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This is excellent data! 1. It has long been argued that Twitter has a liberal bias. This data proves it, with 60% of the users leaning left. 2. While the caus

This is excellent data! 1. It has long been argued that Twitter has a liberal bias. This data proves it, with 60% of the users leaning left. 2. While the cause of #1 hasn't been established, it is likely that moderators and policy makers in Twitter live in left leaning cities in the US, with admittedly left leaning political views. These folks tend to favor one side in the their censorship. 3. If one considers the fact that 80% of the content is generated by 10%, and the politics of that 10% further skews left, one can see why Twitter looks like a left echo chamber, uninviting to most centrist and right leaning folks.

0815test 7y ago
> a left echo chamber, uninviting to most centrist and right leaning folks. Meh, it's all relative. I'm not exactly on the left and while the left echo chamber may seem uninviting, the right-wing echo chamber (cough cough gab cough cough) somehow manages to be a lot worse.
- weberc2 7y ago
  Agreed, although the right-wing echo chamber is rightly marginalized (in the literal sense of the word), while the far-left are running newsrooms, universities, associations, corporations, public education, etc. I don't think the far-left should be pushed quite as far to the margins as the far-right, but not putting them so squarely in positions of massive influence would be a good start.
  - 0815test 7y ago
    > the far-left are running newsrooms, universities, associations, corporations, public education, etc. Perhaps, but elite opinions in those sorts of highly-developed, urban institutions have been dominated by the "left" side of the political spectrum since we've had a recognizable left-right (or 'progressive-conservative') split. Cthulhu swims slowly but he always swims left, there's nothing new under the sun. Of course many people think that today's left is too radical for its own good, but I wouldn't know how to even start to counter that tendency - and, again, you could say similar things about radicalism on the right - I remember what the Tea Party grassroots movement was like in the early 2000s, and there was nothing like the total craziness we see today!
    - weberc2 7y ago
      I'm not sure if you missed my distinction between far-left and moderate-left or if I'm misunderstanding something about your response. I agree that these institutions have long been left-of-center, but they used to be liberal (in the sense that they favored things like free speech and heterodoxy and opposed things like discrimination based on immutable characteristics). I object to the vehemently illiberal wing of the left (and right, but as previously mentioned, apart from the anomaly that is the presidency, the illiberal right is largely marginalized).
  - jellicle 7y ago
    Which newsrooms do you think are run by the "far-left"? I want to subscribe and I've never been able to find any, despite diligent searching.
    - thewastesadtime 7y ago
      I'd also like to know what corporations are run by the 'far left'
  - abathur 7y ago
    You should read the 7th (2013) edition of Who Rules America? by G. William Domhoff. It's a little pricy (it's a textbook) for a used copy on Amazon at the moment, but I watched the listings for a while and managed to pick up two copies for less than $31 a piece this winter. Not perfect, but it's pretty accessible and systematic.
    - nailer 7y ago
      Your post has no content. Saying "read this book" isn't a response - maybe summarise the point you want to make?
      - abathur 7y ago
        My point is that the parent might enjoy reading a fairly short, broad, systematic, accessible introductory textbook informed by ~50 years of studying power in America more than they might enjoy me telling them what to think.
  - rootusrootus 7y ago
    I've completely lost track of politics at this point. When I think "far left" I think of things like communism, socialism, etc. Something that basically doesn't exist in American politics. Sure, we have a segment of the commentariat accusing the left of being socialist, but I don't see anyone on the left advocating for actual socialism, just "social democracy" a la western Europe. I would love to know what supposedly counts as far left now. We've shifted the overton window so far that I'm really lost.
    - 0815test 7y ago
      In politics, what you "advocate for" can (sadly) be less relevant than how you define yourself, and what you present yourself as. And there absolutely are people and social movements on the U.S. left who are explicitly self-defining as "socialist". This used to be beyond the pale, and I can very much find it understandable that some people are genuinely scared at seeing it happen, at least as much as I am by the seemingly-meteoric rise of the authoritarian, sexist-chauvinist, anti-Semitic etc. "alt-right" in the other side of the political spectrum.
    - weberc2 7y ago
      Yeah, I'm not sure that "far left" is the appropriate term, but I wanted to communicate "people to the left of moderate liberals". I'm thinking people whose "egalitarian" vision demands segregation and treatment according to a strict hierarchy of immutable characteristics. People who use terms like "nazi" and "white supremacist" to refer to liberals and anyone right thereof. Not sure what the proper term is for this group.
      - rootusrootus 7y ago
        Yeah no idea. Personally I prefer to reserve nazi and white supremacist labels for those who actually are. And beyond that I try to avoid labels. Getting fairly tired of the whole thing, really. My friends who tend towards more typical conservative views view me as very liberal. My liberal friends view me as conservative. Ha! Turns out I'm both, depending on what issue we're talking about. We paint with very broad brushes these days, mostly to win arguments I think. Hard to say who is really at fault at this point, but I think in America our politics are just going to get nastier until some other country grows a sack big enough to attack us again.
- writepub 7y ago
  This notion that gab is what Twitter would look like if it didn't deplatform anyone who isn't left of center, is misleading. Many normal, peace loving, non bigoted folks simply do not agree with Twitteratti on a plethora of issues, but that needn't make them evil, and banning them is not helpful If you drive away normal centrist folks to gab, it is worsening public discourse, not to mention, Twitter's bottom line. One can agree to disagree without bans and elaborate shaming rituals.
abathur 7y ago
What portion of the delta in republican/democrat identification do you think might be attributable to the much more significant skew between the age of Twitter users and the general population? This data suggests that, on Twitter: 18-29 are overrepresented by 8% 30-49 are overrepresented by 11% 50-64 are underrepresented by 7% 65+ are underrepresented by 12% identified democrats overrepresented by 5% identified republicans underrepresented by 6% A 2016 Pew report (https://www.people-press.org/2016/09/13/2016-party-identification-detailed-tables/ https://www.people-press.org/2016/09/13/2016-party-identific...) suggested the partisan affiliation deltas per age group (sorry--there's probably a better dataset to use out there: the age ranges don't quite align, and this is just registered voters) broke out like: 18-35: +12% democrat 36-51: +6% democrat 52-70: +2% democrat 71-88: +8% republican
whyaduck 7y ago
Item by item: 1. This article doesn't say that Twitter (the company) has a liberal bias. It says that Twitter users lean left. 2. The article says absolutely nothing about this, and you haven't provided any evidence. This is pure conjecture. 3. Twitter users aren't forced to follow anyone in particular. There are plenty of timelines filled with conversations that look and sound like right wing "echo chambers", centrist "echo chambers", etc.
matt4077 7y ago
Plus/minus 5% is really just a marginal difference from the general population. It’s almost impressive in a way, and with just a bit of the motivated reasoning you so daftly employ in #2 and #3, I would argue it must be the result of some sort of intervention in the opposite direction of what you’re implying.
- writepub 7y ago
  By calling my reasoning "daft", and by implying interventionism, many would assume a text book ad hominem. But I'm ok with a jab - if we all get overly sensitive, and remove emotions from discourse, we're just denying our humanity. As for your counter points on my #2, #3, I've made it clear that it's "likely" for people to censor along the lines of their politics/options. I don't believe that to be unreasonable, especially when the censors aren't subject to any laws/regulations. And if there's ANY doubt in actual leftist bent inside Twitter, the company, here [1] is their CEO admitting to conservative employees being terrified to speak their mind. [1]: https://thehill.com/policy/technology/406927-twitter-ceo-jack-dorsey-conservative-employees-dont-feel-safe-to-express https://thehill.com/policy/technology/406927-twitter-ceo-jac...
  - nailer 7y ago
    I think the parent means "so deftly employ" rather than "daftly". I'm not sure why you're being downvoted, if the CEO of the company thinks conservative staff would be afraid to speak that seems quite solid to me (I'm liberal, but not leftist, and would also be afraid to work at Twitter).

0815test 7y ago

> a left echo chamber, uninviting to most centrist and right leaning folks. Meh, it's all relative. I'm not exactly on the left and while the left echo chamber may seem uninviting, the right-wing echo chamber (cough cough gab cough cough) somehow manages to be a lot worse.

weberc2 7y ago
Agreed, although the right-wing echo chamber is rightly marginalized (in the literal sense of the word), while the far-left are running newsrooms, universities, associations, corporations, public education, etc. I don't think the far-left should be pushed quite as far to the margins as the far-right, but not putting them so squarely in positions of massive influence would be a good start.
- 0815test 7y ago
  > the far-left are running newsrooms, universities, associations, corporations, public education, etc. Perhaps, but elite opinions in those sorts of highly-developed, urban institutions have been dominated by the "left" side of the political spectrum since we've had a recognizable left-right (or 'progressive-conservative') split. Cthulhu swims slowly but he always swims left, there's nothing new under the sun. Of course many people think that today's left is too radical for its own good, but I wouldn't know how to even start to counter that tendency - and, again, you could say similar things about radicalism on the right - I remember what the Tea Party grassroots movement was like in the early 2000s, and there was nothing like the total craziness we see today!
  - weberc2 7y ago
    I'm not sure if you missed my distinction between far-left and moderate-left or if I'm misunderstanding something about your response. I agree that these institutions have long been left-of-center, but they used to be liberal (in the sense that they favored things like free speech and heterodoxy and opposed things like discrimination based on immutable characteristics). I object to the vehemently illiberal wing of the left (and right, but as previously mentioned, apart from the anomaly that is the presidency, the illiberal right is largely marginalized).
- jellicle 7y ago
  Which newsrooms do you think are run by the "far-left"? I want to subscribe and I've never been able to find any, despite diligent searching.
  - thewastesadtime 7y ago
    I'd also like to know what corporations are run by the 'far left'
- abathur 7y ago
  You should read the 7th (2013) edition of Who Rules America? by G. William Domhoff. It's a little pricy (it's a textbook) for a used copy on Amazon at the moment, but I watched the listings for a while and managed to pick up two copies for less than $31 a piece this winter. Not perfect, but it's pretty accessible and systematic.
  - nailer 7y ago
    Your post has no content. Saying "read this book" isn't a response - maybe summarise the point you want to make?
    - abathur 7y ago
      My point is that the parent might enjoy reading a fairly short, broad, systematic, accessible introductory textbook informed by ~50 years of studying power in America more than they might enjoy me telling them what to think.
- rootusrootus 7y ago
  I've completely lost track of politics at this point. When I think "far left" I think of things like communism, socialism, etc. Something that basically doesn't exist in American politics. Sure, we have a segment of the commentariat accusing the left of being socialist, but I don't see anyone on the left advocating for actual socialism, just "social democracy" a la western Europe. I would love to know what supposedly counts as far left now. We've shifted the overton window so far that I'm really lost.
  - 0815test 7y ago
    In politics, what you "advocate for" can (sadly) be less relevant than how you define yourself, and what you present yourself as. And there absolutely are people and social movements on the U.S. left who are explicitly self-defining as "socialist". This used to be beyond the pale, and I can very much find it understandable that some people are genuinely scared at seeing it happen, at least as much as I am by the seemingly-meteoric rise of the authoritarian, sexist-chauvinist, anti-Semitic etc. "alt-right" in the other side of the political spectrum.
  - weberc2 7y ago
    Yeah, I'm not sure that "far left" is the appropriate term, but I wanted to communicate "people to the left of moderate liberals". I'm thinking people whose "egalitarian" vision demands segregation and treatment according to a strict hierarchy of immutable characteristics. People who use terms like "nazi" and "white supremacist" to refer to liberals and anyone right thereof. Not sure what the proper term is for this group.
    - rootusrootus 7y ago
      Yeah no idea. Personally I prefer to reserve nazi and white supremacist labels for those who actually are. And beyond that I try to avoid labels. Getting fairly tired of the whole thing, really. My friends who tend towards more typical conservative views view me as very liberal. My liberal friends view me as conservative. Ha! Turns out I'm both, depending on what issue we're talking about. We paint with very broad brushes these days, mostly to win arguments I think. Hard to say who is really at fault at this point, but I think in America our politics are just going to get nastier until some other country grows a sack big enough to attack us again.
writepub 7y ago
This notion that gab is what Twitter would look like if it didn't deplatform anyone who isn't left of center, is misleading. Many normal, peace loving, non bigoted folks simply do not agree with Twitteratti on a plethora of issues, but that needn't make them evil, and banning them is not helpful If you drive away normal centrist folks to gab, it is worsening public discourse, not to mention, Twitter's bottom line. One can agree to disagree without bans and elaborate shaming rituals.

abathur 7y ago

What portion of the delta in republican/democrat identification do you think might be attributable to the much more significant skew between the age of Twitter users and the general population? This data suggests that, on Twitter: 18-29 are overrepresented by 8% 30-49 are overrepresented by 11% 50-64 are underrepresented by 7% 65+ are underrepresented by 12% identified democrats overrepresented by 5% identified republicans underrepresented by 6% A 2016 Pew report (https://www.people-press.org/2016/09/13/2016-party-identification-detailed-tables/ https://www.people-press.org/2016/09/13/2016-party-identific...) suggested the partisan affiliation deltas per age group (sorry--there's probably a better dataset to use out there: the age ranges don't quite align, and this is just registered voters) broke out like: 18-35: +12% democrat 36-51: +6% democrat 52-70: +2% democrat 71-88: +8% republican

whyaduck 7y ago

Item by item: 1. This article doesn't say that Twitter (the company) has a liberal bias. It says that Twitter users lean left. 2. The article says absolutely nothing about this, and you haven't provided any evidence. This is pure conjecture. 3. Twitter users aren't forced to follow anyone in particular. There are plenty of timelines filled with conversations that look and sound like right wing "echo chambers", centrist "echo chambers", etc.

matt4077 7y ago

Plus/minus 5% is really just a marginal difference from the general population. It’s almost impressive in a way, and with just a bit of the motivated reasoning you so daftly employ in #2 and #3, I would argue it must be the result of some sort of intervention in the opposite direction of what you’re implying.

writepub 7y ago
By calling my reasoning "daft", and by implying interventionism, many would assume a text book ad hominem. But I'm ok with a jab - if we all get overly sensitive, and remove emotions from discourse, we're just denying our humanity. As for your counter points on my #2, #3, I've made it clear that it's "likely" for people to censor along the lines of their politics/options. I don't believe that to be unreasonable, especially when the censors aren't subject to any laws/regulations. And if there's ANY doubt in actual leftist bent inside Twitter, the company, here [1] is their CEO admitting to conservative employees being terrified to speak their mind. [1]: https://thehill.com/policy/technology/406927-twitter-ceo-jack-dorsey-conservative-employees-dont-feel-safe-to-express https://thehill.com/policy/technology/406927-twitter-ceo-jac...
- nailer 7y ago
  I think the parent means "so deftly employ" rather than "daftly". I'm not sure why you're being downvoted, if the CEO of the company thinks conservative staff would be afraid to speak that seems quite solid to me (I'm liberal, but not leftist, and would also be afraid to work at Twitter).