7 ms·

This "seems" like an American phenomenon. As a liberal, I can have a fully formed debate with a British Conservative, A Canadian conservative, a European conse

by pj_mukh 10y ago

This "seems" like an American phenomenon. As a liberal, I can have a fully formed debate with a British Conservative, A Canadian conservative, a European conservative (sans latent Nazism), however the dominant American conservative seems to be operating on a completely different plain and set of assumptions. I find it extremely difficult to relate to and debate the American conservative. In general, if an american <insert institution here> (college, newspaper etc.) seems uber-liberal in America, it is just run-of-the-mill centrist in most other countries. Not because of any stated or unstated institutional biases, but simply because its been labelled so by a relentless, uncompromising, hyper-focussed and hugely disciplined conservative media looking for easy answers. P.S: Also the predilection to openly say "Compromise is impossible", esp behind the scenes, also seems to be a unique attribute of the American Conservative.

blisterpeanuts 10y ago
>>> I find it extremely difficult to relate to and debate the American conservative Yet, the topic here is that conservative-related news items appear to have been suppressed or down-scored on the influential Facebook trending box, presumably by liberal or liberal-leaning curators (or algorithms written by liberal leaning programmers). How do you conclude that conservatives are uncompromising or closed minded when in fact it is the liberal side that is closing the door here?
- pj_mukh 10y ago
  Most of Facebook's users are international. There is a chance that what is "liberal" in America is simply something that runs counter to the American conservatives disciplined beliefs. Example #1: When a prominent American conservative does something like shutdown the government instead of compromising (remember compromising gets you booted at the next elections see: Paul Ryan). To most of the world (liberal and conservative), this is nuts. Facebook bubbles news reports about how "crazy" this is to the top. American news media will most likely call this a liberal bias when really it's just an international one. Example #2: If facebook, editorializes a giant Ice-sheet melting and how that is related to anthropogenic global warming (something most International conservatives have accepted), most American conservatives will call that to be liberal bias. Note that this is not about policy decisions, most international conservatives don't agree with Carbon Taxes for instance, but one of just straight facts and assumptions.
  - MustardTiger 10y ago
    Your examples are not what happens though. What happens is promoting stories favorable to democrat politicians, hiding stories favorable to republican politicians, covering up "refugee" crimes, reporting completely made up "evil right wing death squad nazis" doing evil anti-refugee things that never happened, etc, etc.
    - vsl 10y ago
      > covering up "refugee” crimes This. Facebook agreeing to work with German government to do something about “racism” comments in German version (read: FB users talking about Cologne attacks that weren’t covered by mainstream press at all for weeks). FB blocking links to a mainstream respectable media’s article about freedom of speech in Czech version. I have no doubt that FB doesn’t consider it bias. They’re righteous and seeing that attitude all over the supposedly “liberal” sphere is frightening.
      - popmystack 10y ago
        Because when has hyperbolic stories about immigrants ever gotten out of hand?
        MustardTiger 10y ago
        I don't know, when? And what exactly is "out of hand", and how out of hand does it need to be before censorship becomes good?
        chris_wot 10y ago
        In Australia. You might want to search for "The Children Overboard Affair".
        MustardTiger 10y ago
        I don't follow. That story got out of hand? In what way? And again, how out of hand does a story need to get to make censorship good?
pdeuchler 10y ago
Wow, a non-falsifiable argument about how another side is a priori wrong. I'm sure this is a reasonable point to make.
SFLemonade 10y ago
Many American liberals are just as hard-headed and difficult to debate with. The Overton Window has shifted in the past couple years and the original leftists are now centrists. America has become radically polarized and the radical liberals and just as dangerous and closed-minded as the radical conservatives. You should also bear in mind that you're commenting on an article where liberals deliberately censored conservative news media. That doesn't do much to support your assertions. The fact that the American leftist view would be considered centrist in most other countries (like, for example, the nordic countries) is essentially meaningless. Just because "left" takes on different meanings or extremes in different parts of the world doesn't mean that the US is behind or should become more left. To compare US politics to those of Finland, Switzerland, or even Canada is completely absurd. We are a fundamentally different people, system, land mass, you name it. Our political system must take that into account.
- pj_mukh 10y ago
  Point being, Facebook's audience is majority international and it most of all wants to make money. If you occam's razor this, Facebook is simply presenting people with what they want to hear (a well-proven phenomenon[1]). The report has shown nothing to prove that there is some sort of committee that decides which political stances facebook is going to shove down people's throats, but we know it has MULTIPLE groups trying to increase engagement. The international community believes that the American right is nuts, voila, Facebook selectively presents this as the dominant news. Click, click, click...PROFIT. [1]:https://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles?language=en https://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_b...)
  - SFLemonade 10y ago
    I totally see what you're saying, but that's not what happened here. This was deliberate and subjective curation by a group of similarly politically minded individuals, despite the fact that the feed appeared to be organic. They were pushing a political agenda in the US.
    - 10y ago
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

by pj_mukh 10y ago

blisterpeanuts 10y ago

>>> I find it extremely difficult to relate to and debate the American conservative Yet, the topic here is that conservative-related news items appear to have been suppressed or down-scored on the influential Facebook trending box, presumably by liberal or liberal-leaning curators (or algorithms written by liberal leaning programmers). How do you conclude that conservatives are uncompromising or closed minded when in fact it is the liberal side that is closing the door here?

pj_mukh 10y ago
Most of Facebook's users are international. There is a chance that what is "liberal" in America is simply something that runs counter to the American conservatives disciplined beliefs. Example #1: When a prominent American conservative does something like shutdown the government instead of compromising (remember compromising gets you booted at the next elections see: Paul Ryan). To most of the world (liberal and conservative), this is nuts. Facebook bubbles news reports about how "crazy" this is to the top. American news media will most likely call this a liberal bias when really it's just an international one. Example #2: If facebook, editorializes a giant Ice-sheet melting and how that is related to anthropogenic global warming (something most International conservatives have accepted), most American conservatives will call that to be liberal bias. Note that this is not about policy decisions, most international conservatives don't agree with Carbon Taxes for instance, but one of just straight facts and assumptions.
- MustardTiger 10y ago
  Your examples are not what happens though. What happens is promoting stories favorable to democrat politicians, hiding stories favorable to republican politicians, covering up "refugee" crimes, reporting completely made up "evil right wing death squad nazis" doing evil anti-refugee things that never happened, etc, etc.
  - vsl 10y ago
    > covering up "refugee” crimes This. Facebook agreeing to work with German government to do something about “racism” comments in German version (read: FB users talking about Cologne attacks that weren’t covered by mainstream press at all for weeks). FB blocking links to a mainstream respectable media’s article about freedom of speech in Czech version. I have no doubt that FB doesn’t consider it bias. They’re righteous and seeing that attitude all over the supposedly “liberal” sphere is frightening.
    - popmystack 10y ago
      Because when has hyperbolic stories about immigrants ever gotten out of hand?
      - MustardTiger 10y ago
        I don't know, when? And what exactly is "out of hand", and how out of hand does it need to be before censorship becomes good?
        chris_wot 10y ago
        In Australia. You might want to search for "The Children Overboard Affair".
        MustardTiger 10y ago
        I don't follow. That story got out of hand? In what way? And again, how out of hand does a story need to get to make censorship good?

pdeuchler 10y ago

Wow, a non-falsifiable argument about how another side is a priori wrong. I'm sure this is a reasonable point to make.

SFLemonade 10y ago

Many American liberals are just as hard-headed and difficult to debate with. The Overton Window has shifted in the past couple years and the original leftists are now centrists. America has become radically polarized and the radical liberals and just as dangerous and closed-minded as the radical conservatives. You should also bear in mind that you're commenting on an article where liberals deliberately censored conservative news media. That doesn't do much to support your assertions. The fact that the American leftist view would be considered centrist in most other countries (like, for example, the nordic countries) is essentially meaningless. Just because "left" takes on different meanings or extremes in different parts of the world doesn't mean that the US is behind or should become more left. To compare US politics to those of Finland, Switzerland, or even Canada is completely absurd. We are a fundamentally different people, system, land mass, you name it. Our political system must take that into account.

pj_mukh 10y ago
Point being, Facebook's audience is majority international and it most of all wants to make money. If you occam's razor this, Facebook is simply presenting people with what they want to hear (a well-proven phenomenon[1]). The report has shown nothing to prove that there is some sort of committee that decides which political stances facebook is going to shove down people's throats, but we know it has MULTIPLE groups trying to increase engagement. The international community believes that the American right is nuts, voila, Facebook selectively presents this as the dominant news. Click, click, click...PROFIT. [1]:https://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles?language=en https://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_b...)
- SFLemonade 10y ago
  I totally see what you're saying, but that's not what happened here. This was deliberate and subjective curation by a group of similarly politically minded individuals, despite the fact that the feed appeared to be organic. They were pushing a political agenda in the US.
  - 10y ago

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]