Tag
social media
Entries tagged with social media - exploring this theme across cognitive biases, logical fallacies, mental models, and more.
32 concepts
Ad Hominem
Attacking the person making the argument instead of the argument itself.
Manipulation TacticAstroturfing
Creating the appearance of widespread grassroots support for a position when the support is manufactured, funded, or coordinated from above.
Cognitive BiasBandwagon Effect
The tendency to adopt beliefs, behaviours, or trends because other people are doing so.
Psychological PhenomenonCompassion Fatigue
When constant exposure to suffering erodes your ability to care, not because you're heartless but because you're human.
Manipulation TacticConcern Trolling
Disguising hostile opposition as caring advice to undermine a cause from within.
Cognitive BiasConfirmation Bias
We seek out information that supports what we already believe, and ignore what doesn't.
Psychological PhenomenonDiffusion of Responsibility
The tendency to feel less personally responsible for taking action when others are present.
Manipulation TacticDog Whistling
Using coded language that sounds innocent to most people but carries a hidden message to a specific audience.
Cognitive BiasDunning-Kruger Effect
The less you know about something, the more confident you're likely to feel about it.
Systems ThinkingEmergence
Complex behaviours arising from simple rules, with no central plan or control.
Cognitive BiasFalse Consensus Effect
We tend to assume that most people think the way we do - and we're usually wrong.
Systems ThinkingFeedback Loops
When the output of a system feeds back in as input, either amplifying or dampening the original effect.
Manipulation TacticFirehose of Falsehood
Overwhelming audiences with a rapid, continuous flood of disinformation so that truth becomes impossible to defend.
Mental ModelHanlon's Razor
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by ignorance, carelessness, or incompetence.
Psychological PhenomenonIllusory Truth Effect
Repeat something often enough and people start to believe it - not because it's true, but because it's familiar.
Cognitive BiasIn-Group/Out-Group Bias
The tendency to favour people in your own group and view those outside it with suspicion, distrust, or hostility.
Cognitive BiasMere Exposure Effect
The tendency to develop a preference for things simply because you've encountered them before.
Psychological DefenceMoral Hypocrisy
Judging others by a stricter moral standard than the one you apply to yourself.
Cognitive BiasNegativity Bias
The tendency for negative experiences, information, and emotions to affect us more strongly than positive ones.
Systems ThinkingNetwork Effects
When a product, platform, or system becomes more valuable to each user as more people use it - creating powerful winner-take-all dynamics.
Rhetorical DeviceRepetition as Persuasion
The rhetorical strategy of making a claim more believable, more familiar, and more powerful simply by saying it again and again.
Manipulation TacticSealioning
Disguising harassment as polite, persistent requests for evidence and debate that are never made in good faith.
Psychological PhenomenonSocial Proof
We look at what other people are doing to decide what we should do - especially when we're uncertain.
Manipulation TacticSource Laundering
Passing unreliable information through a chain of increasingly credible-looking sources until it appears legitimate.
Political TheorySpiral of Silence
The tendency for people to stay silent when they believe their opinion is in the minority, causing that opinion to seem even rarer than it is.
Logical FallacyStraw Man
Misrepresenting someone's argument to make it easier to attack.
Psychological PhenomenonStreisand Effect
When attempting to suppress, censor, or hide information backfires by drawing far more attention to it than it would have received otherwise.
Cultural InfluenceThe Attention Economy
A system in which human attention is treated as a scarce resource to be harvested, bought, sold, and competed for - reshaping culture around it.
Cultural InfluenceThe Spectacle
When life is experienced through images and representations rather than lived directly.
Manipulation TacticTone Policing
Dismissing someone's argument by criticising how they expressed it rather than engaging with what they said.
Manipulation TacticWeaponised Hopelessness
When despair is deliberately cultivated to stop people from acting - because people who believe nothing can change won't try to change anything.
Manipulation TacticWhataboutism
Responding to a criticism by pointing to someone else's wrongdoing instead of addressing the original point.