Collective behavior on the Internet is strikingly similar to a flock of birds

At dusk, a flock of starlings can fill part of the sky. The swarm does not fly in one direction, but rather moves in a vortex, becoming dense and sparse, as if there is some kind of rhythm. Rene Diresta reports on the information site NOEMA that it has been pointed out that the behavior is similar to the movement of this flock of starlings.

How Online Mobs Act Like Flocks Of Birds
https://www.noemamag.com/how-online-mobs-act-like-flocks-of-birds/

The undulating movement of a group of starlings is called 'Murmmuration' in biology. At this time, the starlings in the flock look at the seven birds near them and adjust their movements accordingly. Below is an example of marmalation.

Starling murmuration 2020 #Geldermalsen-YouTube


Computational biologists and computer scientists who study this swarm behavior describe what happens in marmalations as 'rapid transmission of local behavioral responses to their neighbors,' in which heterogeneous populations of organisms come together. Marmalations that move as a unit are called “collective action”.

In SNS, humans may cooperate, harass, or choose the majority opinion like cyber cascade . This can be said to be a local reaction that spreads to the surroundings.

The network structure determines how local reactions are transmitted. In the case of birds, as mentioned above, we match the movements of the seven birds around us, but on the Internet, people will match the content and other users. And since that content comes from news feeds mediated by algorithms, it can be said that the algorithm determines the surrounding seven birds, so to speak.

When SNS first appeared on the Internet, it was just a transfer of real human relationships to the Internet, and the number of people with connections was 150, the Dunbar number , which is said to be able to build stable relationships. It is thought that the number was less than the number of people. However, when the number of friends and followers is displayed on the profile and becomes 'the number that people evaluate', people will become friends not only with their own friends, but also with 'friends of acquaintances' and 'friends of friends'. did.

Eventually, people will run out of connections in the real world, but as a platform, in order to keep them on the site for a long time, we will provide people with new encounters that they have never met before, such as through a recommendation system. Now In addition, we will recommend participation in specific online communities based on statistical results. This mechanism is called “collaborative filtering”.

The author DiResta, who was researching the anti-vaccine movement, found that an algorithm connected the 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to the 'Pizzagate' community, which is said to be involved in human trafficking and automatic sexual abuse. I have been advised to participate. After 'Pizza Gate', conspiracy theorists gathered together, 'QAnon (Q Anon)' which expanded its power based on the anonymous bulletin board '4chan'.

Diresta points out that Twitter trends are also one of the driving forces behind the creation of new 'flocks'.

On the other hand, users are not without independence, so they can sometimes choose not to take the bait instead of being swept away. When a specific tweet spreads, it is expressed as 'viral' or 'buzzed', but this is a magic that eliminates the element of how it spreads and exempts the responsibility of those who participated. Mr. Diresta said that it is the word of. Even if the structure that attracts attention spreads easily, rumors are seen with a stern eye, saying, 'It spread because we spread it.'

In the future, even if improvements are made to review the targets of the ``seven birds'', ``flocks'' will be formed again, and naturally harmful flocks may be born, Diresta said, and one of the solutions is `` If we can all start from scratch and escape from the existing ecosystem to something completely new, we may be able to offer a better service as a society.”