Is Facebook Making Us Racist?

Originally posted on Medium

The Internet, in all it’s wonderful, time-wasting, often asinine glory, was created as a place to connect, share knowledge and become exposed to new ways of thinking. And, for the most part, it has overwhelmingly achieved this.

However, something bad is happening. Social networks undisputedly drive the zeitgeist. And, each time Twitter and Instagram flirt with releasing algorithmic timelines, akin to Facebook, there’s uproar from loyal users; which is largely played down in the media as a dislike for change. But, what if this trend towards behaviour-based delivery of information is creating a worrying outcome? What if there’s merit in the resistance?

Back in 2008, soon after Facebook hit the mainstream, I was a fresh faced 19-year-old travelling the world. It was an incredible time in my life for the lessons and experiences it gave me and the interactions I would never have had in my small village in the UK — and most of the conversations involved the question, “Are you on Facebook?”

This meant during my 9 months on the road I added friends from all walks of life (many of whom remain on my friends list). In the early days, before algorithmic timelines, this was great. Even after returning from my adventure, I had a stream of new posts portraying a plethora of cultures, beliefs and viewpoints which kept me questioning my stance on topics.

Now, due to the content I’ve interacted with in the past, the window into that world is much narrower and I’m exposed to a lot less variety of posts, from a dwindling number of different people. This isn’t just nostalgia inducing. At scale, it creates a one of the most destructive human conditions possible — ignorance.

The rise of extremism, the decline of enlightenment

All across the world countries are at pivotal moments in their histories, such as the EU referendum, US presidential elections and the Eurasian refugee crisis, to name just a few. The rise to prominence of far-right politics, in the form of Donald Trump, UKIP, Golden Dawn et al, and extremists groups like ISIS and Boko Haram, are incredibly disturbing signs of the times and I believe social networks, particularly the way they show content to their users, have been major catalysts in this change.

It’s great to see so many of my friends are liberal, ecologically minded folks like me. But, this has to be taken with a pinch of salt as the posts I’m being exposed to are largely a result of the posts I’ve interacted with and pages I follow. The same is true for my friends who are centre-right leaning.

The net result is we only get exposed to ideology we already agree with and reinforces in our minds “that’s how everyone feels about X”. Sadly, it creates an echo chamber and means we lose the opportunity to learn something new and challenge our own beliefs.

Ignorance breeds fear, fear breeds hate and hate begets hate. Would so many people be so openly anti-islam or anti-immigration if they weren’t repeatedly exposed to a newsfeed which validates that viewpoint?

The title of this post may be hyperbolic but, it raises the question, is using Facebook regularly making us closed minded?

I’m by no means claiming this as my own revelation. It’s been raised many times before, and far more eloquently. For example, here during Eli Pariser's Ted Talk.