Re: Misinfo & Social Media Bubbles

The idea of adding friction is a good one. It came up in the UX of credibility subgroup of CredCo, where it was observed that designing the interface to make it extremely easy to share content makes users more likely to share misinformation. There have been several publications in the UX literature about that (e.g., https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2851581.2892410 <https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2851581.2892410>).
-Annette

> On Sep 27, 2021, at 10:27 AM, Owen Ambur <Owen.Ambur@verizon.net> wrote:
> 
> This article <https://thefulcrum.us/big-picture/Media/facebook-algorithm> by Filippo Menczer of The Fulcrum was reprinted in our local newspaper, under the title "How we fall for misinformation through social media bubbles."  It references "complex contagion," which figures prominently in Damon Centola's book entitled Change: How to Make Big Things Happen.
> 
> Menczer suggests one approach to address the problem is to "add friction ... to slow down the process of spreading information."  
> 
> That calls to mind not only Daniel Kahneman's distinction between fast and slow thinking <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow> but also Donald Norman's assertion <http://ambur.net/smart.pdf> that the greatest peril is that of “experiencing when one should be reflecting ... where entertainment takes precedence over thought.”
> 
> Among the strategies posed by Centola are:
> 
> Don't rely on contagiousness
> Use the network periphery
> Design team networks to improve discovery and reduce bias
> It will be interesting to see what this group may decide to try to do together along those lines.
> 
> In the meantime, The Fulcrum's about statement is now available in StratML format at https://stratml.us/drybridge/index.htm#FLCRM <https://stratml.us/drybridge/index.htm#FLCRM>  Their tag line is "Leveraging Our Differences".
> 
> My 2.0 rewrite of the Serenity  Prayer is available on LinkedIn <https://www.linkedin.com/posts/owenambur_when-i-first-posted-my-20-rendition-of-the-activity-6846603303095156736-ftIg>.
> 
> Owen
> 

Received on Tuesday, 28 September 2021 00:17:51 UTC