Is the internet bad for democracy?

[GodlessAstronomer]

Found this article an interesting read
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sect...=280&objectid=10483789

...
We are creating what Professor Sunstein calls our own "echo chambers" where we are listening only to what we want to hear. That is one big honking problem.

Both the beauty and the bane of this internet beast is that this new way of customising our political discourse not only gives us more choices than we can handle, but it also gives us more ability to ignore perspectives we don't like. Today on the web, conservatives are only talking to conservatives and liberals to liberals, like dittoheads isolated in thousands of individual information cocoons....

This probably doesn't apply to many P&N users, but I think it does apply to internet users in general. In particular, users of hard-line left wing and right wing blogs/websites (I won't name any names, but you know the websites I'm talking about) will tend to read almost exclusively views that support their opinion, while the only dissenting voices that will be linked to are extremists, or when someone from the "other side" says something supremely stupid.

Essentially I think these websites are setting up strawmen from the "other side" while ignoring reasonable views that conflict with their world view. Probably a big part of the problem is that we humans by nature like conflict and drama. The most popular ratings come from people like Bill O'Reilly, Rosie O'Donnell, Rush Limbaugh and other ideologues. We ignore reasonable voices because we prefer to be exposed to easily refuted extreme positions.

Any opinions? Do you agree with the linked article? Do you think this is unique to the internet, or at least exacerbated by it?

 

[Braznor]

Birds of the same feather flock together. This phenomenon manifests in a different way in our times.

It should now read : Nerds of the same feather neff together.

 

[Jeff7]

It sounds like an online version of gerrymandering.

 

[GenHoth]

Originally posted by: Jeff7
It sounds like an online version of gerrymandering.

sort of, this has been happening ever since the information age. All of the new news channels and radio stations mean you don't have to listen to people who challenge your views. Just flip to your favorite station and hear them agree with you all day long. It isn't good, people are no longer able to see both sides and aren't using their reasoning muscles enough.

 

[Train]

I dont think the existence of extreme websites implies that people are becoming more polarized. Just because those sites are out there doesnt mean everyone on the internet is reading one or another. Mainstream news sites still dominate the vast majority of eyeballs getting thier news online.

Extremism, close mindedness, demonizing opposing figureheads, and a resistance to differing viewpoints... all existed long before the internet.

 

[ProfJohn]

Don't forget the cyber bullying, you see it on P&N all the time.

Someone posts something and a bunch of people attack that person for their views.
It turns into mob rule which is why P&N is very liberal, many of the conservatives got tired of the bashing and moved on or just don't post as much.

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

I agree with you ProfJohn. The anonymity of the internet seems to have opened the door for severe ad hominem attacks. People are now more than willing to attack a messenger right to his or her face, instead of dealing with the issue. I have noticed that you yourself seem to be a lightening rod for ad hominem attacks, and even though I don't agree with much of what you say I think it's aweful the way people seem to attack your personality instead of your (often well thought out and well sourced) posts. I don't agree that P&N is overwhelmingly liberal. In my experience the place has a diverse mix of opinions and while liberals may outnumbers conservatives here, it's not by much. Having said that, the liberals on this board seem to be much more willing to engage in personal attacks, but that's not to say it doesn't happen from both sides.

 

[Train]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Don't forget the cyber bullying, you see it on P&N all the time.

Someone posts something and a bunch of people attack that person for their views.
It turns into mob rule which is why P&N is very liberal, many of the conservatives got tired of the bashing and moved on or just don't post as much.

I posted about that a few years ago, pointing out that logic never wins in a thread, majority opinion does. It doesnt matter if you are 100% right on something, if your alone against 10 people who dont agree, they will just flame you away. Hence the reason all the best conservative posters here left this dump long ago. I dont come around much anymore, but it seems the decent liberal posters stopped coming around too, maybe they got tired of not having any decent debates anymore. Now whenever I stop by it just looks like a contest to see who can keep the most propaganda on the 1st page of threads.

 

[Craig234]

In my view the intrernet is outstanding for democracy, the best thing for democracy in decades, with the increased access to information, ease of publishing and interaction.

 

[OokiiNeko]

We ignore reasonable voices because we prefer to be exposed to easily refuted extreme positions.

And who will judge for me what is reasonable and what is not?

I dont think the existence of extreme websites

Is there a master list of "extreme" websites that all of us have agreed on?

Don't forget the cyber bullying, you see it on P&N all the time.

While I agree that there is cyber-bullying, there is also cyber-confusion, cyber-distraction, cyber-misdirection, cyber-obfusication; thankfully there is also cyber-youarefullofshitandIcanproveit-tion

It turns into mob rule which is why P&N is very liberal, many of the conservatives got tired of the bashing and moved on or just don't post as much.

It was "mob rule" on here which said Iraq was an imminent threat.

It was "mob rule" on here which said the war would be a cakewalk.

Do you consider those liberal or conservative views?

 

[cliftonite]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Don't forget the cyber bullying, you see it on P&N all the time.

Someone posts something and a bunch of people attack that person for their views.
It turns into mob rule which is why P&N is very liberal, many of the conservatives got tired of the bashing and moved on or just don't post as much.

When will you join?

 

[Pabster]

Come on guys. Bullying? :laugh:

Sure the board is full of liberals. All internet forums are. Present a few facts and they'll run away with their tails between their legs.

As for the Internet, it's great for Democracy. More voices are being heard and that's a good thing.

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Don't forget the cyber bullying, you see it on P&N all the time.

Someone posts something and a bunch of people attack that person for their views.

It turns into mob rule which is why P&N is very liberal, many of the conservatives got tired of the bashing and moved on or just don't post as much.

Yeah right :roll:

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: Craig234
In my view the intrernet is outstanding for democracy, the best thing for democracy in decades, with the increased access to information, ease of publishing and interaction.

I disagree.

I'm sure if there was no Internet there is no way Bush would've been re-elected.

Brainwashing via Internet has proven to be very powerful.

Only because so many of the lowly people of the U.S. have been negatively affected is there a push back starting to show.

Next November will be the ultimate showing of how many people have been affected Vs successful brainwashing.

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: Pabster
Come on guys. Bullying? :laugh:

Sure the board is full of liberals. All internet forums are. Present a few facts and they'll run away with their tails between their legs.

As for the Internet, it's great for Democracy. More voices are being heard and that's a good thing.

I don't know, I can't help but noticing the only people acting like obnoxious twats in THIS particular thread are conservatives.

And actually, I think P&N is becoming more and more conservative, there are way more conservatives posting than there used to be. But honestly, I prefer the old days when there were just a few GOOD conservative posters. Now it's like an influx of people bored with the circle jerk on FreeRepublic, and quantity is NOT a good replacement for quality.

But I actually blame the folks who left more than anyone else. The problem with political discussion in general, whether on the Internet or somewhere else, is that the loud idiots tend to dominate the discussion and a lot of the people who actually want to have a discussion aren't willing to put forth the effort necessary to HAVE one. The loud idiots will always be loud idiots, but just letting them win isn't helpful. In the first place, it makes having real policy discussions almost impossible, so you're not going to change anyone's mind. And in the second place, most of the discussion is so biased and partisan and nasty that it pushes people farther and farther towards the extremes. For the most part, conservative posters on P&N are so annoying you guys make me want to vote for the communist party in the next election...and I'm equally positive the same goes the other way too. And I in no way exclude myself from that problem, I find myself getting less and less interested in reasonable discussion and more and more interested in scoring political points.

Honestly? I don't think the Internet is bad for democracy, I think human nature is bad for democracy, the Internet is just a more convenient outlet for it.

 

[BoberFett]

Originally posted by: Pabster
Come on guys. Bullying? :laugh:

Sure the board is full of liberals. All internet forums are. Present a few facts and they'll run away with their tails between their legs.

As for the Internet, it's great for Democracy. More voices are being heard and that's a good thing.

If facts scared people away, you'd have been gone long ago.

 

[SirStev0]

Originally posted by: GodlessAstronomer
Found this article an interesting read
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sect...=280&objectid=10483789

...
We are creating what Professor Sunstein calls our own "echo chambers" where we are listening only to what we want to hear. That is one big honking problem.

Both the beauty and the bane of this internet beast is that this new way of customising our political discourse not only gives us more choices than we can handle, but it also gives us more ability to ignore perspectives we don't like. Today on the web, conservatives are only talking to conservatives and liberals to liberals, like dittoheads isolated in thousands of individual information cocoons....

This probably doesn't apply to many P&N users, but I think it does apply to internet users in general. In particular, users of hard-line left wing and right wing blogs/websites (I won't name any names, but you know the websites I'm talking about) will tend to read almost exclusively views that support their opinion, while the only dissenting voices that will be linked to are extremists, or when someone from the "other side" says something supremely stupid.

Essentially I think these websites are setting up strawmen from the "other side" while ignoring reasonable views that conflict with their world view. Probably a big part of the problem is that we humans by nature like conflict and drama. The most popular ratings come from people like Bill O'Reilly, Rosie O'Donnell, Rush Limbaugh and other ideologues. We ignore reasonable voices because we prefer to be exposed to easily refuted extreme positions.

Any opinions? Do you agree with the linked article? Do you think this is unique to the internet, or at least exacerbated by it?

Bullshit... people have been doing this since the dawn of man million of years ago when the world was inhabited by apes and christmas sucked. The internet doesn't do anything other then act as a tool.

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: Craig234
In my view the intrernet is outstanding for democracy, the best thing for democracy in decades, with the increased access to information, ease of publishing and interaction.

I disagree.

I'm sure if there was no Internet there is no way Bush would've been re-elected.

Brainwashing via Internet has proven to be very powerful.

Only because so many of the lowly people of the U.S. have been negatively affected is there a push back starting to show.

Next November will be the ultimate showing of how many people have been affected Vs successful brainwashing.

Well, we do disagree. For one thing, I think the internet helped the opposition to Bush. They thought they had the system under control - money = public opinion control - but many liberal web sites took off because of the strong opposition to Bush, and informed people of issues against him.

Sure, there were righty web sites - who I think had readers who were already locked into the right.

The internet helps there be some interaction between the two sides, and the left wins generally when there is.

Even though part of the internet is indeed another medium by which propaganda can be spread, I think the plusses are bigger. I've never seen the public more informed and aware for an election than they are today, IMO. Myths are more quickly debunked than they were before - but that's forgotten, once they're debunked.

Do you have any credible analysis that backs up the position that the internet caused Bush's election in 2004? That's the first I have heard that theory.

 

[Jaskalas]

Originally posted by: GodlessAstronomer
We are creating what Professor Sunstein calls our own "echo chambers" where we are listening only to what we want to hear. That is one big honking problem.

While true of a great many people, I dare say I do not visit P&N expecting to hear what I want.

 

[Jaskalas]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Don't forget the cyber bullying, you see it on P&N all the time.

Someone posts something and a bunch of people attack that person for their views.
It turns into mob rule which is why P&N is very liberal, many of the conservatives got tired of the bashing and moved on or just don't post as much.

Come now, the Mods do appear to play fair. We are given our voice and not denied it. Is that not enough? One would expect to walk into the lion?s den in a forum of youths.

 

[Obsoleet]

The internet is of course great for democracy. It's all about personal choice. You have the ability to get any information you want.

Of course there's a portion of the population who are no better off with the internets than they were with 3 network television channels.

Some people are going to accept the steaming pile of doo served to them forever, they feel comfortable that way, it's the mainstream way of life, never question authority.

A large portion of people though use the internet to research everything. I can visit and read about jihad from every point of view imaginable, I can read about marxism, I can read historical accounts of events that I would not have access to even at my local library.

#The people that think can see the value of the net. To engage in the open forum of ideas -worldwide- which was never before possible

#People who see it as another brainwash tool, are merely tools in the system themselves.

The world might have both types but I'm not sure unless you are trying to become the next Hitler, Stalin or Bush that we need any more of the latter.

 

[Vic]

It's not bad for democracy, it IS democracy. Put enough people in a room, and soon enough they'll lump up into groups and start agreeing with and fighting against each other solely on the basis of group affiliation. Observing this basic animal interaction is one of the things I come here for. It's fascinating to see that no amount of technology and communication can lift most human minds above fighting over their gods, and "The Others" across the river.

 

[Pabster]

The Internet provides us the opportunity to expose the left-wing nuts who operate and propagate all the garbage on the networks and mainstream media.

If not for the rise of alternative media, people like Dan Rather would have gotten away with their bullshit.

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: Pabster
The Internet provides us the opportunity to expose the right-wing nuts who operate and propagate all the garbage on the networks and mainstream media.

If not for the rise of alternative media, the countless right-wing propagandists would have gotten away with their bullshit.

Corrected.

Thousands of pieces of evidence that Pabster's version is wrong:

Media Matters

 

[Vic]

Heh. 2 perfect examples in only 2 posts.

You hacks could argue forever. You're both right which is why you're both wrong, and always will be.