Depolarization

I became interested in the work of the Polarization Lab after reading “Breaking the social media prism”. They propose that social media tools like other tech tools are potentially neutral, but do have great power for negative outcomes. It depends on how tools are used.

The lab is interested in studying social media polarization and testing ways to fight the trend toward polarization. How might more moderate positions be viewed and considered and how to fight the tendency to spiral toward extremism. One of the experiments involves the use of Twitter bots relaying tweets from moderate “opinion leaders” of different orientations toward participants identified as having an opposing perspective. The logic is that such content may moderate disagreements.

It is easy enough to follow these bots yourself. I thought that signing up for both bots and analyzing the content of what is shared could make a great student project or start a classroom conversation. The Twitter “handles” are @Polly4Liberals and @Poly4Conserv. I identify as a liberal so Polly for Liberals sends me “messages from prominent conservatives or right-leaning organizations”. The research body followed me back because I registered and I assume is attempting to see if the Twitter behavior I exhibit becomes more moderate.