Facebook is taking a hard look at the impact it has on the democratic process after announcing it could no longer guarantee that social media is beneficial to democracy. One critique of social media is the ability to create echo chambers — online spaces that only surround users with like-minded people and ideas. There’s another phenomenon at work: “group polarization” which says that when you are in an echo chamber, you can become more extreme and intolerant. Harvard professor Cass Sunstein studies this effect in his new book #Republic: Divided Democracy in the Age of Social Media. He sits down with Soledad O’Brien to discuss the pros and cons of social media and why the ability to filter out opposing views is a threat to our democracy.
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