  Are online networking services complicit in facilitating social change for
the worse? In two empirically informed simulation studies, we give a
proof-of-concept that the speed of networking and the amplification of network
actors' relational preferences can have a profound impact on diffusion dynamics
on social networks, essentially counteracting the benefits that should accrue
from networking according to the strength of weak ties argument. Our findings
can help understand variations in homogeneity of network neighbourhoods, i.e.,
in the degree to which these neighbourhoods act as "echo chambers", as well as
the high context-dependency of success rates for a certain type of network
intervention studies. They suggest that the general facilitation of
connectivity like it today happens on the internet, combined with the use of
personalisation algorithms, has strong and insufficiently understood effects on
dynamic processes unfolding on the affected social networks.
