Are a few people ruining the internet for the rest of us? | Social media | The Guardian

"the online world seem so toxic ... [because of] a small number of divisive accounts", according to a researcher in "topics such as intergroup conflict, misinformation, technology and climate change", who found that "what we’re seeing online is a warped image created by a very small group of highly active users".

SOcial media is "a funhouse mirror... amplifies the loudest and most extreme ... muting the nuanced and the boringly reasonable" - not exactly a new discovery, although perhaps this is: "Just 10% of users produce roughly 97% of political tweets... 0.1% of users share 80% of fake news. Twelve accounts – known as the “disinformation dozen” – created most of the vaccine misinformation on Facebook during the pandemic... creating the false perceptions that many people were vaccine hesitant".

Because they're so visible, they hack our systems for perceiving and modelling how people think, leading us to "believe that society is far more polarized, angry, and deluded than it really is" - ie pluralistic ignorance.

So which came first: algorithms which boost this content, creating conditions which some people exploit? Or did the algorithms actually create these people? After all, "People exaggerate their beliefs or repeat outrageous narratives to get attention ... people who aren’t especially extreme may start acting that way online, because it gets rewarded."

What to do? Follow a healthier info diet: remember that "a silent majority often lurks behind each incendiary thread", take control of your feed, "resist the outrage bait".

This is borne out by their research: "we paid people a few dollars to unfollow the most divisive political accounts on X. After a month, they reported feeling 23% less animosity towards other political groups... nearly half [didnt] refollow" them afterwards, and reported less animosity 11 months later.