RIP social media. What comes next is messy.

New research from Petter Törnberg at the University of Amsterdam suggests echo chambers can emerge from social media structure itself, even without algorithmic filter bubbles.

The study argues that disagreement, attention inequality, and user migration are enough to drive polarization in online communities.

Published in PLoS ONE, the work challenges the idea that filter bubbles are always the main cause of social media harms.

It also finds that a modest amount of like-minded content can stabilize communities and prevent them from tipping into extreme segregation or homogeneity.