Twitter's Algorithm Favors the Political Right, Study Finds (theconversation.com) 270
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Conversation: Twitter has on various occasions been accused of political bias, with politicians or commentators alleging Twitter's algorithm amplifies their opponents' voices, or silences their own. In this climate, Twitter commissioned a study to understand whether their algorithm may be biased towards a certain political ideology. While Twitter publicized the findings of the research in 2021, the study has now been published in the peer-reviewed journal PNAS.
The study looked at a sample of 4% of all Twitter users who had been exposed to the algorithm (46,470,596 unique users). It also included a control group of 11,617,373 users who had never received any automatically recommended tweets in their feeds. This wasn't a manual study, whereby, say, the researchers recruited volunteers and asked them questions about their experiences. It wouldn't have been possible to study such a large number of users that way. Instead, a computer model allowed the researchers to generate their findings. [...] The researchers found that in six out of the seven countries (Germany was the exception), the algorithm significantly favored the amplification of tweets from politically right-leaning sources. Overall, the amplification trend wasn't significant among individual politicians from specific parties, but was when they were taken together as a group. The starkest contrasts were seen in Canada (the Liberals' tweets were amplified 43%, versus those of the Conservatives at 167%) and the UK (Labour's tweets were amplified 112%, while the Conservatives' were amplified at 176%).
In acknowledgement of the fact that tweets from elected officials represent only a small portion of political content on Twitter, the researchers also looked at whether the algorithm disproportionately amplifies news content from any particular point on the ideological spectrum. To this end, they measured the algorithmic amplification of 6.2 million political news articles shared in the US. To determine the political leaning of the news source, they used two independently curated media bias-rating datasets. Similar to the results in the first part of the study, the authors found that content from right-wing media outlets is amplified more than that from outlets at other points on the ideological spectrum. This part of the study also found far-left-leaning and far-right-leaning outlets were not significantly amplified compared with politically moderate outlets. The authors of the study point out that the algorithms "might be influenced by the way different political groups operate," notes The Conversation. "So for example, some political groups might be deploying better tactics and strategies to amplify their content on Twitter."
The study looked at a sample of 4% of all Twitter users who had been exposed to the algorithm (46,470,596 unique users). It also included a control group of 11,617,373 users who had never received any automatically recommended tweets in their feeds. This wasn't a manual study, whereby, say, the researchers recruited volunteers and asked them questions about their experiences. It wouldn't have been possible to study such a large number of users that way. Instead, a computer model allowed the researchers to generate their findings. [...] The researchers found that in six out of the seven countries (Germany was the exception), the algorithm significantly favored the amplification of tweets from politically right-leaning sources. Overall, the amplification trend wasn't significant among individual politicians from specific parties, but was when they were taken together as a group. The starkest contrasts were seen in Canada (the Liberals' tweets were amplified 43%, versus those of the Conservatives at 167%) and the UK (Labour's tweets were amplified 112%, while the Conservatives' were amplified at 176%).
In acknowledgement of the fact that tweets from elected officials represent only a small portion of political content on Twitter, the researchers also looked at whether the algorithm disproportionately amplifies news content from any particular point on the ideological spectrum. To this end, they measured the algorithmic amplification of 6.2 million political news articles shared in the US. To determine the political leaning of the news source, they used two independently curated media bias-rating datasets. Similar to the results in the first part of the study, the authors found that content from right-wing media outlets is amplified more than that from outlets at other points on the ideological spectrum. This part of the study also found far-left-leaning and far-right-leaning outlets were not significantly amplified compared with politically moderate outlets. The authors of the study point out that the algorithms "might be influenced by the way different political groups operate," notes The Conversation. "So for example, some political groups might be deploying better tactics and strategies to amplify their content on Twitter."
Well ... (Score:5, Funny)
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The U.S.A. seems to be the only country where “liberal” is a social term rather than a fiscal one and pertains to the identity politics rights of certain groups.
In most of the world, “liberal” is synonymous with “capitalism”, id est less rules or companies. — The U.S.A. has a tendency to develop political lexicon separate from the entire world, indicative of the isolationist culture that does not receive a lot of input from outside of it./p.
Re: Well ... (Score:5, Insightful)
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This is my take too. Twitter's demographic is more to the left, so the algorithm showing them right-wing content keeps them enraged and engaged. As in business, people are more likely to write a letter complaining of bad service than praising good service.
Re: Well ... (Score:5, Informative)
The same thing is true on Facebook, and they attribute it to right wing populism targeting more basic emotional responses like fear, anger, pride and nationalism.
https://www.politico.com/news/... [politico.com]
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Anything that discredits the conspiracy is just part of the conspiracy. Duh!
The study had NOTHING to do with CENSORHIP algs (Score:4, Insightful)
So much for #rigthwing #victim #censorship #uuunfaair #whining
The study had NOTHING to do with the CENSORHIP algorithms.
It was studying the SILOING algorithms - which select among the (post-censorship remainder of the) universe of posting presented to the user, to see if liberal versus conservative viewers got more amplification.
It found a substantial focusing (about 2x for US and Japan to about 3x for Germany. Given the way they lumped parties into "left" and "right", virtually all the countries showed slightly more increase in political shift due to focus for users identified as right than as left partis. Outliers were Germany (TINY amount stronger for left than right) and Canada (big shift for right, quite small for left.)
These results are completely consistent with this explanation: The universe of (post censorship) postings has more left-wing than right-wing posts, so an unbiased show-em-what-they-line algorithm produces more adjustment for right-wing than left-wing readers.
That, in turn, would be consistent with either (or both) of TWO explanations:
1) Left-wingers (and astroturf operations) post more than right-wingers (and astroturf operations)
2) Censorship removes more right-wing than left-wing posts.
So to the extent it says anything about censorship it suggests the right wing is more censored.
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Would Gab allow Ilhan Omar to have an account?
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That seems unlikely. Not that anyone who isn't a total scumbag would want to associate themselves with that cesspit.
Re:Well ... (Score:4, Insightful)
I mean, they banned Donald Trump along with a bunch of other people who claimed that the Democrats cheated in the 2020 election. They regularly censor conservative opinions on social, e.g. transgender issues.
So Twitter is biased against "conservative values" like lying and discrimination, as opposed to things like lower taxes and less commercial regulation?
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So Twitter is biased against "conservative values" like lying and discrimination
What you mean is lying and discrimination against certain group, while in favor of lying and discrimination against others.
It's fairly arbitrary and one thing that is interesting and of note is that “Islam” was mostly allied with “the right” in the U.S.A. before the towers fell, but then it became allied with “the left”. I do believe that if history went slightly differently this allegiance of groups into so called “left” and “right” would look ver
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Your ad-hominem attacks lead me to belive he's onto something.
What particular 'conservative values' were used for these measurements?
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>Biden before taking office says no vaccine mandates. Takes office and soon institutes mandatory vaccines. Lying much?
Did he lie ? No he didn't.
"President-elect Joe Biden says Americans won't be forced to take a coronavirus vaccine when one becomes available in the US"
Re:Well ... (Score:4, Informative)
You're still lying. Those workers could also have opted for testing instead of taking the vaccine.
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... Additionally, there is no testing option in all of the listed states: California, Maine, Washington, Hawaii, Delaware, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Oregon, New York, Illinois, New Mexico, Vermont, Maryland, Rhode Island, and New Jersey.
Well that's States Rights, which is a Republican thing.
Re:Well ... (Score:4, Insightful)
But yeah, if you're an American and you didn't fit into one of those categories, you probably (maybe) were not coerced into getting the jab, and it was (maybe) 100% your choice whether you got it or not.
Well, technically those weren't/aren't obliged either. They have the choice of leaving and getting a different job among people they don't mind infecting/being infected by, and who also don't mind infecting/being infected by them. Freedom of association and all that, you know the gist.
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Considering that the "vaccines" do not prevent you from catching Covid, nor do they prevent you from spreading covid...then what is the point of punishing those that don't get the vaccine.
The vaccines pretty much ONLY preven
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Considering that the "vaccines" do not prevent you from catching Covid, nor do they prevent you from spreading covid...then what is the point of punishing those that don't get the vaccine.
They aren't being punished. They can take the vaccine, which causes they arm to hurt a little bit for a few hours, and go to work normally. Any punishment they suffer is from their own doing, that when it isn't they causing undue punishment to innocents.
Case in point, the father-in-law of a cousin of mine is a photographer. He makes money photographic marriages, graduations and the like. He's also a religious fundamentalist who refuses to get vaccinated. The serious churches in his town, as well as colleges
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I put it in quotes, because I grew up thinking of getting a vaccine meant you were then safe from getting the disease and passing it on.
When did you grow up? There have been flu vaccines since the 1940's, and those clearly only provide partial protection. Not to mention every other vaccine, including smallpox only provides partial protection. It's all a numbers game. Vaccines shift the odds, often to a very significant degree, but they are never 100%. It sounds like you got the simplistic explanation on vaccines intended for a small child when you were young and then never updated your knowledge to reflect the nuance of reality.
The mRNA vaccines really need to be called something else, as that they do not seem to act like vaccines of old in that with covid mRNA vaccines, you can still get and spread the disease and all they seem to do, is prevent serous illness and death.
Which is jus
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"conservative values" like lying and discrimination
Stephen Breyer steps down and Joe Biden immediately vows to appoint a black woman to the supreme court. Discrimination much?
No. You act like the only qualifications for being a Supreme Court Justice is having white skin and a penis. It's not the 1950s anymore. Women, even black women, can be highly qualified for positions like Supreme Court Justice.
Biden before taking office says no vaccine mandates. Takes office and soon institutes mandatory vaccines. Lying much?
Why am I not surprised you're conveniently forgetting the option to be tested regularly?
Lying and discrimination seem like progressive values. Even the name assigned to their cause, "progressive," seems like a thinly veiled lie to me.
Which group is it again that wants to ban gay marriage, ban abortions, is losing its shit over the idea of a black woman on the Supreme Court, has been consistently working for 50+ years to disenfr
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Yet the Republican's only looked at Papists for the Supreme Court. People who's loyalty is to a church instead of America
Re: Well ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Well ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Really the paper shows what we all already know - bad faith demoagogues with no regard for our shared democratic vessel will say anything and everything except "Trump lost" and will try to claim all manner of victim status to avoid accountability for their actions.
Intellectual integrity isn't easy but it's not difficult. It just requires being honest with yourself and others and some day you'll get there.
Re:Well ... (Score:5, Insightful)
In US politics the Republicans are willing to do anything to win. Gerrymandering, abuse of process, lying. Winning is all that matters*.
The Supreme Court appointments are a great example. Flat out refused when Obama had a pick, then pushed through Trump's even when he was near the end of his term, and are now getting ready to block Biden's. They don't care about the rights and wrongs of it, only that they win by getting more conservative justices on the court.
The Democrats seem to want to do things the right way, and uphold some standards. It's bad for them because when your opponent doesn't care, taking the moral high ground means you lose.
* To be fair, they backed down on January 6th, so maybe not quite "anything" but pretty close.
Re:Well ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, it is well established that the human beings who censor Twitter manually do so in a way that favors the political left from the very top of Twitter..
This is not "well established".
Some politicians were banned for explicitly and egregiously violating terms of service, but to establish that this "favors the political left" you would have to show that this was not applied to the left, only to the right.
The left would say the opposite is true; he was allowed to remain on twitter for years, when violations from the left resulted in instant banning.
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Also, it is well established that the human beings who censor Twitter manually do so in a way that favors the political left from the very top of Twitter..
This is not "well established".
[...]
Well, if you assume that the right are more likely to violate the Twitter rules, by egregious lying, by permanent personal insults, and by calls for violent illegal action, then the claim is correct. Just like "the police is acting in a way that favours innocent citizens" and "the IRS is favouring honest tax payers". That is how the system is supposed to work.
The former president is still openly lying about the election he lost. Over and over and over again. There has been a peaceful transfer of power sin
Re: Well ... (Score:4, Insightful)
How many of them did something to warrant a ban? I haven't checked, but I'll be that number is less than one.
Most people are capable of following the rules, you know.
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Exactly the response I expected.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.c... [thegatewaypundit.com]
Really? 21:1 huh?
Of 22 prominent, politically active individuals who are known to have been suspended since 2005 and who expressed a preference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, 21 supported Donald Trump.
Or let's look at a straight application of the rules using the SAME POSTS:
Sarah Jeong - when hired by NYT it was discovered she'd posted for years expressing deep hatred of whites (https://archive.is/HkjeX/380642e32a080fe927e44643374a04
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> The paper feeds a convenient narrative for the left. And heck, it very well may be that the algorithm favors the political right, at least sometimes.
And you have proof for this? Say, like a paper that examines how different political posts are amplified on social media?!?
> However I really doubt it is reducible to one dimensional analysis.
Until you present a study that says otherwise you only have your opinion and nothing else because you have so far presented zero facts that the study is wrong in i
Re:Well ... (Score:5, Informative)
Also, it is well established that the human beings who censor Twitter manually do so in a way that favors the political left from the very top of Twitter.
No they don't but they do favour those of us who live in the real world.
Trump was banned because he's a lying liar.
Re:Well ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well ... (Score:5, Informative)
Also, if we're being technical, they didn't kick him off for lying about his loss in 2020. That was just the latest in a vast list of violations of the ToS that would have gotten anyone else permabanned years ago (and in plenty of cases, did). But it was obvious to absolutely anyone watching that the Social Media^w Cancer companies were not going to do anything about the single greatest attention whore / lolcow the Internet has ever seen until there was absolutely, positively no way to avoid it.
He was shitcanned after inciting a fascist pusch with the explicitly stated intent of assassinating anyone who refused to install him in the Presidency., which defiled the peaceful transfer of power for the first time in American history.
Good riddance.
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which defiled the peaceful transfer of power for the first time in American history.
This shows an ignorance of history. For example:
Check out the 1876 election, the 1800 election. It was wild. Also, you shouldn't forget 1860, where an election provoked literal, violent, seditious, treason. That was a long fight.
The 1800 election was the first successful example of the transfer of power from one party to another. Adams was not the most grateful loser, but he did acknowledge that Jefferson had won.
Likewise, in the 1860 election, no-one seriously denied that Lincoln had won. The slave states did not like it, but even they acknowledged it (and then seceded, or tried to).
In 1876 the situation was genuinely complex. But even that was resolved after less than a year. In 2019, on the other hand, the situation was simp
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Re:Well ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, they banned Donald Trump along with a bunch of other people who claimed that the Democrats cheated in the 2020 election.
Donald Trump was banned after repeatedly violating the terms of service over and over again to the point where they carved out a special exception in the rules for him and then he went even beyond that. The twitter ban finally happened when it became clear, at least to a preponderance of evidence standard, that Donald Trump's statements were fueling real world violence. In short, trolls get banned. Is being a troll inherently right-wing? I have to be honest, looking back over a lifetime of exposure to trolls, the worst ones do tend to be more right-wing than left-wing by a pretty wide margin. Not hat all people with right-wing philosophies are trolls, of course.
It makes sense if you look at the templates they learn from. Consider Rush Limbaugh, for example. Very much a troll.
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The paper feeds a convenient narrative for the left.
You make it sound as if narrating provable statements, a.k.a. telling the truth, was a character flaw.
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The paper feeds a convenient narrative for the left.
From my perspective as a centrist this looks very obvious.
I was a conservative, in the American meaning of the word, for years, and then I switched into true conservatism, in the British meaning of the word, although still in a secular, not religious, fashion. This means that, for the borked US understanding of things, I support a mixture of US-style right-wing and US-style left-wing policies, and end up consistently categorized as "center" in the very Americanized Political Compass.
What do I see then when
Well, now (Score:4, Insightful)
This discussion thread should be entertaining...
Long winded way to say... (Score:3, Funny)
The researchers found that in six out of the seven countries (Germany was the exception), the algorithm significantly favored the amplification of tweets from politically right-leaning sources.
That's a lot of words to express a simple truth:
The Left Can't Meme.
Re:Long winded way to say... (Score:5, Insightful)
The researchers found that in six out of the seven countries (Germany was the exception), the algorithm significantly favored the amplification of tweets from politically right-leaning sources.
That's a lot of words to express a simple truth:
The Left Can't Meme.
More likely, that those on The Right are less critical and/or independent thinkers.
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That's the entire point. Memes aren't high level thinking. They are usually silly or dumb but they make you chuckle and they stick for whatever reason. A lot of memes are quite slapstick.
Take for instance, Let's Go Brandon!
It originated from a nascar, or some sporting event, where the crowd was chanting Fuck Joe Biden. Well the announcer was on broadcast television and for some reason they acknowledged the crowd and the guy says, I think they are saying Let's go Brandon!! Who the fuck is Brandon and are you
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More likely, that those on The Right are less critical and/or independent thinkers.
Something like this goes through my mind every time I see my right-wing-leaning family/friends all high-fiving each other because their kids are growing up "right" as they are learning how to sing Springsteen's Born in the USA. I cannot fathom how many times they've heard the song, yet they still do not seem to even begin to grasp what it's about. Might as well be tossing around Lopez's Booty.
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More likely, that those on The Right are less critical and/or independent thinkers.
You have got to be kidding me. The left is all about Group Think and Group Identity.
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The left is all about Group Think and Group Identity.
And how is this different from the "Right"?
Face it, both sides are "Yay Us, F Them!"
Re:Long winded way to say... (Score:4, Insightful)
Thanks for proving my point... :-)
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That's the problem with critical thinking. It is usually not as funny.
Re:Long winded way to say... (Score:5, Funny)
The incel was just signing his post with his name. Ya gotta learn spanglish to understand.
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Re:Long winded way to say... (Score:4, Insightful)
Considering who they all seem to blindly follow and/or listen to (Trump, MTG, Fox, OANN, Rogan, Nugent, etc...) ...
I'd mod you +5 Ironic ... :-)
Re:Long winded way to say... (Score:5, Informative)
If anyone dares to go against Trump's narrative that the election was stolen, then they get slapped back into line.
Margorie Taylor Green even wrote recently that "The party is his. It doesn't belong to anyone else."
Re:Long winded way to say... (Score:5, Insightful)
Loyalty pledge for the right: We should overturn a free, fair, and democratic election because our guy lost.
Loyalty pledge for the left: You should wear something to cover your nose and mouth while there's a very contagious respiratory illness going around.
Totally the same...
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Loyalty pledge for the right: We should overturn a free, fair, and democratic election because our guy lost.
Loyalty pledge for the left: You should wear something to cover your nose and mouth while there's a very contagious respiratory illness going around.
It's a sad state of affairs in the U.S. that this is categorized as Right vs. Left rather than Right vs. Centre. A more Left statement would say something about the Kochs or Rupert Murdoch, for example. The Left can be equally suspicious about the motivations of a government that is heavily dependent on wealth, which it looks like your Dems are. Having a two-party system turns everything into a ball game which creates mindless loyalty. It's stupid that sane public health measures, that have been around for
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The scary bit is going to come when the republicans decide that electing the government of the United States is not in their best interests, and people like you rationalise that too.
Re:Long winded way to say... (Score:5, Insightful)
Tucker Carlson and 'well regarded' in the same sentence? Wow. Tucker Carlson is a hate spigot that's only redeeming quality is how easy it is to tear apart his arguments. That is, if he'd shut up long enough to let anybody else get a word in.
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It's also funny because I've seen Twitter try and manually override the algorithm by attaching an "event" to some hashtag that the right got trending. Something like #BareShelvesBiden suddenly becomes a "Twitter event" explaining that, no, the shelves aren't really bare, ignore your eyes, the supply chain is actually just fine, nothing to see here.
It's not impossible to see the actual tweets when they attach an "event" to them, but it becomes much more difficult, because the "event" replaces the "trend."
or the right has more money for spambots (Score:2)
Iâ(TM)m not surprised (Score:5, Insightful)
Help (Score:4, Funny)
We're being oppressed!
Echo effect? (Score:5, Interesting)
This could also mean the right is more likely to accept and forward BS. Many believe they reject rational thought out of culture and upbringing. [blogspot.com]
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Similar findings were made about Facebook, and the main reason was that conservatives seem to be less likely to check facts or question things before liking and sharing.
Re: Echo effect? (Score:2)
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I ran across a study that examined how different political groups spread "low-credibility content". Groups belonging on the center to the far left are usually better at questioning if something is true or not, while groups belonging on the right were more prone to accept "low-credibility content". The groups on the right were also more prone to attacking their own if someone from their group questioned the collective wisdom of what was true or not.
You don't have to look further than to the US Senate to see
Re: Echo effect? (Score:2)
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I ran across a study that showed people believe lies they want to be true.
Oh, do provide a link to that study so we can compare it to the study I referred to, since it says much the same. You can read it yourself, it's called Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics, link https://oxford.universitypress... [university...arship.com]
Here's a little excerpt:
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I've never seen any solid, independent research that shows either "party" being less prone to mindless bullshit than the other.
* I'm not sure how solid, but there is: Why Liberals Are More Intelligent Than Conservatives https://www.psychologytoday.co... [psychologytoday.com]
* Not meaning who's more clever than the other, but their brains are different: "greater liberalism was associated with increased gray matter volume in the anterior cingulate cortex, whereas greater conservatism was associated with increased volume of the right amygdala. [...] Our data do not determine whether these regions play a causal role in the formation of political attitudes
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I *regularly* get tweets from a friend "can you fucking believe this?" with some stupid shit Trump said.
So he's forwarding some right wing meme, does that count as a right or left-wing 'tweet'?
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I guess my point isn't to pick a side, it's to illustrate that surveys like this beg a LOT of questions.
And you're right about conservatives and AOC.
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Or it could mean that the right is so accustomed to censorship that they feel the need to fight against it by engaging the Streisand Effect [wikipedia.org].
Speculating is fun, and you can do it without actually knowing anything.
If only people actually read it first... (Score:4, Informative)
> This could also mean the right is more likely to accept and forward BS. Many believe they reject rational thought out of culture and upbringing. [blogspot.com]
If only there was some way to figure out what the study was about [pnas.org], perhaps by clicking on links in the fine article, you could show off that rational thought that's implicitly a part of your culture and upbringing. Then you might realize that the only mention of replies is in how they excluded politician's retweets because attribution becomes ambiguous and they treat the algorithm as a black box, so there's nothing in there showing such effects at all. Here's what they did find:
This amplification they're measuring was basically trying to see if Twitter's algorithm thought that right-wing or left-wing politicians' tweets were more relevant to the users on average. For whatever reason, the algorithm thought that right wing politicians' tweets were more relevant to people. They do not (and say that they cannot) identify any causal factors in this and despite apparently getting this data from Twitter, they haven't actually analyzed how the algorithm works as anything but a black box. If there was any pre-registration for this study, I didn't find any, nor do we know what other questions they analyzed and didn't find significant results for. Given that this is a rather empty clickbait finding, that's a bit sus.
Then they go on to mention this:
This makes it seem like the content, not the party, is what really matters. And the amplification isn't necessarily from people who agree with them, it may just as well be from outrage clicks. Alas, they don't really go into any of that and the study mentions in their limitations that it basically sees an effect but has no idea why, so it's honestly pretty worthless.
But hey, some of us had the culture and upbringing to actually read the study before commenting instead of going for snarky comments first. Sometimes it's best to save those for after :)
I assumed (Score:2)
I assumed the Twitter userbase was just more left. At least, that's how it seems when I've looked at replies to politician tweets.
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They just seem to make more noise.
Just to funny (Score:2, Funny)
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Odd how the right wing says otherwise (Score:2)
Now who should we believe?
Talk Radio (Score:3)
For many years (decades), most of the talk radio has had a rightward lean to it. Left wingers tried to launch a "progressive" talk radio station in Seattle. But it died due to lack of interest. In Seattle.
There just doesn't appear to be much of a business case for left wing broadcasts and other material. And since Twitter is in business to attract eyeballs, it will drift right eventually. That's where the public is.
Conservatives want to be told they're right... (Score:2)
For many years (decades), most of the talk radio has had a rightward lean to it. Left wingers tried to launch a "progressive" talk radio station in Seattle. But it died due to lack of interest. In Seattle.
There just doesn't appear to be much of a business case for left wing broadcasts and other material. And since Twitter is in business to attract eyeballs, it will drift right eventually. That's where the public is.
...everyone else wants to actually be right. That's why liberal media fails. Liberals want to actually be correct. They want their worldview to line up with the facts. When the facts contradict their worldview, it's very distressing. Also, most of us the Right Wingers call "liberals" or "the left" are just centrists or people who find modern Right Wing ideology repellent. For me, for example, put me in a room with real far-left liberals, I'll tell them they're fucking idiots and it won't be pleasant.
Re:Talk Radio (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not the the public is right-wing. Far from it. The public overwhelmingly support progressive policies, including Republicans. It's just that right-wing radio is so much more exciting.
Left-leaning radio is boring. It's little more than just the news with some predictable commentary. It's really hard to manufacture outrage when your listeners are informed and care about the truth.
Right-wing radio, on the other hand, is crazy exciting. Secret government plots, shadow organizations, clones and body doubles, ancient conspiracies and secret knowledge, nefarious plots and secret agents ... and that's just the mainstream stuff.
Remember Weekly World News? That's the tabloid with aliens and Bat Boy, not celebrity gossip. That was a lot of fun to read. Right wing talk radio is a lot like that, but with the fun replaced with fear and hatred.
Just imagine if the pandemic was a movie.
The left wing version goes like this: "Oh no! A plague! Here are a few basic things we can do to reduce our risk. Oh, look! Our scientists have made a vaccine! Let's all take it."
The right wing version is a bit more dramatic: "Oh no! The government is killing people to make it look like there's a plague! They're forcing us to wear masks to condition us into accepting total control over every aspect of our lives! The vaccine contains microchips that will track you and modify your behavior, and also kill everyone who takes it within 3 years as a means to drastically reduce the population! Also, the plague is actually real but engineered by our top-scientists secretly colluding with China for some reason. We know the cure is to take a mix of various drugs from the feed store, Viagra, and hormone pills along with a selection of household cleaners and our own urine, but they're using ventilators to kill us in the hospital to keep us from sharing the secret we've already posted all over the internet."
Right-wing radio is wild. Not only does it make our boring old world much more exciting, you get to pretend that you're smarter / more knowledgeable than everyone you know about, including our nations top scientists! It's no wonder it bring in listeners.
Re: (Score:2)
So the History Channel is right wing talk TV?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
narcc said:
The right wing version is a bit more dramatic: "Oh no! The government is killing people to make it look like there's a plague! They're forcing us to wear masks to condition us into accepting total control over every aspect of our lives! The vaccine contains microchips that will track you and modify your behavior, and also kill everyone who takes it within 3 years as a means to drastically reduce the population! Also, the plague is actually real but engineered by our top-scientists secretly colluding with China for some reason. We know the cure is to take a mix of various drugs from the feed store, Viagra, and hormone pills along with a selection of household cleaners and our own urine, but they're using ventilators to kill us in the hospital to keep us from sharing the secret we've already posted all over the internet."
PPH responded:
Have you ever listened to the left? The planet is burning up. The homeless are freezing to death. Crime is running rampant. The police are harassing poor people who just shoplift to survive (funny they never steal food). Armed robbers just held up the pot shop again. The police are harassing felons just for carrying guns. People are being arrested for having drugs in their pockets. Junkies are dying from Fentanyl laced street drugs. Too many black people are shooting each other. The police are harassing black people for illegal weapons possession. And (SHRIEK!) the right is suppressing the vote (who won the last election?)
This is an interesting exchange. Both of you are caricaturing the other side, but neither of you are wrong, just a bit over the top. (And not that far over the top.)
But, I do notice a real difference. Consider:
The planet is burning up.
Yes, it actually is. Okay, that's an overstatement and the focus on the planet is wrongheaded, we should be focused on what climate change is likely to cost humanity in money, lives, and quality of life. But the core claim is actually true.
The homeless are freezing to death.
Also true. Not all of them, but
Right Wing? (Score:2)
Interesting findings. I wonder what they actually mean. Lets try to break this down.
Here are some general observations, so before you all totally flame me on ism's or grouping people, just remember, I don't pretend to be a robot, just a human with a sense of humor.
"Liberals" try to claim that they aren't mean. They only rely on "science". They tend to say that they don't do edgy (race based, skill based, personal attribute) jokes. Generally, when I read this stuff, it's all fairly boring, accurate o
Why would anyone want this? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Receiving automatically recommended tweets in your feed"? What a horrible idea!
I'm sure glad that I use Fritter to read the tweets of people I'm interested in.
Empirical results tend to suggest this is not true (Score:2)
But not the CEO... (Score:2)
But not the CEO...
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The ex ceo favored free speech. The main target of censorship at the moment is right wing speech. Liberal attitudes are genereally pro censorship.
Therefore rightwing speech will flock to twitter as a remaining place which supports free speech . That makes it even more of a target.
The new CEO will surely change all that.
The next step is that people gradually find out that censorship is far more reaching than right wing. Duh.
What else can we do? (Score:2)
I suppose it's nice to see a study (Score:2)
This isn't me insulting the left or right. This comes from people who sell ads for a living and use fake news to direct p
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The right wing consistently have the top 10 politics posts on Twitter.
Gonna need a source for that one, bud.
Echo Chambers (Score:2)
I'll trust algorithms (Score:2)
When Amazon's stops recommending books I've already bought from Amazon, and YouTube stops recommending sports videos when I have never, not even once, watched a single sports video.
I doubt that the people behind this are actually smart enough to fake a study as part of tighter censorship of the right, but when they act like that's what they're up to, a lot of people will assume that is, in fact, what they're up to.
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When Amazon's stops recommending books I've already bought from Amazon ...
You have to train your Amazon AI. I have got mine to recommend interesting and possibly subversive books about economics, anthropology, etc. I think I got the AI a bit confused by buying Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations" and "The Communist Manifesto" by Marx and Engels in one order. After buying a collection of essays by John Stewart Mill, maybe the AI got a clue that I might be a bit old style liberal and reformist. "Capitalism and Freedom" by Milton Friedman was a frequent recommendation, but I haven't
Talk is cheap, show me the numbers (Score:2)
How many Twitter accounts have been cancelled or suspended, and why?
Read the study and a banal picture emerges (Score:2)
We define the reach of a set T of tweets in a set U of Twitter users as the total number of users from U who encountered a tweet from the set T.
...where T are the tweets of elected politicians of a liberal or conservative bent, and U are the total number of users across either a control group (no algorithm boosted tweets shown) or the experimental group (who saw the algorithm boosted tweets when Twitter revamped their feed). The study, simply put, asks if the algorithm is more likely to show you conservative or liberal tweets from politicians?
Now consider two facts:
1. Twitter's user base is significantly more liberal than average. (Source: Pew Re
The problem with social "sciences" is... (Score:2)
Some people just love to be hated (Score:2)
I recently read a rather interesting bit of archived journalism (Foreign News, 1947), about the development of soviet communism under Stalin. The telling statement was that if you believe that the rest of the world is against you, and you act on that belief, then pretty soon, the rest of the world will prove you right. Stalin was convinced that there were reactionary forces hostile to the communist revolution, which had to be rooted out within Russia, and opposed where they originated from the decadent capi
Megaphone Company Prefers Loud People. (Score:3)
News at 11.
Lol (Score:2)
Probably because... (Score:2)
The research seems to say that negativity increases engagement and the right's entire platform is, literally, negativity. I'm very much not on the political left, I'm just being realistic.
The republican party no longer has a platform based on any principles or ideology. Ideals like individual freedom and personal responsibility are completely absent. In the case of fiscal responsibility, they have become demonstrably worse than the democrats.
What the republican party has become is "not the democrats". W