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Almost all of the popular communities online lean left, take your pick. You have much slimmer pickings if you're a conservative. http://gab.ai http://gab.ai re

Almost all of the popular communities online lean left, take your pick. You have much slimmer pickings if you're a conservative. http://gab.ai http://gab.ai recently launched as a pro free-speech twitter alternative, I would also check them out.

mkaziz 10y ago
I'll be interested in whether the let ISIS-sympathizers and KKK-style white supremacists in, in the name of free speech and the right to offend. That should certainly make for an explosive combination.
- CamperBob2 10y ago
  More likely they'll throw a few half-hearted insults at each other, then realize how much they have in common and become BFFs.
hood_syntax 10y ago
> You have much slimmer pickings if you're a conservative IMO, it doesn't matter if the platform leans left as long as it fosters constructive and open discussion. You're correct that a lot of the heavy handed moderation (censorship?) is on popular communities that trend left, but that's just a money related trend imo. Companies want to make their product a "safe" platform for investors
- creshal 10y ago
  Throwing rights under the bus in the pursuit of money is now leftist? I hope we have Karl Marx' corpse wired up to a generator.
  - hood_syntax 10y ago
    > Throwing rights under the bus in the pursuit of money is now leftist? It's not that it's leftist. It's that the people online tend to lean leftwards, and people investing in online communities want to grab the largest portion of the available population. I will say, however, that the left in the US (namely the Democratic party) certainly seems to be willing to pursue a lot in the name of money (like taking millions of dollars from corporate and financial lobbying), and a lot of leftists online are totally okay with creating echochambers (though that's certainly not their pursuit alone).
    - smsm42 10y ago
      I doubt however it goes that deep. I mean, your demographic premise is right, but there is more than ample right (whatever you want to mean by that word, really) online population. And I don't think anybody does a careful calculation of whether we should get this slant or that slant based on how many dollars it will bring us - even if it were possible (which I'm pretty sure it's not) nobody does that in practice. And, if you look at channels like Fox News, it has huge audience. Granted, online audience is different, but in this time and place, it's not that different. It's not 1990s anymore, using the internet is not for the elite anymore, no more than having a cellphone. Everybody now does that (not literally everybody but demographically pretty much all is covered). So, why many online communities lean leftwards? I'd say because their organizers/maintainers lean leftwards. Those are usually people that are young, frequently college or early post-college age, frequently with background in liberal arts - that demographics leans left. And those that don't lean the same way don't feel comfortable there (and modern college left made making people disagreeing with them feel unwelcome practically into a competition sport) and leave. That'd happen and does happen with no money consideration involved.
- sergiotapia 10y ago
  > but that's just a money related trend imo It's _much_ more insidious, but I'll leave it at that.
  - pyre 10y ago
    You to realize the irony that in a discussion about constructive / objective / considerate discussion, you have posted something that is not very constructive.
- pjc50 10y ago
  It's about safety, but not so much of investors. You have a choice when running an English-language forum of whether to allow racism, homophobia, sexism and so on, and to what extent you'll give people the benefit of the doubt on those. If you do, then it's like spam, it will become the "default" content of the forum. If you don't, it will end up left-leaning as a "safe space". There are genuinely incompatible populations for audience/contributors and you have to pick one. (And if you have a hardline free speech policy where you refuse to delete anything, you'll end up hosting child porn. You have to have a deletion policy in order to have a functional forum.)
andruby 10y ago
Maybe the world in general has a different definition of "center" than the US.
- dgb23 10y ago
  I can't speak for the world but in switzerland we have a similar distribution. The big exception is that we are way more skeptical towards people who put on a big show. We like it way more moderate. Wannabe alpha wolves get ridiculed here.
  - lintiness 10y ago
    most europeans trust their government more than the average moderate american. it might be some universal belief, or it may be a function of the work your governments have done.
creshal 10y ago
> Almost all of the popular communities online lean left, take your pick. Funny, I'd have considered them to lean right, since I'm left, and don't see myself represented in them either. I'm sure there's a name for this sort of cognitive bias.
- ultramancool 10y ago
  There's a site that indexes reddit's most downvoted posts and quite often it's about 75% right-leaning political news being posted to major news and politics subreddits, if you visit those subreddits, the upvoted stuff is indeed stuff that's more left-leaning. Hard to see otherwise here, especially when you factor in the upvotes and not just # of comments.
  - creshal 10y ago
    > There's a site that indexes reddit's most downvoted posts Link?
    - ultramancool 10y ago
      http://notreddit.top http://notreddit.top Not much political stuff on the past day right now but if you look at the past month's posts about the US presidential candidates you'll see what I'm talking about.
      - creshal 10y ago
        Ah, thanks. This election cycle seems to be a singular shitstorm anyway, but the random non-election posts in between also seem to be tendentiously more right-leaning. Interesting. Going by the coverage of the refugee crisis (more relevant to me in Austria) a while back it was looking the other way around, and I mostly stopped bothering with political subs.
      - dgb23 10y ago
        Disclaimer: Observing your election from europe, I have no skin in the game. It seems to me that your current election is a bit of a special entity, so this data might be a bit skewed. I don't know a single conservative/right/center minded person who would support the current repuplican nominee if she/he could. I think this comes from the fact that he is a very unique candidate. Saying that anti Trump is anti right doesn't acknoledge this. There are also more general issues. Most public political discussions are not so much political but mostly ideological aka not meaningful. People who follow ideologies are self imposing an anti discussion barrier. Your two party system enforces this. If I want political discussion and/or information then I talk to friends or read/share interesting long form articles. Democracy is complex and full of kompromises aka hard, so "quick and dirty" just doesn't cut it.
pyre 10y ago
> Almost all of the popular communities online lean left, take your pick. Like Reddit where /r/TheDonald is consistently at the top of /r/all, and stories about terrorism on /r/WorldNews devolve into xenophobic rants that stop just short of containing phrases like "the only good Muslim is a dead Muslim?" That's not too "left leaning" to me.
- lintiness 10y ago
  anecdotal garbage. i glance at r/all once or twice a day and the number of threads from /thedonald making an appearance is dwarfed by those from /news and /politics -- both groups that banish even thoughtful "right leaning" comments to the basement. at least with /thedonald, you know there's a political bent. the other groups pretend to be "objective".
  - turc1656 10y ago
    Because of this, I virtually never comment on anything on the internet. I am genuinely disgusted at the comments on most sites and want no part of it. It is not just a waste of time, it can also rot your soul. Besides the small handful of posts here on HackerNews, I honestly cannot remember the last time I wrote anything online at all. I suggest all of you do the same. You might find you are much better off, like I did. To be clear - by all means READ blogs and sites and stay informed. Just steer clear of the comments section. Vote at the ballot box and with your wallet. Not with your keyboard.
  - turc1656 10y ago
    A bit more - what you wrote is exactly the typical case I have seen almost exclusively across the spectrum for many boards/sites. And Reddit in particular is especially guilty of this. It shouldn't really surprise anyone, though, given that Silicon Valley leans hard to the left - they are in charge of some of these non-media owned discussion sites like Reddit. Just look at the recent case of Facebook hiding conservative news from the feed. Of course they claim it was a few "rogue employees". Sure, I believe that. And as for discussions on Reddit or news websites, the typical tactic I see over and over is as soon as anyone who is in the minority viewpoint is starting to make any sort of sense, commenters whip out the laundry list of go-to techniques for intellectually dishonest attacks - name-calling, stereotyping, questioning motives, questioning knowledge/expertise/credentials, using incorrect assumptions and false premises, straw man attacks, claiming facts are just opinions, use of weasel words, or (my personal favorite) the claim of having "rights" that are not in fact rights at all (surprisingly common). None of these crap tactics address either incorrect facts or incorrect logic, which are the only two things that should matter. It's amazing to me how ugly things have become. And it's not just politics. Go to virtually ANY youtube video with more than a few thousand views and read the comments. There are an inordinate amount of hateful/angry posts, even for the most subjective things like music. And somehow anything related to news devolves into a political debate.
pjc50 10y ago
Do you really have to pick one? Is there no center any more? Can you give me an example of some content from gabai that wouldn't be on twitter? It's quite hard to get banned from twitter for mere opinion.

mkaziz 10y ago

I'll be interested in whether the let ISIS-sympathizers and KKK-style white supremacists in, in the name of free speech and the right to offend. That should certainly make for an explosive combination.

CamperBob2 10y ago
More likely they'll throw a few half-hearted insults at each other, then realize how much they have in common and become BFFs.

hood_syntax 10y ago

> You have much slimmer pickings if you're a conservative IMO, it doesn't matter if the platform leans left as long as it fosters constructive and open discussion. You're correct that a lot of the heavy handed moderation (censorship?) is on popular communities that trend left, but that's just a money related trend imo. Companies want to make their product a "safe" platform for investors

creshal 10y ago
Throwing rights under the bus in the pursuit of money is now leftist? I hope we have Karl Marx' corpse wired up to a generator.
- hood_syntax 10y ago
  > Throwing rights under the bus in the pursuit of money is now leftist? It's not that it's leftist. It's that the people online tend to lean leftwards, and people investing in online communities want to grab the largest portion of the available population. I will say, however, that the left in the US (namely the Democratic party) certainly seems to be willing to pursue a lot in the name of money (like taking millions of dollars from corporate and financial lobbying), and a lot of leftists online are totally okay with creating echochambers (though that's certainly not their pursuit alone).
  - smsm42 10y ago
    I doubt however it goes that deep. I mean, your demographic premise is right, but there is more than ample right (whatever you want to mean by that word, really) online population. And I don't think anybody does a careful calculation of whether we should get this slant or that slant based on how many dollars it will bring us - even if it were possible (which I'm pretty sure it's not) nobody does that in practice. And, if you look at channels like Fox News, it has huge audience. Granted, online audience is different, but in this time and place, it's not that different. It's not 1990s anymore, using the internet is not for the elite anymore, no more than having a cellphone. Everybody now does that (not literally everybody but demographically pretty much all is covered). So, why many online communities lean leftwards? I'd say because their organizers/maintainers lean leftwards. Those are usually people that are young, frequently college or early post-college age, frequently with background in liberal arts - that demographics leans left. And those that don't lean the same way don't feel comfortable there (and modern college left made making people disagreeing with them feel unwelcome practically into a competition sport) and leave. That'd happen and does happen with no money consideration involved.
sergiotapia 10y ago
> but that's just a money related trend imo It's _much_ more insidious, but I'll leave it at that.
- pyre 10y ago
  You to realize the irony that in a discussion about constructive / objective / considerate discussion, you have posted something that is not very constructive.
pjc50 10y ago
It's about safety, but not so much of investors. You have a choice when running an English-language forum of whether to allow racism, homophobia, sexism and so on, and to what extent you'll give people the benefit of the doubt on those. If you do, then it's like spam, it will become the "default" content of the forum. If you don't, it will end up left-leaning as a "safe space". There are genuinely incompatible populations for audience/contributors and you have to pick one. (And if you have a hardline free speech policy where you refuse to delete anything, you'll end up hosting child porn. You have to have a deletion policy in order to have a functional forum.)

andruby 10y ago

Maybe the world in general has a different definition of "center" than the US.

dgb23 10y ago
I can't speak for the world but in switzerland we have a similar distribution. The big exception is that we are way more skeptical towards people who put on a big show. We like it way more moderate. Wannabe alpha wolves get ridiculed here.
- lintiness 10y ago
  most europeans trust their government more than the average moderate american. it might be some universal belief, or it may be a function of the work your governments have done.

creshal 10y ago

> Almost all of the popular communities online lean left, take your pick. Funny, I'd have considered them to lean right, since I'm left, and don't see myself represented in them either. I'm sure there's a name for this sort of cognitive bias.

ultramancool 10y ago
There's a site that indexes reddit's most downvoted posts and quite often it's about 75% right-leaning political news being posted to major news and politics subreddits, if you visit those subreddits, the upvoted stuff is indeed stuff that's more left-leaning. Hard to see otherwise here, especially when you factor in the upvotes and not just # of comments.
- creshal 10y ago
  > There's a site that indexes reddit's most downvoted posts Link?
  - ultramancool 10y ago
    http://notreddit.top http://notreddit.top Not much political stuff on the past day right now but if you look at the past month's posts about the US presidential candidates you'll see what I'm talking about.
    - creshal 10y ago
      Ah, thanks. This election cycle seems to be a singular shitstorm anyway, but the random non-election posts in between also seem to be tendentiously more right-leaning. Interesting. Going by the coverage of the refugee crisis (more relevant to me in Austria) a while back it was looking the other way around, and I mostly stopped bothering with political subs.
    - dgb23 10y ago
      Disclaimer: Observing your election from europe, I have no skin in the game. It seems to me that your current election is a bit of a special entity, so this data might be a bit skewed. I don't know a single conservative/right/center minded person who would support the current repuplican nominee if she/he could. I think this comes from the fact that he is a very unique candidate. Saying that anti Trump is anti right doesn't acknoledge this. There are also more general issues. Most public political discussions are not so much political but mostly ideological aka not meaningful. People who follow ideologies are self imposing an anti discussion barrier. Your two party system enforces this. If I want political discussion and/or information then I talk to friends or read/share interesting long form articles. Democracy is complex and full of kompromises aka hard, so "quick and dirty" just doesn't cut it.

pyre 10y ago

> Almost all of the popular communities online lean left, take your pick. Like Reddit where /r/TheDonald is consistently at the top of /r/all, and stories about terrorism on /r/WorldNews devolve into xenophobic rants that stop just short of containing phrases like "the only good Muslim is a dead Muslim?" That's not too "left leaning" to me.

lintiness 10y ago
anecdotal garbage. i glance at r/all once or twice a day and the number of threads from /thedonald making an appearance is dwarfed by those from /news and /politics -- both groups that banish even thoughtful "right leaning" comments to the basement. at least with /thedonald, you know there's a political bent. the other groups pretend to be "objective".
- turc1656 10y ago
  Because of this, I virtually never comment on anything on the internet. I am genuinely disgusted at the comments on most sites and want no part of it. It is not just a waste of time, it can also rot your soul. Besides the small handful of posts here on HackerNews, I honestly cannot remember the last time I wrote anything online at all. I suggest all of you do the same. You might find you are much better off, like I did. To be clear - by all means READ blogs and sites and stay informed. Just steer clear of the comments section. Vote at the ballot box and with your wallet. Not with your keyboard.
- turc1656 10y ago
  A bit more - what you wrote is exactly the typical case I have seen almost exclusively across the spectrum for many boards/sites. And Reddit in particular is especially guilty of this. It shouldn't really surprise anyone, though, given that Silicon Valley leans hard to the left - they are in charge of some of these non-media owned discussion sites like Reddit. Just look at the recent case of Facebook hiding conservative news from the feed. Of course they claim it was a few "rogue employees". Sure, I believe that. And as for discussions on Reddit or news websites, the typical tactic I see over and over is as soon as anyone who is in the minority viewpoint is starting to make any sort of sense, commenters whip out the laundry list of go-to techniques for intellectually dishonest attacks - name-calling, stereotyping, questioning motives, questioning knowledge/expertise/credentials, using incorrect assumptions and false premises, straw man attacks, claiming facts are just opinions, use of weasel words, or (my personal favorite) the claim of having "rights" that are not in fact rights at all (surprisingly common). None of these crap tactics address either incorrect facts or incorrect logic, which are the only two things that should matter. It's amazing to me how ugly things have become. And it's not just politics. Go to virtually ANY youtube video with more than a few thousand views and read the comments. There are an inordinate amount of hateful/angry posts, even for the most subjective things like music. And somehow anything related to news devolves into a political debate.

pjc50 10y ago

Do you really have to pick one? Is there no center any more? Can you give me an example of some content from gabai that wouldn't be on twitter? It's quite hard to get banned from twitter for mere opinion.