
Social Media and the ‘Spiral of Silence’ - e15ctr0n
http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/08/26/social-media-and-the-spiral-of-silence/
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dba7dba
I don't want say to I am ahead of the curve or anything but yes I already have
started not saying nothing on my social network that's related to
politics/religion/social-issues/etc. I don't say yes or no on any of those on
social network. I have decided silence is the best option.

I do have a real world example too. I used to work with a manager over me who
was really cool and worked with me well. Felt he was looking out for me and my
career advancement. We shared common interests on more than a few things too.

And then one day I said something that rubbed him the wrong way (still don't
know what exactly) and just like that, he pretty much stopped talking to me.
And that led to the point where I was left out of projects, out of
discussions, and eventually to the point where the upper management felt I was
not needed. I had to leave the company. I still feel he was a great guy and
smart dude.

Btw, I read somewhere that on US Navy ships' officers' dining rooms, 2 topics
are not discussed at all: politics and religion. I understand why.

~~~
innguest
The reason politics and religion are discussion taboos is the same reason
things are so slow to change in both of those realms.

~~~
maxxxxx
This is just crazy. To have a healthy society these issues should be discussed
a lot but without the fear of being punished for your views.

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bhauer
While I find this research fascinating, and some of the findings conflict with
the point I am about to make, I nevertheless want to object to the selection
of Snowden-NSA as the particular topic used as the basis of this research.
Although it does conveniently have a nearly-even split of opinion, the nature
of the Snowden-NSA revelations carry very specific baggage for social media
conversations precisely because the revelations suggest a comprehensive and
worrisome monitoring of all online activity.

Those who wanted to talk about the NSA, especially critically on social media,
may have refrained or at least paused to reflect on whether that was a
sensible thing to do _precisely because_ of the NSA dragnet. I personally
initially paused and considered my action moreso than usual before I began
retweeting and writing tweets of my own that are critical of the NSA's
behavior and the laws that provide cover for its behavior.

Irrational or rational as fears of later repercussions for communicating
opinions may be, when the subject matter is a principal organization that will
ensure that very communication is never forgotten, I believe there is a
chilling effect. It would be like hesitating to criticize Twitter on
Twitter—you can imagine less savvy users would wonder, "Will this get me into
some kind of trouble with Twitter?" Even now having long since put aside my
worry about being critical of the NSA's behavior in public (yes, based on the
tired axiom: "why would they care about me?"), I still suspect that I have
squelched at least 10% of what I would have otherwise said.

Even as I write this now, it's impossible to not have a concern that in some
(very unlikely) future, the NSA will put anyone who had been critical of their
actions onto a "definitely will aid with all parallel construction requests"
list. Irrational, sure. But difficult to put aside nonetheless.

~~~
cryoshon
Yep, the chilling effect is real, and in action. Next (and critically,
invisibly) people as a whole will actually think less about the NSA and having
their online activity surveilled and what those two bits mean. Fewer people
will be exposed to the circulation of ideas on these topics. This is the
consequence of being afraid to speak freely in what used to be an open forum.

------
ianstallings
I was going to sternly object, and then I remembered how a friend deleted me
on facebook because I liked a certain politician. Then my work friended me so
I went back and pruned every semi-controversial topic from my feed and
"unliked" a ton of subjects. And now I keep it all to myself. I probably
reveal more here in my writing than I do on those outlets.

And to say I edit my thoughts _here_ on HN would be an understatement. People
don't want true diversity. That would mean hearing something they dislike.
Which would invalidate their life apparently.

~~~
potatolicious
Funnily enough Google was really onto something with the concept of Circles.
We do not, and should not, want to share everything with everyone a la Twitter
and Facebook.

The execution of G+ was bungled disastrously, and ass-backwards policies like
Real Names ran directly contrary to the original notion of having multiple
identities/profiles to present to different people.

But I do wish someone would run with this idea again.

... But maybe we don't need to. Social networks with segmented
audiences/identities have existed since forever, they're called BBSes and
Forums.

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danielweber
It's amazing: 20 years ago, we went online to debate at will with people we
would never see and who had no power over us. Now online we have to be super
careful about everything we say lest someone who can make a decision over us
be offended.

~~~
vezzy-fnord
I actually think this illustrates an interesting evolution in our attitudes
towards anonymity on the Internet.

It was only quite recently in the grand scheme of things that, particularly in
school computer labs, one of the major things that we ingrained in children's
heads was basic web safety etiquette: never reveal your real name, street
address, phone number, etc.

With the advent of popular social media, holy shit has that completely turned
around in the opposite direction. Now such things have been completely
normalized, and we've started to talk about the "nymwars". There's also a
reasonably influential segment that thinks all online communications should be
done using personally identifiable information, lest someone gets trolled and
has their sensibilities hurt.

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MangezBien
I've been consistently removing people from my facebook and twitter feed who
disagree with me. Not because I don't want to hear their opinions, but because
when I voice mine in response they are generally offended (I was usually just
pointing out factual omissions). I needed to remove the temptation to engage
with anyone in my social network who was prone to anti-intellectual
discussions.

------
oesmith
The last paragraph of the article:

"Because of its sample size (1,801 people) and choice of topic, Pew’s study
might not be a fully accurate example of social media’s silencing effects, but
it’s definitely fodder for discussion – if you dare! – as well as further
research."

Sigh.

~~~
mikehearn
Which of the following does your sigh indicate:

a. You are sighing because you believe the study to be meaningless due to its
sample size.

b. You are sighing because the writer needlessly undermines the results of a
completely legitimate poll (+/\- 3.3% margin of error for the subgroups).

c. You are sighing about poor comedy ("if you dare!").

------
dba7dba
I find it ironic that the social media is effectively making average Joes and
Janes (who generally dislike politicians) act like they are politicians, not
saying what they really mean and worrying about how they are viewed by the
public.

Weird I must say.

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danso
LOL.

> _Of course, it’s worth pointing out that the choice to use the Snowden
> situation as the basis for this particular study could be flawed – after
> all, social platforms, including Facebook, were implicated as being among
> the places the government tapped to listen in on citizens’ conversations.
> Perhaps citizens didn’t want to publicize an opinion on this particular
> matter, but would be more willing to do so on others._

LOL again. Have the Pew researchers never heard of the "priming" effect? As
soon as you bring up Snowden as the topic, respondents may immediately think
of the social network surveillance and of course, think that they may not want
to talk about just anything -- Snowden related or not -- online.

------
LordKano
I'm concerned that it's only going to get worse.

Look at Brendan Eich, no matter what we think of Proposition 8, I think it's
crazy that his support of a political position that was also supported by a
very narrow majority of his fellow Californians could cause him to have to
leave his job six years later.

It's entirely possible that Eich could become a verb, like Bork. Any one of us
could support one side of a contentious political fight today and in six years
get Eiched because the winning side chooses to be vindictive and petty.

I hesitated to bring this up because I thought about the last time I was
moderated -4 for something I said here.

In the end we need to decide, how serious we are about the marketplace of
ideas. We need to decide if we really believe in the ideals that we claim to.

If I disagree with you, I'll challenge your ideas. I'll challenge your
thinking. I'll debate you. I will not attempt to silence you.

~~~
vezzy-fnord
My main beef with the Eich case wasn't the fact that people protested his
decision, it was _how_ they did it.

The main method of protest was to boycott Firefox. Yet this was a stupid thing
to do, because Firefox is the result of over a decade of wide-scale community
effort, all done on a non-profit basis, and has been instrumental in advancing
web standards. Firefox was also the initial spark that got us out of the
stagnation caused by IE6.

By boycotting Firefox, people were punishing pretty much everyone _except_
Eich. A much more blunt statement would have been to boycott JavaScript,
something Eich was directly responsible for. Of course, that would actually
require some effort in a major overhaul of one's browsing habits.

Then it was OKCupid just blatantly jumping on the bandwagon, encouraging
Firefox users to leave their browser, all in an absolutely farcical attempt to
assert their moral superiority.

Finally, most people don't seem to be aware that gay marriage is often a red
herring in general, and the topic of marriage privatization is rarely
discussed in public. But that's heading towards my personal views.

~~~
tbrownaw
_My main beef with the Eich case wasn 't the fact that people protested his
decision, it was how they did it._

Causing indiscriminate collateral damage (and using various arguments to
deflect blame onto your enemies) until people submit to your whims is a long
and time-honored tradition (for example, terrorists).

Vicious attacks against those who (appear to be about to) "leave the fold" are
also long and time-honored tradition (for example, apostasy in religious-ruled
countries).

Given that They (the people doing the protesting) decided that Eich's
political actions made him a "them", and that They considered Mozilla to be an
"us", it was _perfectly reasonable_ for Them to (1) attack Mozilla for
associating with Eich, and (2) attack anyone associated with Eich until Eich
was forced to submit to Them (in this case, to Go Away).

So no, the problem _is_ that people decided to suddenly target one individual
for protest over a years-old used-to-be-majority political opinion.

~~~
flatdeviant
I was about to make the same comparison.

To me, this is enabled by social media. This uproar against Eich wouldn't have
been viral if it weren't for Twitter, Reddit, and others.

The people who complained used tactics akin to bullying: "do what I want (fire
Brendan Eich), or else I'll make much noise as I can, and drag your brand
through the mud".

The backlash was driven by self-righteousness ("my beliefs are superior to
Eich's") and contempt ("his beliefs hurt people, so he isn't entitled to
them"). These feelings are timeless and have been common throughout history.
The problem is that it's easy for them to quickly spread on Twitter, and then
get blown even further out of proportion, either by being mentioned on 24/7 TV
channels, or, here, because of OKCupid pulling a marketing move by supporting
the backlash.

And overall, the effect is that some opinions and subjects are sadly becoming
taboo, and people have to be politically correct or risk having their lives
ruined. This happened to Eich, it happened with Donglegate [1], and it will
happen again. The common theme in these stories is social media.

[1]: [http://arstechnica.com/staff/2013/03/donglegate-is-
classic-o...](http://arstechnica.com/staff/2013/03/donglegate-is-classic-
overreaction-and-everyone-pays/)

------
rb2e
Wouldn't [http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/08/26/social-media-and-
the-s...](http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/08/26/social-media-and-the-spiral-
of-silence/) be a better link as this article seems to just repeat what the
study says.

~~~
dang
Yes; thanks; changed. (Was [http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/26/social-media-is-
silencing-p...](http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/26/social-media-is-silencing-
personal-opinion-even-in-the-offline-world/.))

