While reading The 'Spiral of Silence,' I began to think about how I don't see a lot of opposing views on my feeds because of the search algorithms that exist online to cater to our interests. Lo and behold, the article goes on to mention the algorithms in question and effectively taking my idea of what to write about. I decided to do it anyway.
Right now we are in the midst of political turmoil, and social media has exploded in attacking both sides of the candidacy (both, because who cares about Johnson and who even is Jill Stein?). The other day I found myself thinking about how my Twitter feed is only full of Trump hate and constant Hillary support, because I consider myself to be very moderate in this specific election. It took me a while to realize that before the full weight of both the candidates fell upon me, I was largely democratic. Most if not all of my friends are democratic, and my feeds reflect my friendships and ideals, whether I think I have them or not.
So, I haven't fought with anyone. I'm not looking to fight, but for the most part everything I see online is agreeable. From my perspective, everyone hates Trump and is pretty okay with Hillary, so I have no reason to attack anyone or argue any points. I stay silent and retweet funny posts. It only occurs to me that Hillary is also being attacked when the occasional odd duck slips through the algorithm and upsets my pre-determined peace. I don't lash out because of the fear of surveillance, but rather the comforting thought (because of my feeds) that they are the strange one for disagreeing with the collective's views and that if we ignore them, they'll go away. More often than not, they do, or so we see.
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