Settle

Mary Olivia Rentner – Chapter 9

Social media is a useful tool for political ideas to be stated, heard, and discussed. Unfortunately, social media has become a place where people are politically polarized. The solution to reducing psychological polarization, which is prevalent on Facebook, is not to get rid of platforms like Facebook or getting rid of “weak ties” (interacting with friends of friends). We also can’t stop people from talking about political matters because free speech is important to our country. There needs to be a change in mindset about how we communicate on social media and what we are trying to gain from these interactions. This chapter discusses five potential solutions, increasing information quality, increasing political transparency, incentivizing moderation, reacting deliberately, and eliminating highly visible quantification.

The idea behind increasing political transparency is that people would report their ideology on a scale, take quizzes that show their political beliefs, etc and then these results are shared with friends. Ideally, this would reduce people’s ability to assume what another person’s political beliefs are. Person A may be against immigration and post articles about it, but they also wrote on their profile that they believe everyone should have access to health care. You wouldn’t have to make assumptions about every aspect of someone’s political beliefs based on where they eat and the cars they buy, because it would be readily available information. It would link us in many ways, and hopefully, help people find common ground.

Reacting deliberately on Facebook would allow for civil and intellectual debates that are not based on emotion as much as they are based on logic and reasoning. Social feedback on social media (the ‘like’ button) reinforces what people believe about the world, especially about politics. They either get support from people who are similar to themselves or they get negative responses from people who are very different ideologically. Facebook could use  “deliberative reaction” buttons for political posts so that people aren’t just reacting emotionally, but asking for ‘clarification’ or ‘sources’ so that they can have a civil conversation. 

Over time, these changes should alter the psychology of polarization and impact how we discuss politics and how we respond to new information. Positive social interactions on Facebook will decrease hatred felt toward people who have opposing ideologies. Getting rid of social media would be harmful because that is how many people access the news and learn about members of the other political party. The intended outcome of these solutions is to increase understanding and civility.