Every citizen of the 21st century lives a life surrounded by the internet and technology. It is not unfamiliar for us to open a video on YouTube and hear the greeting (“Welcome back to my channel”) from the YouTuber, to click on the “retweet” or “like” bottom to express agreements, or to read an article about social network on New Yorker or any other press.
Through posting their ideas on social network platforms, individuals can produce feedback loops, and their ideals are also reinforced by feedback loops. Meanwhile, the producers of opinions are empowered by the feedback loops, as his posts, his outfits, his lifestyle might influence people who are engaged in the feedback loops. In the social network, sometimes bad ideas can become even worse, good ideas can become even better. These facts resonate with Le Bon's (2009, p.26) statement that “the sentiments and ideas of all the persons in the gathering take one and the same direction, and their conscious personality vanishes”. Feedback loops can accelerate the process of formulation of a collective mind, which eventually presented a very clearly defined characteristic. As feedback loops can reinforce a particular side of the opinion, it can make one opinion seems very persuasive for new participants of the feedback loops. Meanwhile, participants with a different opinion will worry about the possible attack led by their disagreements. It is true that when people start to join communication on the internet, they find it is safer to avoid presenting disagreements and discussing controversial topics.
People are dexterous when they decide to present others with limited opinions, evidence, and materials. Feedback loops attract people who are like-minded and proliferate people with the same ideas. Although there are undoubtedly some people welcome others with counter ideas to freely participate in their feedback loops, there are more people who decide not to understand the world with its full complexity and integrity. Usually, it is not only the bloggers who post his idea on the social network want to set the limitation but also their followers and proponents decide to voluntarily combat the disagreements. Consequently, here comes a technique called “controlling comments(控评)”, a method used by people with the same opinions to marginalize and exclude opinions that come from the other side. “Controlling comments” functions as a filter to prevent people who might see this post from seeing a particular side of opinions. Of course, there are a variety of ways to control the comments. For producers of the feedback loops, the simplest way to do it is to shut down the comment area. A more sophisticated way to do it is to select the comments you favored and put them at the beginning of the comment area. In Weibo, bloggers enjoy the right to highlight their favorable comments in the comment area. Also, they can deliberately delete the comment voice unfavorable opinions. Another way to achieve the aim is to hire some social network experts to deal with unfavorable voices, such as hiring spammers.
Besides there are several ways of controlling comments for bloggers and producers, there are ways for fans, followers and manic proponents to control comments as well. The most prevalent way they use is to occupy the comment area of a post by posting as much as possible comments with pictures, emojis to support their idols or network celebrities. The proponents and fans try to comment and “like” the positive comments to make these positive comments become the popular comments. In this way, the atmosphere and the inclination of the comment area are controlled by the proponents and fans. Sometimes, even the comment area of an opponent will be occupied by these manic followers. Moreover, proponents may keep sending messages to bother opponents until opponents decide to delete their disagreements in the comment areas. These ways to control comments are vastly used among people who actively participate in social networks, especially people who are engaged in fandom. Under this context, “Like” is not an expression of appreciation but is more similar to a declaration of loyalty for a celebrity, a blogger, or anything else. Followers compose an army that punishes and expel people with disagreement in every feedback loop. These followers and fans even have weekly task of controlling comments. Here is an example of a group of fans analyze the outcomes and data of their weekly tasks.
Therefore, “controlling comment” undoubtedly plays a role in promoting internet surveillance and self-censorship. The manic fans and proponents frequently search the key words on every social platforms to criticize people with different ideas. When you decide to post something on social platforms, it is necessary and helpful to conduct self-censorship first to avoid irritating people with other opinions. No one wants to make a bunch of people invade your area to criticize your ideas which you just randomly post on the internet. Hedging also becomes a very useful and helpful tool when you participate in network communication. Admittedly, the internet is never a utopia free from surveillance and censorship.
There is a dilemma between making feedback loops include more ideas and the fact that feedback loop is limited and constrained. I strongly feel more efforts and time are needed to make feedback loops create freedom and inclusiveness on social network platforms.
Reference
Le, Bon, Gustave. (2009). Crowd : A Study of the Popular Mind. The Floating Press.
Hi!
ReplyDeleteThanks for your post! It is true that when people start to join communication on the internet, they find it is safer to avoid presenting disagreements and discussing controversial topics. The more likely participate in the fan group or feedback loops of the person they follow. I have also seen what you mean about proponents keep sending messages to bother opponents until opponents decide to delete their disagreements in the comment areas. I have seen this with especially the celebrities or “verified” people I follow on Instagram. When I read the comments of these celebrities I notice that people “troll” their comments quite often. Yet, their fans and people in the feedback loop troll the “haters” out by attacking them on a reply of their comment. For example, Nicole Polizzi AKA Snooki, posted a picture of herself and a few people commented about her lip fillers. Her fans attack the perpetrators back in ways such as “ you found this necessary because…. “ or “your racism is showing” or “stop telling her how to live her life.. she don’t care ab y’alls opinion she’s living her best life”. The fans are in the feedback loop of loving Snooki no matter what someone says and are ready to support her no matter what. This reminds me about the Generation Like because it is up to the fans to market their fandoms and the more the fans like something, the more it becomes shared and promoted in that feedback loop. This results in targeting more and more of a fan-base and inadvertently, a larger marketing-base as well for those who are fans (in this case) of all things Snooki”.
The principle of ‘feedback loops’ illustrates how opinions become intensely polarized around the two options of “like” and “not like”. It is unsurprising that those with the technical know-how and/or financial means try to control and even censor the intensifying opinions to their advantage.
ReplyDeleteRecently, opinions on my “Nextdoor” app -a platform for neighborhood news that requires participants to use their real names and some use presumably real pictures of themselves- exploded on the issue of dog owners walking their dogs unleashed in the local park which violates park ordinance. Within a few hours, over a hundred neighbors had written comments and commented on comments. The opinions spun so virulently out of control that they were taken down by the app moderator. Yet, just within a few hours, L. R. (I am not using full names in my post to protect neighbors’ privacy) inquired “Where is the thread? What did I miss?” and D.A. answered “They took it down. Obviously that person is mentally unwell.” This comment on a person’s mental started the whole cycle once again. This time the poles divided on the issue whether it is permissible to comment on a person’s mental state. So far, this thread has not been taken down yet and neighbors are still commenting, and liking or not liking each other’s posts in exhausting fashion. Despite the fact that users of this app can potentially meet in “real life” as they walk their dogs, go food shopping or take the train, it is astonishing to me on the one hand how quickly the online conversation progressed into emotional outrage. On the other hand, it would be easy to quickly point to similar -and worse- examples from our analog reality. Centuries of warfare being a prime example.
So, the most productive way to approach this problem seems to me -as Rymes suggests in chapter 4- to evaluate the ways in which digital and social media give voice to less heard voices and disrupt hegemonic discourses. And just like “Generation like” is not left on their own in trying to figure out how to read and write in the traditional sense, they cannot be left flailing as they find their bearing in digital worlds.
Sorry! Not sure why my above post appears as "Anonymous". This is Claudia here.
Delete* mental state
DeleteHi Yueming!
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing the example of fans' controlling comments. Yes, I notice that this phonomenon is really common on Weibo and Instagram. Fans create extremely positive comments under their "idols" posts no matter what the post is talking about. Also, they have an app- stalking the stars' social media. Once the stars post, they are able to comment as soon as possible. It's like "first come, first served". The earlier you leave the comment, the more likes your comment will get. So that's how these positive comments become dominant under the post. People who are not their fans usually tell the truth (sometimes it's harsh). If you choose to view comments chronologically, you will see some "normal" comments. However, a large number of people don't view comments in chronological order on purpose, so they cannot know the two-sided opinions. It seems the crazy fans put up barriers that keep people isolated from other opinions, which is selfish and inappropraite behavior that it forces people to hear one-sided voice and may hinder audience to know the truth.
Thank you for sharing and for including the charts and screenshots! I find the comment controlling technique fascinating. In the Generation Like documentary, Rushkoff describes one of the social media managers as being an expert in psychology and I think that is absolutely accurate. It’s amazing how much the internet and social media amplify aspects of human psychology and those who understand humans on this level are most well equipped to make use of or exploit this understanding. Similarly, I wonder if it would be possible to take these insights and create a kind of social media vaccine. If we know humans respond more to negativity or are more likely to fall victim to algorithms and negative/positive feedback loops, how can we promote healthy skepticism as a vaccine against the darker aspects of being an online participator/citizen?
ReplyDeleteThanks for your post, Yueming! The case of Weibo that you described is so interesting to me. Your argument that a "like" isn't necessarily an expression of appreciation but more like a declaration of fan loyalty is very compelling, and it also reminded me of my experience with K-Pop music videos. I used to be very active in the K-Pop fandom back when I was in high school, and one of the ways for "international fans" like myself to "help" their favorite K-Pop idols was through constant music video streaming. There were certain methods that were devised and spread by fans to ensure that their repetitious views were all counted. The number of YouTube views had an actual, albeit minor, influence on weekly Korean music shows, which awarded the best/most popular song for any given week. I can't say I'm active in this fandom anymore, but I've heard that these video streaming practices have become even more emboldened and widespread. This makes me wonder - how can we know for sure that each YouTube viewing comes from one unique individual? If views demonstrate a media content's spread or popularity, how can we accurately measure them if we have these intense fandom practices where one individual is constantly viewing the same piece of content?
ReplyDeleteSo many good points coming up in this thread! Raising so many questions:
ReplyDeleteWhat speech act is a "like" accomplishing?
Is it an assessment ("I like that!")?
or a "declaration of loyalty",
or just "phatic" communication (I am here! I am participating!).
If a robot likes something because it has been programed to like it, does that mean it is meaningless?
If spammers are scaring away the negative comments, does that deflate the positivity of the positive comments?
(Does censorship automatically produce propaganda?)
I like Chloe's statement, "People are dexterous." I think the way people discover new ways to use these tools --even the algorithms that are supposed to circumvent the need for people--illustrates this point very well!