>>11017683 (pb)
The mention of Cambridge Analytica reminded me of learning a bit more about the extent to which researchers have access to our online behavior and also learning about how they study it.
An article that I still refer to appeared in Scientific American in April 2017 and was written by Walter Quattrochiocchi (pp 60-63). It was called "Inside the Echo Chamber: Computational Social Scientists are Studying How Conspiracy Theories Spread Online- and What, if Anything Can Be Done to Stop Them".
I'd like to offer two quotes that will get anons rolling.
From the first part of the article: "In the summer of 2015 Governor Greg Abbott gave the Texas State Guard an unusual order: keep an eye on the Jade Helm 15 exercise, just in case the online rumors are true. In reality Jade Helm 15 was a routine eight-week military exercise conducted in Texas and six other states. In the online echo chamber, however, it was something more sinister: the beginning of a coup ordered by President Barack Obama."
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Towards the end Quattrochiocchi gets a bit dismayed the the prospect of the spread of online conspiracy theories. He writes "...for a certain type of user, debunking actually reinforces belief in the conspiracy."
Then he goes on: "We observed the same dynamics in a study of 55 million Facebook users in the U.S. Users avoid cognitive discord by consuming information that supports their preexisting beliefs, and they share that information widely. Moreover, we found that over time people who embrace conspiracy theories in one domain-say the (nonexistent) connection between vaccines and autism-will seek out such theories in other domains. Once inside the echo chamber, they tend to embrace the entire conspiracy corpus."
A quick look did not yield a place to access the article, but someone read it as a science selection for some sort of podcast. https://www.mixcloud.com/scienceselections/inside-the-echo-chamber-apr-2017-scientific-american/
I love this phrase: "tend to embrace the entire conspiracy corpus" !