Title: The real world causes of online segregation | The Daily Dot
Headings: The real world causes of online segregation
The real world causes of online segregation
The Facebook echo chamber is more dangerous than you think.
Gillian Branstetter

Content: Despite the Internet’s reputation as “the great equalizer,” social networks develop “white neighborhoods” and “black neighborhoods” and for more reasons than self-segregation. The division between races online is a harmful echo of the realities of American racial politics, and one that re-enforces a divide between life for white Americans and life for black Americans. This segregation is not only a result of inequality between races but an important cause of a communication breakdown that worsens it. While it might seem odd, race seems to be a major indicator in which social media sites you’ll use. While roughly equal percentages of blacks and whites use social media, divides become present when we look at which sites they’re using. The percentage of black people on Twitter (22 percent), for example, outnumbers the percentage of white people who use Twitter (16 percent). Instagram also shows a significant gap between white and black populations, with 20 percent of African-Americans claiming use of Instagram and just 14 percent of white Americans. Both groups, however, are equally likely to be Facebook users, although adoption of Facebook spread faster among white populations than it did in black populations. The reasons for the racial disparity on Twitter and Instagram could be a result of number of factors. The most important aspect for most users when choosing a social network is whether they have any IRL friends to interact with on said site, so it’s easy for a core group of trendsetters within any population to drive traffic to one location.