Trump’s secret method of keeping MAGA followers loyal is working so well that experts are actually worried

It’s hard to go a day without hearing about something Donald Trump has shared on Truth Social, the social media platform owned by Trump Media & Technology Group. The president uses the service to share everything from racist Obama memes to a weird, self-aggrandizing acknowledgment of the Reverend Jesse Jackson’s death.

Psychology and political experts say that Truth Social is a questionable social network for several reasons. But perhaps most glaringly, the platform — like other social networks — is an “echo chamber,” which “is an environment where people seek and consume information that reinforces their existing beliefs, values ​​or opinions,” said Manahil Riaz, a Houston-based psychotherapist and owner of Riaz Counseling.

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Echo chambers became a more common topic of conversation around the 2016 election, said Claire Robertson, an assistant professor of psychology who focuses on political polarization and extremism at Colby College in Maine. “And it was … the first recognition that what we see online is not necessarily representative of the offline world,” Robertson said.

Online, we curate our friends, the brands we follow and the news we see. If I don’t want to see updates from an ex, I don’t have to — and while that may be fine for that kind of situation, it’s not so great when it comes to news and politics.

“The only content we see online is from people who agree with us. That was the original kind of conceptualization of an echo chamber,” Robertson explained.

And while it’s true that social media mostly shows us opinions from people who align with our beliefs, we will occasionally see content from people or news we don’t agree with, but not in a way that’s helpful. “It happens, but for the most part, we see opinions from people who are the most extreme versions of each side of the aisle. And then that can become entrenched in our minds as what’s normative or representative of those different groups of people,” Robertson said.

Truth Social was designed to “bring like-minded people together”.

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Truth Social was launched in 2022 as a conservative response to Trump’s removal from Facebook and Twitter (now known as X) after the January 6 insurrection.

“Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and whatever, can become echo chambers, can’t they? They just host echo chambers on both sides, while something like Truth Social versus Bluesky [which tends to be more left-leaning]they’re much more specific to one party,” Robertson explained.

The platform was also created with the intention of being a conservative outlet, Robertson said.

Social media channels like Facebook and X were “originally designed to be like a digital town square. That’s the line that a lot of these tech companies are still touting,” Robertson said.

They were meant to be a place where people from different areas and backgrounds could talk to each other. “There was such a hope that it would improve democracy… That obviously hasn’t happened,” Robertson added.

Echo chambers create a sense of safety.

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“Echo chambers are environments that might appeal to some people because there’s a sense of safety, comfort and validation,” Riaz said. “As humans, we love those three things. In these spaces, people are surrounded by beliefs and perspectives that align with their own, which can make their world feel very affirming and safe.”

In an echo chamber, there is no pressure to uphold or reevaluate beliefs.

“When we engage with opposing viewpoints, it requires a significant amount of emotional and cognitive effort,” such as discomfort, curiosity, and tolerance,

Someone who prioritizes familiarity also may be more attracted to an echo chamber, she said.

“These media can assert a sense of reality, a sense of belonging, while protecting their ideas. Being exposed to opposing ideas can be very destabilizing, like, ‘Who am I if I’m not a Republican?’ My identity is so tied to it that it almost feels like a death. It almost feels like a threat,” Riaz noted.

Being in an echo chamber is problematic and even dangerous.

This is true for anyone, whether you are left or right. It even extends to opinions outside of politics.

“Anytime people are exposed to a highly biased selection of something — opinionated people — they start to think that’s A: how everything is, and also B: how everything should be,” Robertson said. “And none of those things are inherently true.”

Online echo chambers lead people to have “severely incomplete information,” she said.

“I also think we make the most mistakes when we don’t have complete information,” Robertson said. “We’re not skeptical of the information we agree with. We take that as ground truth. And I think that’s where echo chambers can really be a problem.”

Beyond not being exposed to other opinions, the fact that people in echo chambers don’t question what they see is the biggest concern. Echo chambers simply promote the idea that your own perspective is the “absolute truth,” Riaz explained.

“There is little room for alternative viewpoints or critical reflection,” she said. “In that echo chamber, ideas are repeated, reinforced, creating this black-and-white understanding of the world, and that’s harmful because most cultural social and political issues are so complex and nuanced that they rarely have a single or simple explanation.”

Opposing perspectives can be overwhelming or even threatening, which can cause people to reject perspectives that don’t align with their own and shut them out from meaningful dialogue. “Whatever the conflicting information is, it could be labeled as an exception rather than a significant challenge that exists,” Riaz said. “So the mindset can reinforce harmful stereotypes and prejudices.”

In the case of Truth Social, in particular, Trump keeps information off the platform by only sharing updates on this site, which does not reach everyone.

“Gatekeeping information is usually not good, just from history … things tend to become fairer when information is shared more widely,” Robertson said.

Why might Trump be attracted to an echo chamber?

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Between reinforcing false beliefs, prejudices, stereotypes, and keeping certain information away from others, the Truth Social echo chamber is not an ideal space for anyone, especially a president. But experts believe there are a few reasons why he might be attracted to this type of space.

“I think he wants his worldview reiterated. I think he’s hungry for power and he can’t go to the general public and say something, that he has to create an audience,” Riaz said.

They usually surround themselves with “yes” people, Riaz said — people who say yes to every request, request or idea. When someone disagrees with him, such as recently when Republican Senators Tim Scott and Katie Britt criticized his posting of a racist video of Obama, Trump has criticized them.

Since Truth Social was created as a conservative platform and an “alternative” version of social media, Trump’s thoughts are only supported here, rather than questioned as they reasonably should be.

He looks to Truth Social as a place where people will listen and “treat me like the entitled person that I am,” Riaz said.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.

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