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In the specific case of conservative politics, why does it matter that it's so skewed? I have absolutely no issue with, in this specific case, conservative poli

In the specific case of conservative politics, why does it matter that it's so skewed? I have absolutely no issue with, in this specific case, conservative politics not receiving much attention. I would liken it to not giving "flat earthers", blatant racists, and charlatans air time (excuse the hyperbole, hopefully the point was understood). While I agree that ideological conformity is a problem, I think it's a symptom rather than something that needs to be fixed itself at the moment. You would probably see more distributed alignment within certain communities if there wasn't so much "noise" elsewhere.

tynpeddler 10y ago
The concern is that you may be equating the conservative position to flat earthers bases on biased information. It's the classic epistomological dilemma, how do you know what you know? Maybe reality doesn't have a liberal bias. Maybe it's just the loudest people who have a liberal bias.
- popmystack 10y ago
  I am highly unconvinced that at this point there is some piece of information that will add credibility to conservative rhetoric, economic, or social beliefs. Sure it can happen, it's just unlikely to. Positions do not gain credibility by "what-ifs". What biased information am I acting on exactly?
- Chathamization 10y ago
  We might also be equating anti-vaccine individuals to flat-earthers based on biased information. This is pretty much true for just about anything we filter out. Sometimes the fringe stuff turns out to be correct, but often it's not. The National Enquirer broke the John Edwards scandal, yet most people don't take it as a reliable source since most of it's stories are still bogus. From the story: > Stories covered by conservative outlets (like Breitbart, Washington Examiner, and Newsmax) that were trending enough to be picked up by Facebook’s algorithm were excluded unless mainstream sites like the New York Times, the BBC, and CNN covered the same stories. That doesn't seem too terrible to me. If something from a untrustworthy source known for political agitprop is trending, I wouldn't mind Facebook waiting to see if the mainstream press picks up on it. If they were letting through stories from places like AlterNet through that would show bias, but being generally cautious with biased sites that have low journalistic standards isn't the worst thing in the world.
whatthesmack 10y ago
> "flat earthers", blatant racists, and charlatans air time (excuse the hyperbole, hopefully the point was understood). The point was understood, but differently than you intended. These terms seem to be used to reference the folks that would claim to hold the conservative viewpoint, but the terms themselves only further evidence the misunderstood viewpoint non-conservatives may have of conservatives, and that misunderstanding may have been furthered by what is discussed in the article.
- lintiness 10y ago
  it's a lot easier exaggerating, belittling, and dismissing the "other" than it is challenging one's own positions.
  - popmystack 10y ago
    Much like the majority of posts in your comment history?
- throwit992 10y ago
  To piggyback on this, one of the things Jonathan Haidt has shown in his work on ideological bias is that liberals are unable to accurately understand the conservative worldview, while both conservative and moderates are able to accurately explain liberal positions. Here's an explanation of the study: >One other point that I find really interesting and important about Haidt’s work is his findings on the ability of different groups to empathize across these ideological divides. So in his book (p. 287) Haidt reports on the following experiment: after determining whether someone is liberal or conservative, he then has each person answer the standard battery of questions as if he were the opposite ideology. So, he would ask a liberal to answer the questions as if he were a “typical conservative” and vice-versa. What he finds is quite striking: “The results were clear and consistent. Moderates and conservatives were most accurate in their predictions, whether they were pretending to be liberals or conservatives. Liberals were the least accurate, especially those who describe themselves as ‘very liberal.’ The biggest errors in the whole study came when liberals answered the Care and Fairness questions while pretending to be conservatives.” In other words, moderates and conservatives can understand the liberal worldview and liberals are unable to relate to the conservative worldview, especially when it comes to questions of care and fairness. From: http://volokh.com/2014/01/17/jonathan-haidt-psychology-politics/ http://volokh.com/2014/01/17/jonathan-haidt-psychology-polit...
yomly 10y ago
Funny that you should mention flat earthers - when Galileo published his works proposed a heliocentric system, he was tried for heresy. I'm sure at the time, the Church were confident they were right about the matter and therefore had no qualms in suppressing Galileo's claims. Freedom of information and opinion is what drives progress. Should conservative opinions be wrong, then there is no fear in giving them a platform - they can be publicly debunked, to the downfall of their message. Given that they are feared, suggests that the jury is still out on whether their opinions are categorically wrong, or even whether the opposing opinion is categorically right. In this case, it will be free discussion which will enable us as a society to converge on the correct path.
- welanes 10y ago
  > Given that they are feared, suggests that the jury is still out on whether their opinions are categorically wrong, or even whether the opposing opinion is categorically right. In this case, it will be free discussion which will enable us as a society to converge on the correct path. Spot on.
- popmystack 10y ago
  That's simply not how discourse works on a national scale. There are many things that can be given a platform but aren't because it'd be a waste of time. No one is afraid to give these things a platform, it's just pointless. Artificial platforming for the sake of having every imaginable view point with or without merit on the table would be a disaster. No one is stopping people from having these opinions, speaking about them, or teaching those perspectives. Claiming that this is a cause of freedom of information and somehow making this analogous to Galileo (it's not, not even in the slightest) is absurdly silly. If you are looking to defend rational discourse and freedom of thought, well, you're not doing that -- leveling out everything on a no-questions-asked baseline is ignorant and becomes borderline satire of unbiased rational thought at that point.
  - welanes 10y ago
    > No one is stopping people from having these opinions, speaking about them, or teaching those perspectives. You may not have been paying attention, but unfortunately that's not the case. https://www.thefire.org/list-of-campus-disinvitations-2000-2014/ https://www.thefire.org/list-of-campus-disinvitations-2000-2... http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/whats-new-about-no-platform-mania/17526 http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/whats-new-about... http://www.mediaite.com/online/university-president-shuts-down-conservative-journalists-speech-citing-free-exchange-of-ideas/ http://www.mediaite.com/online/university-president-shuts-do... And I can link to many more examples if you wish. It's moved from "your opinion is incorrect but I respect your right to speak it" to "I don't agree with what you say so I'm denying your right to express it". Now do you understand the problem? It's quite incredible, actually.
SFLemonade 10y ago
This is a big problem that I've been seeing a lot lately: Liberals and Progressives thinking that they're absolutely right and just, and as such, they should censor those that they perceive as not being right or just. But who is the judge here? How do we really know what is absolutely right or just? Censorship of any kind is inherently dangerous and detrimental to true progress. Aren't equality, open-mindedness, and freedom of expression paramount to liberal thought? Do you not see the hypocrisy here? But shouldn't none of this matter? If we're right, should we really need to silence our opponents? If our ideas are fundamentally right, then they should win in a fair and open marketplace of ideas, without the unfair advantage of censorship. The very fact that you want (or feel the need) to silence your opponent sheds a light on the quality and legitimacy of your ideas. I say this as someone who has always been classically liberal; we have abandoned our true ideals (the ideals which have usually placed us on the right side of history) for radicalism and new forms of bigotry and inequality. The Overton Window has radically shifted and those that were previously on the left are now falling closer to the center-right. We are a polarized nation and this is reflected in the atrocious line-up of presidential candidates that we have right now.
- popmystack 10y ago
  Literally no one has suggested that we silence opponents. I am not sure how you are confusing me and facebook's curation system not giving attention to certain sources and positions based on their credibility and integrity with actively preventing people from speaking. Whether your statement is based on disingenuous confusion or simple ignorance doesn't matter at this point because you've made your own post largely irrelevant and quite frankly it ticked me off a little bit that this string of non-sense keeps getting repeated as if it's some defense of rational, critical thought when it's the furthest thing from it at the moment. All positions and view points cannot get equal play time in the larger conversation -- it would be noisy and a waste of time and ultimately be detrimental to progress. That is not censorship.
  - SFLemonade 10y ago
    "Whether your statement is based on disingenuous confusion or simple ignorance doesn't matter at this point because you've made your own post largely irrelevant and quite frankly it ticked me off a little bit" Your personal attacks on me are actually proving my point. In your original post, you said: "In the specific case of conservative politics, why does it matter that it's so skewed? I have absolutely no issue with, in this specific case, conservative politics not receiving much attention." That's a form of censorship and manipulation, especially because Facebook is not seen as an editorialized news source, but rather as a representation of one's community. You seem to think it isn't censorship though: "I am not sure how you are confusing me and facebook's curation system not giving attention to certain sources and positions based on their credibility and integrity with actively preventing people from speaking." This had nothing to do with credibility or integrity. It was a group of people with a very specific political ideology that were subjectively picking news and having it appear in an organic feed, when it was really editorialized. I'm not confusing you with Facebook's curation system. You're entitled to your opinion. I'm telling you why your opinion shouldn't be applied at scale (in this case, to a system that appears organic) and also why you should care about this not just for this one incident, but for the implications that this has on a larger scale. So you don't care about conservative views getting silenced here. After all, conservatives are wrong, right? But what if the major media outlet changes it's mind and starts to think liberals are wrong, and thus silences liberal content? How will you feel then? This isn't about political ideologies. It's about the implications of an unprecedentedly large and trusted media outlet taking sides and deliberately influencing it's audience. Liberal or conservative, that's dangerous.

tynpeddler 10y ago

The concern is that you may be equating the conservative position to flat earthers bases on biased information. It's the classic epistomological dilemma, how do you know what you know? Maybe reality doesn't have a liberal bias. Maybe it's just the loudest people who have a liberal bias.

popmystack 10y ago
I am highly unconvinced that at this point there is some piece of information that will add credibility to conservative rhetoric, economic, or social beliefs. Sure it can happen, it's just unlikely to. Positions do not gain credibility by "what-ifs". What biased information am I acting on exactly?
Chathamization 10y ago
We might also be equating anti-vaccine individuals to flat-earthers based on biased information. This is pretty much true for just about anything we filter out. Sometimes the fringe stuff turns out to be correct, but often it's not. The National Enquirer broke the John Edwards scandal, yet most people don't take it as a reliable source since most of it's stories are still bogus. From the story: > Stories covered by conservative outlets (like Breitbart, Washington Examiner, and Newsmax) that were trending enough to be picked up by Facebook’s algorithm were excluded unless mainstream sites like the New York Times, the BBC, and CNN covered the same stories. That doesn't seem too terrible to me. If something from a untrustworthy source known for political agitprop is trending, I wouldn't mind Facebook waiting to see if the mainstream press picks up on it. If they were letting through stories from places like AlterNet through that would show bias, but being generally cautious with biased sites that have low journalistic standards isn't the worst thing in the world.

whatthesmack 10y ago

> "flat earthers", blatant racists, and charlatans air time (excuse the hyperbole, hopefully the point was understood). The point was understood, but differently than you intended. These terms seem to be used to reference the folks that would claim to hold the conservative viewpoint, but the terms themselves only further evidence the misunderstood viewpoint non-conservatives may have of conservatives, and that misunderstanding may have been furthered by what is discussed in the article.

lintiness 10y ago
it's a lot easier exaggerating, belittling, and dismissing the "other" than it is challenging one's own positions.
- popmystack 10y ago
  Much like the majority of posts in your comment history?
throwit992 10y ago
To piggyback on this, one of the things Jonathan Haidt has shown in his work on ideological bias is that liberals are unable to accurately understand the conservative worldview, while both conservative and moderates are able to accurately explain liberal positions. Here's an explanation of the study: >One other point that I find really interesting and important about Haidt’s work is his findings on the ability of different groups to empathize across these ideological divides. So in his book (p. 287) Haidt reports on the following experiment: after determining whether someone is liberal or conservative, he then has each person answer the standard battery of questions as if he were the opposite ideology. So, he would ask a liberal to answer the questions as if he were a “typical conservative” and vice-versa. What he finds is quite striking: “The results were clear and consistent. Moderates and conservatives were most accurate in their predictions, whether they were pretending to be liberals or conservatives. Liberals were the least accurate, especially those who describe themselves as ‘very liberal.’ The biggest errors in the whole study came when liberals answered the Care and Fairness questions while pretending to be conservatives.” In other words, moderates and conservatives can understand the liberal worldview and liberals are unable to relate to the conservative worldview, especially when it comes to questions of care and fairness. From: http://volokh.com/2014/01/17/jonathan-haidt-psychology-politics/ http://volokh.com/2014/01/17/jonathan-haidt-psychology-polit...

yomly 10y ago

Funny that you should mention flat earthers - when Galileo published his works proposed a heliocentric system, he was tried for heresy. I'm sure at the time, the Church were confident they were right about the matter and therefore had no qualms in suppressing Galileo's claims. Freedom of information and opinion is what drives progress. Should conservative opinions be wrong, then there is no fear in giving them a platform - they can be publicly debunked, to the downfall of their message. Given that they are feared, suggests that the jury is still out on whether their opinions are categorically wrong, or even whether the opposing opinion is categorically right. In this case, it will be free discussion which will enable us as a society to converge on the correct path.

welanes 10y ago
> Given that they are feared, suggests that the jury is still out on whether their opinions are categorically wrong, or even whether the opposing opinion is categorically right. In this case, it will be free discussion which will enable us as a society to converge on the correct path. Spot on.
popmystack 10y ago
That's simply not how discourse works on a national scale. There are many things that can be given a platform but aren't because it'd be a waste of time. No one is afraid to give these things a platform, it's just pointless. Artificial platforming for the sake of having every imaginable view point with or without merit on the table would be a disaster. No one is stopping people from having these opinions, speaking about them, or teaching those perspectives. Claiming that this is a cause of freedom of information and somehow making this analogous to Galileo (it's not, not even in the slightest) is absurdly silly. If you are looking to defend rational discourse and freedom of thought, well, you're not doing that -- leveling out everything on a no-questions-asked baseline is ignorant and becomes borderline satire of unbiased rational thought at that point.
- welanes 10y ago
  > No one is stopping people from having these opinions, speaking about them, or teaching those perspectives. You may not have been paying attention, but unfortunately that's not the case. https://www.thefire.org/list-of-campus-disinvitations-2000-2014/ https://www.thefire.org/list-of-campus-disinvitations-2000-2... http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/whats-new-about-no-platform-mania/17526 http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/whats-new-about... http://www.mediaite.com/online/university-president-shuts-down-conservative-journalists-speech-citing-free-exchange-of-ideas/ http://www.mediaite.com/online/university-president-shuts-do... And I can link to many more examples if you wish. It's moved from "your opinion is incorrect but I respect your right to speak it" to "I don't agree with what you say so I'm denying your right to express it". Now do you understand the problem? It's quite incredible, actually.

SFLemonade 10y ago

This is a big problem that I've been seeing a lot lately: Liberals and Progressives thinking that they're absolutely right and just, and as such, they should censor those that they perceive as not being right or just. But who is the judge here? How do we really know what is absolutely right or just? Censorship of any kind is inherently dangerous and detrimental to true progress. Aren't equality, open-mindedness, and freedom of expression paramount to liberal thought? Do you not see the hypocrisy here? But shouldn't none of this matter? If we're right, should we really need to silence our opponents? If our ideas are fundamentally right, then they should win in a fair and open marketplace of ideas, without the unfair advantage of censorship. The very fact that you want (or feel the need) to silence your opponent sheds a light on the quality and legitimacy of your ideas. I say this as someone who has always been classically liberal; we have abandoned our true ideals (the ideals which have usually placed us on the right side of history) for radicalism and new forms of bigotry and inequality. The Overton Window has radically shifted and those that were previously on the left are now falling closer to the center-right. We are a polarized nation and this is reflected in the atrocious line-up of presidential candidates that we have right now.

popmystack 10y ago
Literally no one has suggested that we silence opponents. I am not sure how you are confusing me and facebook's curation system not giving attention to certain sources and positions based on their credibility and integrity with actively preventing people from speaking. Whether your statement is based on disingenuous confusion or simple ignorance doesn't matter at this point because you've made your own post largely irrelevant and quite frankly it ticked me off a little bit that this string of non-sense keeps getting repeated as if it's some defense of rational, critical thought when it's the furthest thing from it at the moment. All positions and view points cannot get equal play time in the larger conversation -- it would be noisy and a waste of time and ultimately be detrimental to progress. That is not censorship.
- SFLemonade 10y ago
  "Whether your statement is based on disingenuous confusion or simple ignorance doesn't matter at this point because you've made your own post largely irrelevant and quite frankly it ticked me off a little bit" Your personal attacks on me are actually proving my point. In your original post, you said: "In the specific case of conservative politics, why does it matter that it's so skewed? I have absolutely no issue with, in this specific case, conservative politics not receiving much attention." That's a form of censorship and manipulation, especially because Facebook is not seen as an editorialized news source, but rather as a representation of one's community. You seem to think it isn't censorship though: "I am not sure how you are confusing me and facebook's curation system not giving attention to certain sources and positions based on their credibility and integrity with actively preventing people from speaking." This had nothing to do with credibility or integrity. It was a group of people with a very specific political ideology that were subjectively picking news and having it appear in an organic feed, when it was really editorialized. I'm not confusing you with Facebook's curation system. You're entitled to your opinion. I'm telling you why your opinion shouldn't be applied at scale (in this case, to a system that appears organic) and also why you should care about this not just for this one incident, but for the implications that this has on a larger scale. So you don't care about conservative views getting silenced here. After all, conservatives are wrong, right? But what if the major media outlet changes it's mind and starts to think liberals are wrong, and thus silences liberal content? How will you feel then? This isn't about political ideologies. It's about the implications of an unprecedentedly large and trusted media outlet taking sides and deliberately influencing it's audience. Liberal or conservative, that's dangerous.