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While I agree that the liberal-run tech firms are biased against conservative news sources, I think it is only fair to point out that the list you link is compi

While I agree that the liberal-run tech firms are biased against conservative news sources, I think it is only fair to point out that the list you link is compiled and presented by a conservative organisation that has apparently been under criticism for its own approach to covid reporting (see the wiki page; and yes, I think wikipedia seems often liberal-biased), and can not be considered a neutral voice in this particular discussion. That doesn't mean the list isn't valid; but it can't be assumed it is balanced.

rayiner 6y ago
I would encourage folks to resist the urge to put up blinders based on the URL. Particularly where, as here, the source is just collecting publicly-available documents and links. You’re not being asked to trust the author’s synthesis of a bunch of facts. You can check the underlying links yourself. Obviously conservative organizations have more of an incentive to compile this sort of thing. That doesn’t make it in and of itself unreliable. Also, “conservative” and “liberal” are relative terms. Journalists are vastly more liberal than the public as a whole, so any news outlet that covers things from a middle ground perspective is labeled “conservative.” https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/media-bias-left-study/ https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/media-bias-lef... In an ASU study of financial journalists, people who labeled themselves “very liberal” or “liberal” outnumbered those who labeled themselves “conservative” or “very conservative” 13:1. I’m not saying that this makes liberal reporters bad, or biased in the sense of willful prejudice. But liberals and conservatives have different assumptions, have different sets of facts they consider salient to different issues, etc. When a liberal reporter covers Sanders’ suggestion of $60,000 minimum teacher pay, the facts that come to mind might be things like how the income gap between teachers and other college-educated professionals is bigger in the US than in other countries. To a conservative, the first thing that might come to mind is that US teachers are already paid well above the OECD average. Both facts are true (American teachers are paid more than British teachers, but American programmers are paid a lot more). These differences inevitably come out in the reporting. Just because an outlet is writing from a conservative point of view doesn’t mean it’s trying to manipulate or deceive people.
- mellosouls 6y ago
  I agree with most of that, but wrt "blinders" was careful to word my comment so that people had eyes open...
  - rayiner 6y ago
    Yes, I didn’t take your post as encouraging people not to click on the link. But I think people have a tendency to tune out links based on the URL.
- stefan_ 6y ago
  This article literally has >Twitter's technicality is a fig leaf to enable continued control of public discourse by an unelected private industry that is 9-to-1 in the tank for Democrats and can decide what Americans are allowed to know. in the headline. Yes, thank you, I reject this authors "fact synthesis".
  - rayiner 6y ago
    OP isn’t citing it for the top-line conclusion, but for the bulk of the article that collects various references together.
    - messick 6y ago
      It’s The Federalist. No one needs to read further than the URL to know how separate from reality everything the piece is.
      - rayiner 6y ago
        The Federalist is like a conservative version of Mother Jones or HuffPo. Not what I’d consider reliable but it can collect together facts that can be verified that other organizations won’t necessarily put together. For example, there’s an article right now observing that, while we’ve had a Supreme Court with a majority of Republican appointees for 50 years, for a lot of that time it’s been appointees confirmed by a Democratic Senate. (Democrats held the Senate almost without any gap from 1936-1982.) So candidates that ended up getting wobbly like Souter and Stevens were compromise candidates. The NYT just isn’t going to highlight facts like that.

rayiner 6y ago

I would encourage folks to resist the urge to put up blinders based on the URL. Particularly where, as here, the source is just collecting publicly-available documents and links. You’re not being asked to trust the author’s synthesis of a bunch of facts. You can check the underlying links yourself. Obviously conservative organizations have more of an incentive to compile this sort of thing. That doesn’t make it in and of itself unreliable. Also, “conservative” and “liberal” are relative terms. Journalists are vastly more liberal than the public as a whole, so any news outlet that covers things from a middle ground perspective is labeled “conservative.” https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/media-bias-left-study/ https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/media-bias-lef... In an ASU study of financial journalists, people who labeled themselves “very liberal” or “liberal” outnumbered those who labeled themselves “conservative” or “very conservative” 13:1. I’m not saying that this makes liberal reporters bad, or biased in the sense of willful prejudice. But liberals and conservatives have different assumptions, have different sets of facts they consider salient to different issues, etc. When a liberal reporter covers Sanders’ suggestion of $60,000 minimum teacher pay, the facts that come to mind might be things like how the income gap between teachers and other college-educated professionals is bigger in the US than in other countries. To a conservative, the first thing that might come to mind is that US teachers are already paid well above the OECD average. Both facts are true (American teachers are paid more than British teachers, but American programmers are paid a lot more). These differences inevitably come out in the reporting. Just because an outlet is writing from a conservative point of view doesn’t mean it’s trying to manipulate or deceive people.

mellosouls 6y ago
I agree with most of that, but wrt "blinders" was careful to word my comment so that people had eyes open...
- rayiner 6y ago
  Yes, I didn’t take your post as encouraging people not to click on the link. But I think people have a tendency to tune out links based on the URL.
stefan_ 6y ago
This article literally has >Twitter's technicality is a fig leaf to enable continued control of public discourse by an unelected private industry that is 9-to-1 in the tank for Democrats and can decide what Americans are allowed to know. in the headline. Yes, thank you, I reject this authors "fact synthesis".
- rayiner 6y ago
  OP isn’t citing it for the top-line conclusion, but for the bulk of the article that collects various references together.
  - messick 6y ago
    It’s The Federalist. No one needs to read further than the URL to know how separate from reality everything the piece is.
    - rayiner 6y ago
      The Federalist is like a conservative version of Mother Jones or HuffPo. Not what I’d consider reliable but it can collect together facts that can be verified that other organizations won’t necessarily put together. For example, there’s an article right now observing that, while we’ve had a Supreme Court with a majority of Republican appointees for 50 years, for a lot of that time it’s been appointees confirmed by a Democratic Senate. (Democrats held the Senate almost without any gap from 1936-1982.) So candidates that ended up getting wobbly like Souter and Stevens were compromise candidates. The NYT just isn’t going to highlight facts like that.