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OK, so the recommendation engine is liberal? I don't know how the recommendation engine works, but Barack Obama is the most followed account on twitter I think

OK, so the recommendation engine is liberal? I don't know how the recommendation engine works, but Barack Obama is the most followed account on twitter I think, so can see how they'd suggest that... But if the recommendation engine is anything like their recommended tweets, I think they intentionally show you the other side always. I see tons of garbage view points that I don't agree with almost exclusively when I view a tweet. Without knowing anything about your tracking cookies and however else they 'enrich' what they know about you, it's tough to say why you got the recommendations you did. If you signed up based on a tweet from a democrat so you could engage by telling them they're wrong, maybe they assumed you like other democrats. If your complaint is that Twitter is an outrage inducing platform by design, I would absolutely agree. But that isn't an ideological bent. It just wants you to engage, and the fastest and easiest method is to make you mad.

sillysaurusx 5y ago
Is it so hard to believe that the recommendation engine is liberal? It’s true of HN too. It’s not a bad thing, the same way that Fox News being conservative isn’t a bad thing. It just is what it is. These are major news sites. News always has a bias. It’s important to identify, for one’s own sake. It’s not even particularly hard to bias an AI algorithm. It’s arguably the default.
- smachiz 5y ago
  Not hard to believe - younger people make up the bulk of their audience, and probably the bulk of HN that trend more liberal. That's a reflection of the userbase though, not necessarily of Twitter or HN's views. I would bet most LPs are more conservative - if only in private.
OrvalWintermute 5y ago
>If your complaint is that Twitter is an outrage inducing platform by design, I would absolutely agree. But that isn't an ideological bent. It just wants you to engage, and the fastest and easiest method is to make you mad. I don't think we can say with any honesty that Twitter is a clone of Fox's Three talking heads, comprised of a good looking moderator with a leftwinger, and a rightwinger duking it out. Twitter has been censoring, moderating, editorializing, and shadow-banning a large amount of conservatives, Libertarians, and also, moderates/centrists, and leftwingers that are posting contrary to the establishment narratives. By turning into more of an ideological echo-chamber it initiated the birth of conservative and other competitors, of which gettr appears to be leading the race with competitors like parler, truthsocial, gab, and others falling behind. Am surprised there are not shareholder lawsuits yet against Twitter's Officers for violating fiduciary responsibilities. Maybe they are prioritizing influence over eyeballs & economics?
nonethewiser 5y ago
"I see tons of garbage view points that I don't agree with almost exclusively when I view a tweet." Perhaps because you're on the fringe.
- smachiz 5y ago
  Nope, I am very much not - but I believe the twitter algo biases opposing viewpoints on popular tweets. Go look a tweet from AOC, and then from Ted - the replies I see are almost all opposing views, not the most popular replies or anything similar. You have to scroll a bit to find the sycophants.

sillysaurusx 5y ago

Is it so hard to believe that the recommendation engine is liberal? It’s true of HN too. It’s not a bad thing, the same way that Fox News being conservative isn’t a bad thing. It just is what it is. These are major news sites. News always has a bias. It’s important to identify, for one’s own sake. It’s not even particularly hard to bias an AI algorithm. It’s arguably the default.

smachiz 5y ago
Not hard to believe - younger people make up the bulk of their audience, and probably the bulk of HN that trend more liberal. That's a reflection of the userbase though, not necessarily of Twitter or HN's views. I would bet most LPs are more conservative - if only in private.

OrvalWintermute 5y ago

>If your complaint is that Twitter is an outrage inducing platform by design, I would absolutely agree. But that isn't an ideological bent. It just wants you to engage, and the fastest and easiest method is to make you mad. I don't think we can say with any honesty that Twitter is a clone of Fox's Three talking heads, comprised of a good looking moderator with a leftwinger, and a rightwinger duking it out. Twitter has been censoring, moderating, editorializing, and shadow-banning a large amount of conservatives, Libertarians, and also, moderates/centrists, and leftwingers that are posting contrary to the establishment narratives. By turning into more of an ideological echo-chamber it initiated the birth of conservative and other competitors, of which gettr appears to be leading the race with competitors like parler, truthsocial, gab, and others falling behind. Am surprised there are not shareholder lawsuits yet against Twitter's Officers for violating fiduciary responsibilities. Maybe they are prioritizing influence over eyeballs & economics?

nonethewiser 5y ago

"I see tons of garbage view points that I don't agree with almost exclusively when I view a tweet." Perhaps because you're on the fringe.

smachiz 5y ago
Nope, I am very much not - but I believe the twitter algo biases opposing viewpoints on popular tweets. Go look a tweet from AOC, and then from Ted - the replies I see are almost all opposing views, not the most popular replies or anything similar. You have to scroll a bit to find the sycophants.