Check yourself

The Polarization Lab (Duke University) has conducted some interesting research on political polarization. They have developed tools you can use to estimate the orientation of your Twitter feed and bots you can use to expose yourself to positions taken with the opposite orientation. The premise of their work is that exposure to different perspectives can reduce bias.

Check my echo is a tool that compares the orientation of the politically oriented Twitter accounts you follow to prominent politicians, journalists, and advocates to generate a score on the polarization of those you follow.

The Lab offers bots to expand your perspective. The bots pass on tweets liked by prominent liberals and conservatives. The idea being liberals should friend the bot forwarding tweets liked by conservatives to gain insight into the positions taken by those unlikely to show up in their feeds.

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