In a new study, Yale SOM’s Tauhid Zaman and Yen-Shao Chen show how a social media platform can shift users’ positions or increase overall polarization by selectively muting and amplifying posts in ways that appear neutral to an outside observer.
That strongly reminds me a social media manipulation pattern that I’ve noticed some years ago; basically, you apply the same rules to everyone, but enforce them slightly harsher towards one side, to “push” the community’s opinion to the other side. If done smartly this is really hard to detect because from a glance you’re simply enforcing the rules. It was relevant enough for me that I did an infographic back then, I’ll share it here:
That strongly reminds me a social media manipulation pattern that I’ve noticed some years ago; basically, you apply the same rules to everyone, but enforce them slightly harsher towards one side, to “push” the community’s opinion to the other side. If done smartly this is really hard to detect because from a glance you’re simply enforcing the rules. It was relevant enough for me that I did an infographic back then, I’ll share it here:
Direct link to the pic, as it’s hard to see it this way
What the text lays down seems smarter though. And that’s a problem, because it’s harder to detect.