A well documented side-effect of social media is the existence of the 'echo chamber'. This occurs because we tend to follow people who align with our views, reinforcing our existing biases. Furthermore, social media websites suggest news stories you are likely to click on.

Echo chambers mean that we live in different realities to those which exist. Everything on "the other side" is considered fake news, or at the very best an "unreliable source".

There is therefore a market to try bridge this problem. A few tools have been created to help individuals step out their echo chambers and I will list a couple:

Read across the aisle:

http://www.readacrosstheaisle.com/#support

This is a news aggregator with a list of websites. It helps you gauge whereabouts you are on the 'conservative-liberal spectrum. Furthermore it gives you access to loads of websites including the WSJ and NY Times (which you normally have to pay for). This all comes absolutely free. I found it as a useful tool to move me from a more liberal bias to the centre as I read more conservative websites. It has given me more of an appreciation of other view points.

Flipfeed

https://flipfeed.media.mit.edu/

So this was actually created by a friend of mine, but I think its a cool idea. It allows you to view a random other persons twitter feed. This helps see what other people in the world think and follow. I think its a cool way of breaking down each others biases and learning from each other in an anonymous way.

Do you have any tools to break that you use to break your own echo chamber?