The danger of social media to society – creation and promotion of ‘eco chambers’

Echo chambers and influence

Echo chambers are narratives, perspectives or lines of thinking that are shared by a group of influential, dominant or powerful people. Echo chambers are transmitted over a variety of media channels, most importantly today, over social media or traditional media. Transmitters of echo chambers do so with the express intent to shape, frame or influence the thinking of others.

Social media like Facebook, X, Reddit and LinkedIn intentionally or inadvertently create ‘echo chambers’ to promote and dominate a discourse among members of society. They do this by influencing and exerting power of a group of few individuals, hence coercing others to submit to that view.

This may be against their will or for fear of being ridiculed or negatively judged for holding alternative views or perspectives by those who are victims or on the receiving end of an echo chamber.

A threat that echo chambers pose to society is that they undermine the inherent freedoms that citizens have, especially those who have no influence or power on their fellow citizens.

The creation and perpetuation of echo chambers goes against the principle of creating an equal society, where the views of everyone — irrespective of power or influence — are taken along in an open platform of freedom of expression.

Those who peddle misinformation, disinformation, mal-information, fake news, deep-fake and hate speech create these echo chambers to detract society’s attention away from truth by using their influence and power.

Power, influence and dominance of any space, be it social media or digital, create a fertile ground for echo chambers to thrive. This flies in the face of the principles of creating equilibrium within society.

There is no doubt that social media like Facebook, X, Reddit and LinkedIn create slanted narratives, perspectives or lines of thinking that are shared by a group of influential, dominant or powerful citizens.

Eco chambers are created for the pursuit of narrow interests by those who communicate them with the thinking that they dominate and control the social media and digital spaces.

An equal society is one that enjoys its freedoms to access, use and respond to content created on the conventional media, social media and digital spaces.

It is a society that is against the use of domination, power and influence of social media and digital spaces by others within society, who feel they need to dominate the space at the expense of other users. If allowed, echo chambers endeavor to turn others into passive voices.