WASHINGTON — In what observers are calling the first genuine bipartisan consensus in a generation, America’s two largest echo chambers announced Thursday that they had each independently reviewed the evidence and concluded, unanimously and in nearly identical language, that echo chambers are the other side’s problem.
The findings were released at a pair of simultaneous press conferences held in adjoining rooms of a downtown convention center, separated by a single soundproof wall. Organizers said both sides had requested the venue independently, citing “the acoustics.”
“We looked at this very carefully, and we listened to everyone we follow,” said Dana Reverb, communications director of the Left Echo Chamber, standing beneath a banner reading THE OTHER SIDE IS IN A BUBBLE. “And every single person we follow agrees. There is a dangerous, closed-off world out there where people only hear what they already believe. It’s honestly heartbreaking. We’ve all reposted about it.”
On the other side of the wall, beneath an identical banner, Chet Rebound, spokesman for the Right Echo Chamber, delivered remarks that a HuckFinn transcription found to be 94 percent word-for-word the same. “Folks, we did our own research, and our research agreed with us,” Rebound said. “There is a sealed-off bubble where people never encounter another point of view. And we know that’s true, because we have never encountered anyone who disagrees with it.”
The remaining 6 percent consisted of each spokesman’s name and the word “sad,” which Reverb used twice and Rebound used four times.
Both rooms erupted in sustained applause, which each audience said it could hear “perfectly, from everywhere, for a very long time.”
According to people familiar with the rollout, both statements were optimized by the same recommendation algorithm, which then delivered each one exclusively to its own audience. “Engagement was historic,” said a spokesperson for a major platform, who asked not to be named because he wanted to be invited back to both rooms. “Each side shared its statement roughly 40 million times. Neither side saw the other’s even once. That’s what we call a healthy ecosystem.”
The Echo Test™
Type a belief, any belief, and speak it into a certified chamber. Then try saying it through the wall.
- The chamber is listening. It already agrees.
Echo Test™ is certified by both chambers, each of which believes it is certifying the other one’s test. Agreement may exceed 100% during election years.
The announcement comes as social scientists continue to disagree, in good faith and under peer review, about how widespread echo chambers actually are. A 2025 systematic review of 112 studies found that much of the disagreement comes down to researchers defining and measuring the thing differently: studies tracking who follows whom tend to find echo chambers, while surveys of what people actually consume tend not to.
Both chambers cited the review Thursday as conclusive proof. “Even the scientists can’t agree,” Reverb said, “which is exactly what the other side would want.” Next door, Rebound told reporters, “When the experts can’t agree, I go with the experts who agree with me. That’s just common sense.”
Each chamber also pointed to research from the nonprofit More in Common, whose “Perception Gap” study found that Democrats and Republicans overestimate the share of the other side holding extreme views by a factor of about two, and that the most politically engaged Americans had the widest gaps. The only group that came close to guessing the other side’s views correctly was the politically disengaged.
Both chambers responded within the hour by launching nearly identical campaigns urging disengaged Americans to “get informed.”
Perception Gap Estimator
Pick your room, then guess what share of the other side holds the most extreme version of their views you can picture. We will show you your guess, a rough reality check based on the published research, and the figure your chamber will announce tomorrow.
What percent of the Right Room holds the most extreme view you can imagine?
“Rough reality” halves your guess, following the published finding that partisans overestimate the other side’s extreme views by a factor of about two. It is a joke, not a poll. The official figure is calculated by doubling your guess and rounding toward outrage.
Additional data offered little relief. Feelings toward the rival party on the American National Election Studies’ 0-to-100 “feeling thermometer” fell to 19.3 in 2020, down from 41.6 twenty years earlier. Asked to respond, both chambers described the number as “still too high.” And when the Pew Research Center reported that trust in information from social media sat at 38 percent, virtually unchanged from a year earlier, each chamber released a statement identifying the 38 percent as the other side.
The session concluded with the signing of the Bipartisan Echo Chamber Accord, a two-article document that both sides ratified by sliding it back and forth under the wall for 40 minutes. Article I reads, in full, “Someone should really do something about echo chambers.” Article II reads, “It is them.”
“This is what unity looks like,” Reverb said, holding up her signed copy. On the other side of the wall, Rebound held up his. Neither copy had the other’s signature on it, a detail both sides attributed to the other side.
Dr. Imogen Feedback, a professor of acoustic civics who attempted to attend both press conferences, was escorted out of each within minutes for “sounding like the other side.” Speaking from the hallway, the only space in the building neither chamber had rented, she said the findings illustrated the core problem.
“The defining feature of an echo chamber is that you can’t hear it from inside,” Feedback said. “I said that sentence in both rooms. Both rooms nodded. Both rooms clapped. Both rooms asked if I’d come back and say it about the other room.”
At press time, a joint bipartisan task force had been formed to investigate the problem, with each chamber appointing all of its members.
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