times thats a lot of shit had to do for the article so go ahead. I actually i actually i actually did i thought of some really compelling points and it was i had some questions and i thought it some valid proposing views that im i can talk about and its unfortunate that it didnt appear on my feet so after you found it then did you share it on your feet no i did not ok why not because i didnt think it was. Also a trump had one already it was about why why would would i would choose donald trump and trump has already been chosen so it was a little too late but i wouldnt share it because usually it for me i would maybe share it uncommon that this is interesting i shared in my article that which has been shared a lot and i thought it was nowhere to be but at the time it didnt make sense to share it on facebook you know is it something that you had run across i know that you were not on twitter but its not something that you had heard about in my life. But yes i i think i actually read it im not totally sure. But the title sounds familiar. But that in itself is a little bit of. You know that tells you something in and of itself what im reacting to is the title my impression is that most of the things that people share. Only they havent read. That what youre really sharing is headlines and signifiers that you know i agree with this sort of point. So its not about sort of what people are really using social media for whether its for communication or for yourself expression excellent point there because this is a tweet we got this is gladiator in heels thats her twitter handle given that most news is consumed online she says just how do you ensure the different viewpoints when logarithms determine your news and thats something algorithm its really something that we have discussed here on the stream quite a bit but amanda because people do get their news from online we talked about these social media tools that will help them bursts their filter bubbles you actually see those as helping. I do think that they help but i think they help solve the problem that was created by facebook in the first place and i think that thats what they can do i think to get any deeper than that has to get to where you as a person commit to actually considering the perspective of the other side not just the headlines but read the articles and say i think theres some validity in that and i dont really agree with this part and you know that conclusion feels like its not you know supported by the article and then talk to somebody who does feel like you know agrees with the other part of it and have that conversation with them and youll find that it while we can respond very viscerally to the headline like i disagree with that youre not going to respond so viscerally and so sort of vehemently and wholeheartedly to a person who has a perspective and a history and stories to tell around why they feel the way they do and i think that the deeper solution comes from that you know i you know i think people used to be quite cynical in the you know less partisan way about media you know people would assume you know whatever the papers print theyre doing it just to sell papers you know and therefore everything is more sensational than. Needs to be a think perversely people are are somewhat less than the goal actually of their neighbors their facebook friends. Sharing. Material mr back before facebook we all have. Showed an aunt who was forwarding articles that she closed by email before facebook existed. And facebook was her main part of that i think its its a cognitive challenge to tell people dont dont trust ordinary people either in some level and take the same kind of dont understand. And where do you place your trust them. I dont know if i think that cynicism as much as i think its about opportunity the thing that facebook did. That they did for their own reasons but has had this outcome is they havent provided us with any opportunities to sort of experience or to come across or. That confirmation bias which is the thing where our brain like seeks out the things we already think and then build up from that as a heuristic because theres too much stimulus for us to you know understand all of it and thats something that everyone experiences oh yes everyone since the dawn of humans thats because like the world that we live in is too stimulating you have to narrow down on to something and your brain seeks out the thing that feels familiar because that we know for sure it exists you know and so then we take that little nugget and we build understanding on top of it thats been happening since the dawn of time really since the dawn of humans the recent the solution to that that psychologists will share with people who are worried about it is well go in be on the lookout for the other perspective and when you see it engage with it that thats like the big solution and it has amazing impacts on the way that we communicate with each other and we kind of stuff but its not really this is what im saying thank you for that thats exactly what im saying actually this is the point that you both made. The point that we actually got a. Creator and a video this is nicole and you have spoken at the point that this is something thats been happening since time since before the dawn of time this is nick and he says social media is definitely making it worse have a listen. Filter bubbles are not exclusively an online problem but technology is making them worse eased to be that you get to a restaurant or bar and be waiting for a friend and you look around and youd notice the people around you in the real world but now within five seconds youve got your phone out and youre on facebook or youre reading from your favorite News Technology has made it easy for us to surround ourselves in our filter bubble twenty four seven in a way to previously wasnt possible. So im wondering i see i see you nodding there i do want to ring was a fight here because i love that comment and this is actually the app that he created to read across the aisle knocking down filter bubbles with a simple you can see it here on my screen but the point he made i wonder if its true because before social media before mobile phones going into a restaurant doesnt necessarily mean that youre going to engage with someone else there and then get into a political argument. You could just use your you know you could be on newspaper you dont have to get on the political argument but i think he had a good point about you know actually its content consumption has become a lot easier and thats probably what hes alluding to its a confined content anywhere and its its a lot of content recently especially on facebook and thats probably what the point was touching upon but also to noise point earlier about you know getting an email from your rant. I think facebook exacerbated this because you only when you get that email from her and you know its easier and ten shes doing this because she says shes x. And y. But with facebook is that you get a lot like youre only exposed to content that you can get with without knowing that facebook filter this content for you and thats a danger people will come when you know the day after election and people will come to really surprised at times but yeah they were really shocked and i was in shock because ive already looked at both competing trump but im going to believe that ninety eight like even barack obama said trump will never be president a lot of people do believe that trump will not be president but trouble was about three in the popular matter of filter i mean thats you know that was pretty much just about everybody observing election in almost any level including trump himself i think i agree with everything that everybodys been saying. About knowledge has exacerbated this its in some ways the flip side of the ways in which technology has made. People who would otherwise be separated because theyre small affinity minorities able to connect. So there so good in the bad side of it but i dont think we should lose sight of the ways in which there are deep roots in the real world for these divisions. Roots that have to do with changes in the economy rules that have to do with changes in the way media is structured and where Political Parties are organized americas Political Parties forty or fifty years ago were much less polarized that was an accident of history and your logical sorting has taken place over the past generation that has made public a party much more right wing in the Democratic Party consequently somewhat more left wing theres also been a dramatic change in the media the rise of the conservative alternative media which sort of based its entire argument on the notion that what people had historically seen as nonpartisan and objective was in fact. A logical liberal and therefore you cant trust it you have to turn to our sources i think that changed peoples habits of the way they thought about authority and which institutions they can trust or. Technology came along to some extent this is plugging into some things that have much deeper roots so no picking up on what you said there then i you know it begs this question im pulling up on my screen here on three different articles sites where you can go as some people might call them liberal leaning others might just call them Mainstream Media so this is the guardian and an attempt for people to burst their bubble by giving the conservative side here is that another one a roundup of conservative media trumped by to back at the liberal press and just one round up this is slate and this last one is a newsletter that people can sign up or write richter i am wondering though do you think that this is something that scans both sides this is just quote unquote liberal media or Mainstream Media offering this or is this something thats also seen. From conservative media are they also getting a round up for people to see the other side and no i feel free to jump in here if you are the answer to that because i know youre yet another thing. Up i think that. I dont want to speak for anyone but myself i speak to the impression that i get from dealing with people in the conservative media world i think there are belief is that they understand where the liberal left wing commentators are coming from a lot better than the other way around. And i think theres some truth to that i think there is a tendency on the on the left to sort of look it can sort of arguments as being not really arguments at all as being. One of advice stick motives and unconscious. Prejudices rather than actual beliefs or arguments. But i do think that thats a problem on both sides and i think its extremely common on the right for people to simply dismiss. Anyone coming from the left out of here and its frankly a bigger problem among people who consume conservative media and among people who are involved in the media so if you go to any conservative commentators facebook feed or twitter feed youll see a lot more. Furious behavior by fatah members than by them themselves and i think the same thing is true on the left. The you see a lot before. Crazy. Yeah but i do think theres crazy talk on both sides because i would say yeah i mean because my i live in the with her bubble with my stuff and we live there together. And i but i myself because i did wake up shocked on election day just shocked completely shocked i have since then started really like they dont ever show up in my feed so they could now if i get out. But i do i go and i read the conservative stuff and and i you know and i do find myself sometimes unwillingly or unwittingly on a liberal super super duper liberal leaning side and i dont see that the fewer and the vehemence and the name calling is any less intense on either side of it and im not sure that you said this but if you did i do want to say that i disagree with the idea that liberals hear the conservative perspective and immediately think of like oh theyre just being ideological or or they must be a fundamentalist christian because i mean at least the people that that i know in my little bubble. Do read and try to understand maybe more so since the election when we all had this big wake up call. But since then certainly and i think before that had we known i dont think anybody is interested in having a country that falls apart at the scene and i think were all interested in figuring out what to do about this and what i what i think the like takeaway is that the thing to do about it is to let go of the created realities that we get from facebook and the media and start having conversations with people so i like what you said there about the created realities and no one is interested in this country falling apart i think that you know that is a blanket statement everyone could agree on but i want to throw a little bit of a different perspective in here so there are two tweets here this one is from he says i have more or less given up on the idea of consume. Conservative media for the sake of my own sanity im always open for friendly chat with the red cap wearing the republicans much more productive in my opinion so thats one view but this other view takes a stance that a few people online are telling us they feel this isnt a shell she says son of baldwin one said thats a twitter handle here and you can see this quote here we can disagree and still love each other and last your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist im going to throw this one to you because there are a lot of people saying this to us theyre saying maybe filter bubbles arent such a good thing and maybe dialogue isnt such a good thing if the other person that youre dialoguing with quote unquote doesnt agree with fundamental aspects of my humanity. So i have a hard time believing that to be honest and i think these people are not the majority these people are just very few and i like to believe that humans are inherently good people and yeah i just have a hard time believing that you know there are all that many people that dont believe in my exist and maybe they have their own biases and the disks are uncomfortable was maybe my exist and then if i talk to them and they get to know me they will probably be more comfortable with my existence so definitely all for having the conversation and being exposed to uncomfortable and views out of my comfort zone and definitely happy to take that conversation any time i felt ok so i also just want to say. The problem is that we like the problem that were currently having is that we try to have even the first conversation about anything and things fall apart but that means that the courageous conversations where you actually get down into like what is Race Relations in america and how do we balance out respect for the police with structural racism. And all of the other really big issues are totally for close to us until we are able to it doesnt matter whether we can go there we have to go there or there is no hope and so its certainly to a certain extent if you dont if youre not willing to go there and be uncomfortable which is what theyre essentially saying just like if youre going to make me that uncomfortable im not going to go there that is essentially saying then i will not resolve this we cannot resolve this now out of there that youre going to this i was actually quite far away i mean you know i have since im involved in film and theater and since im also involved in conservative media i have very you know sort of barbell in my buoyancy stuff from the rightness east or from the left but i dont know personally any. Families who are Syrian Refugees and i dont know personally anyone who has lost someone to opioid addiction and. That you know and those are the kinds of things that dominate certain peoples lives in certain communities lives. And if you have and what are the odds of people seeking that sort of thing out i think its a big burden to put on every individual i think that actually the the opinion leaders of the country to the rest of the country to some extent do that job. On both sides i like you said its a big bird not theyre not trying to put it all ranks ability right but it is a big worry that some people are telling us exact same thing this is elizabeth on facebook she says i think people have a right to go online without having to constantly deal with racism aside to me another hate being spewed at them people dont know are there is an audience for their hateful views for ugly attitudes and i know that you wanted to get in there and respond to something that was saying. Are you optimistic or pessimistic im im going to say im realistic ok. You know what people say about themselves. I think it doesnt matter if its pessimism or optimism its what needs to happen and i think i love new york which is a guy who goes around and takes pictures of people and shares their stories and he went to michigan and took pictures talked to people in michigan who in this county that unexpectedly went for trump and tried to like wasnt asking them why they were being political what they thought politically but instead just you know what problems do you have what life have you lived and those kinds of connections like you said you dont know anybody who has an opioid addiction saw hard to hear a story about that and have it touch you and help you realize like when you do know somebody who has an opioid addiction its crushing and weve all been crushed by something i think theres a real i truly believe we are more alike than we are different and thats what i really think is true i think that weve put so many layers between us and other people and weve allowed these companies to sort of filter for us and stop us from from realizing that and like if we were able to really connect with people on that level of like our families and our experiences i think that Syrian Refugees would stop being scared people muslims would stop being terrorists like whatever it is that people immediately jump to because they have zero lived experience and this. Would fall away because thats what happens when it has interesting theory and this is your thing you say that because on my feet and others that i know who happen to be muslim there are people who will say he will things on our feeds knowing that we are of that persuasion but they say youre one of the good ones with that were still going to make a blanket statement about other people so that does still happen i want your thoughts on this conversation are you following the realistic optimistic or pessimistic view on whether or not you think filter bubbles are getting worse i think oh i want to just clarify the filter bubbles are not conservative versus liberal theyre. Many bubbles within conservative bubble so the biggest red circles. Within the liberal bubble there is the far right there is a far left and to your point earlier there are certain people probably i would stick to having a conversation with the center its probably going to be harder to have a conversation with the far right there are absolutely there are not a so its also going to be impossible to have a conversation with someone who doesnt believe in my existence or who leaves me with something before i even have a conversation but to your question i think im up to mystic i think were talking about technology this is something new that were all dealing with this is something that we never had before and the same way we built a great im talking about maybe facebook and google and im trying to say you can technologist myself im saying we but i think the same way we created this big massive thing that connects us all together it have negative impact i think we tackled these negative impacts and can make it better and Facebook Mission is to really. Connect. The world to be more connected than open and i feel like hopefully the statement about its a great way to work and. That question that is the question and i like the you love this conversation here on a question in there thats a great way to do this thats all the time we have for today i want to thank our community for being part of this conversation and our guests most of amanda and know what this conversation will continue online under hash tag a. J. Stream but before we go there is just enough time to wish you all a happy International Womens day on a day after a show thats brought to you by a team of very talented women produced by c. N. N. A book by is lake of the same Community Managed by directed by katie van lear technical directed by mattie think all this is graphic operator by Linda Dickerson and prompted by crystal williams were standing on the shoulders of some very talented women themselves thanks for being part. Let. The big players play zzzzz. 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