Are Echo Chambers Moral? A Crossover Study of Online Disputes

The advent of "pluralistic democracies" and the fragmentation of communication spheres have led us to a pluralism of audiences and apparatus. However, the transformation of our sociotechnical framework does not bring us closer to the Habermasian ideal of a public sphere. This article proposes to analyze the concept of "echo chamber" from a moral perspective, through both a theoretical and an empirical approach: firstly, as a floating concept leading to ambiguous results and reflecting an academic concern; secondly, as a tool for diagnosing conflicting spheres. Based on these theoretical reflections and the empirical exploration of two antagonistic online spaces (masculinist and feminist counter-masculinist), we propose to address the morality of echo chambers through a tripartite framework: morals of power (social and technical apparatus), morals of pluralism (homophily), and morals of interactionism (interpersonal exchanges).