Thanks for checking this so carefully, you’re right about the distinction.
I reproduced your tests, and the current "echo-chamber index" is really measuring selective filtering from the confirmation-bias weighting, not whether the network itself has become opinion-assortative. So the label was too broadd.
I’ve now split it into separate diagnostics:
- Neighbor opinion correlation: whether connected agents actually hold similar opinions
- Edge disagreement: how different connected agents are
- Selective filtering: how strongly confirmation bias suppresses influence from dissimilar neighbors.
That way a user can distinguish between a chamber that actually emerges in the network/opinion state and a filtering mechanism that was simply turned up.
I will also change the UI wording so it no longer implies that “like-minded neighbors” are structurally clustered just because the filtering score is high.
Thanks for your time and insight, this was a useful correction.
