Seems important —

"Concern for U.S. #democracy amid deep national #polarization has prompted the entities supporting 13 presidential libraries... to call for a recommitment to the country’s bedrock principles, including the #RuleOfLaw and respecting a #diversity of #beliefs."
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/13-presidential-libraries-from-hoover-to-obama-warn-of-fragile-state-of-u-s-democracy

"The... message emphasized #debate and #disagreement as a central feature of a 'healthy democracy,' while noting '#civility and #respect... are essential.”
https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/4192168-13-presidential-centers-unify-in-call-for-civility-protection-of-democracy/ #Jan6 #politics

@georgetakei Sorry.

One-dimensional #USA #News & #Journalists SEVERAL YEARS too late:

① #Musk the national #Security threat🔴https://mastodon.social/@B2Spirit_TT/110934672148138872

② #Censorship, #Polarization & Fake “#FreeSpeech” on #X🔴P❸https://rb.gy/0efmc

P❶, ❷, etc.🔴https://rb.gy/vxw6l

③ Appeasing #China + Fomenting Chaos for #Russia🔴https://bit.ly/3CVMHcD

④ #Starlink & #Putin vs #Ukraine & #Pentagon🔴https://rb.gy/7fobv

⑤ #Tesla, Starlink, #Twitter & #ElonMusk's shady #Politics🔴https://bit.ly/3dHyTX5 ▼

NeMiG is a bilingual (en/de) news #dataset on the topic of #migration, which can be used, among others, to conduct controlled experiments on #polarization by news #recommendersystems. https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.00550 Joint work in the #ReNewRS project w/
@dwsunima @fizise
@kitkarlsruhe
via HeikoPaulheim@twitter
#knowledgegraph #recsys

Disinformation researchers targets of conservative culture warriors, ironically chilling free speech as they purport to defend it :-(

“These academics studied falsehoods spread by Trump. Now the GOP wants answers.” (Washington Post, 6 June 2023)
https://wapo.st/44SjwTL #GiftLink

#ConCW #MediaLit #MediaLiteracy #polarization #politics #edtechSR

Zimmer asks when precisely that golden era of free speech for which centrists hanker for us to return was in place. He answers:

"Unless we are talking about wealthy white Christian men only, it makes little sense to construct a version of U.S. history in which previous eras were characterized by greater freedom while the very recent past has been marked by a loss of free speech."

#nostalgia #polarization #CiivilRights #minorities #patriarchy #MaleEntitlement #heterosexism
/3

"The frequently invoked 'consensus' of the post-World War II era, for instance, was depending on both major parties agreeing that white patriarchal rule would remain largely untouched. …

"It wasn’t a coincidence that 'polarization' started when one party broke with the white elite consensus and supported – albeit reluctantly – the civil rights revolution of the 1960s."

#nostalgia #polarization #CiivilRights #minorities #patriarchy #MaleEntitlement #heterosexism
/2

What's wrong with the lament of many centrists that our political life has become so "polarized" and was not polarized in a mythical golden age in the past?

Thomas Zimmer states,

"Political 'consensus,' to the extent it ever existed, was usually confined to white male elites and based on a cross-partisan accord to leave a discriminatory social order intact and deny marginalized groups equal representation and civil rights."

#nostalgia #polarization
/1

https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/the-triumph-of-weaponized-nostalgia

@ErikUden

① We were documenting #Musk lies & fakery long B4 I got here🔴https://mastodon.social/@B2Spirit_TT/110934672148138872

② Sample:

#Censorship & #Polarization On “#FreeSpeech” Poseur #ElonMusk's Twitter P❸https://rb.gy/0efmc

P❶, ❷, etc.🔴https://rb.gy/vxw6l

③ #Mastodon is no angel either🔴https://rb.gy/2r4vk

④ Easy to ASSUME Mastodon is kosher 4 all⭕https://social.vivaldi.net/@B2Spirit/110976344636484075

YET

⑤ The #Fediverse won't make #X irrelevant till #Developers get WHY pros need #Twitter for #Research+🟥https://rb.gy/1j0qe ▼

only thing republicans care about is democrats and only thing dems care about is republicans.
#polarization #collectivism #authoritarianism #bothsidessuck

Following Elon Musk’s lead, Big Tech is surrendering to disinformation by #WashingtonPost #GiftLink https://wapo.st/3EbFvdb

#edtechSR #ConCW #MediaLit #MediaLiteracy #politics #polarization

#SocialMedia #Algorithms #AlgorithmicAmplification #Polarization: "Today, the Knight Institute is publishing the first essays from our April 2023 symposium, “Optimizing for What? Algorithmic Amplification and Society.” The symposium was the product of a year-long collaboration with Arvind Narayanan, the Institute’s 2022-23 Visiting Senior Research Scientist and a Professor of computer science at Princeton, where he also directs the Center for Information Technology Policy.

We wanted to study algorithmic amplification in depth because almost every kind of speech and discourse online is now hosted on algorithmic platforms designed to optimize for engagement."

https://knightcolumbia.org/blog/exploring-algorithmic-amplification-a-new-essay-series

Republicans have seemed to make peace
The anonymous chats offer some least
The polarization they've toned
But Democrats are still prone
To keep topics politically leaning East

#politics #polarization #anonymouschats #republicans #democrats #limerick #poetry

https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/08/anonymous-online-conversations-can-cut-political-polarization/

The Constructive Dialogue Institute's online "Perspectives" education program seems to have produced small to medium reductions in (self-rated) #polarization scores and increases in (self-rated) humility scores, including in longitudinal randomized controlled trials with government workers and students.

Submitted paper: https://constructivedialogue.org/articles/the-online-educational-program-perspectives-reduces-affective-polarization-and-increases-intellectual-humility 

In press at Journal of Social and Political Psychology: https://doi.org/10.5964/jspp.10651 

Materials: https://doi.org/10.23668/psycharchives.13036

#edu #conflict #openAccess

#Political #polarization toned down through #anonymous online chats | Ars Technica
#perspective #politics #tribalpolitics

https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/08/anonymous-online-conversations-can-cut-political-polarization/

Study finds that #socialmedia #algorithms amplify the PRIME information (prestigious, in-group, moral, and emotional), effectively used during the evolution of humans, but now leading to false #polarization and spread of #misinformation.
https://theconversation.com/social-media-algorithms-warp-how-people-learn-from-each-other-research-shows-211172

We Went To a Trump Rally: What We Heard Will Shock You

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCyZHB7NdPE

Donald Trump voters told us why #billionaires have too much #power. We visited a Trump rally in search of an honest conversation with Donald Trump's supporters ...

#polarization #unity #manipulation #honestconversation #workingclass #classwar

An Iowa school district is using ChatGPT to decide which books to ban by #ArsTechnica https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/08/an-iowa-school-district-is-using-chatgpt-to-decide-which-books-to-ban/

#edtechSR #ConCW #education #CultureWar #polarization #politics

New in Advance Articles in Communist and Post-Communist Studies:

Lukashenka’s Constitutional Plebiscite and the Polarization of Belarusian Society

by Fabian Burkhardt & Jan Matti Dollbaum

#Belarus #autocracies #protest #polarization

https://online.ucpress.edu/cpcs/article/doi/10.1525/cpcs.2023.1990500/196997/Lukashenka-s-Constitutional-Plebiscite-and-the

“We live, in fact, in a world starved for solitude, silence, and private: and therefore starved for meditation and true friendship.” ~ C.S. Lewis
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02425-8
- adjusting algorithmic feeds on social media not a whole solution needed to reduce social polarization
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/19/technology/gop-disinformation-researchers-2024-election.html
- researchers and social media companies investigating disinformation hit with lawsuit from GOP
#socialmedia #politics #democracy #polarization #disinformation #algorithms #content #influence #news

[PODCAST] “Can Tech Save Democracy?”

https://www.openweb.com/podcast/the-intersection-between-governance-and-tech-with-rose-jackson/

Interview with Democracy + Tech Initiative director Rose Jackson discussing trust & safety, supporting democracy and human rights online

#ConCW #democracy #civics #MediaLit #politics #polarization #edtechSR #HumanRights