Yahoo! News embraces AI to break echo chamber in comments

Yahoo Japan Corporation will be weaving their proprietary artificial intelligence, the “Comment Diversification Model,” into the fabric of its comment section display mechanism for its news distribution service, “Yahoo! News.”

The company contends that this innovative feature elevates the prominence of diverse opinions. By cultivating an environment ripe for users to effortlessly notice comments from various vantage points, Yahoo! News endeavors to forge a space for the birth of fresh insights.

Since 2007, Yahoo! News has maintained a comment section affectionately dubbed “Yahoo Comments,” embraced and employed by a vast array of individuals.

While “Yahoo Comments” foster spirited debates and opinion exchanges, they can also inadvertently breed extreme slander. To combat this, Yahoo! News has pursued numerous measures to enhance the comment section.

The recently unveiled “Comment Diversification Model” within the “Recommended Order” thwarts the clustering of similar comments at the top. The AI grasps the essence and substance of each comment, categorizes similar comments internally, and showcases exemplary comments from each group at the summit.

By positioning representative comments from each group atop the “Recommended Order,” the comment section’s content diversity is preserved. A parade of similar comments can induce the perception that a particular opinion is both the majority and the truth, giving rise to the “echo chamber phenomenon” where identical posts intensify and concentrate. This tactic aspires to alleviate this occurrence.

This modification will not blanket all articles instantaneously but will target those with a specified comment threshold. Upon application of the “Comment Diversification Model,” users will be informed that a new AI is being employed to facilitate the display of assorted opinions.