4 ms·

> What boggles my mind is when visiting sites like Reddit Does it really boggle your mind though? Reddit operates as a left-leaning hivemind. The groupthink on

> What boggles my mind is when visiting sites like Reddit Does it really boggle your mind though? Reddit operates as a left-leaning hivemind. The groupthink on that site has been strong for more than a decade at this point.

amanaplanacanal 4y ago
I wonder though. If all of the big social media sites appear to be "left leaning", maybe what you are really seeing is the center, and your calibration is off.
- JimtheCoder 4y ago
  Wouldn't the political orientation of the moderation teams be relevant here? If the moderators of all of these organizations were reflective of the general population, then maybe, but are they?
- lprd 4y ago
  I'm of the opinion that that spectrum has been artificially shifted quite a bit in the last 5 to 10 years. This push has led to a lot of political unrest and has resulted in drastic polarization.
  - stjohnswarts 4y ago
    I think wokism has been taken way to far to the point it tries to subvert freedom of speech, critical thinking, and reality. Almost half the country is NOT far left and no amount of guilt tripping in the media is going to change that, and I say that as a very left person. We have to compromise and be civil and the people in the middle need to go vote despite the fact that both parties seem to want to be polar opposites.
- Auracle 4y ago
  The internet is still a place if the young. High schoolers, college kids, and people without children all have more free time and very much lean left.
- objetovoador 4y ago
  > If all of the big social media sites appear to be "left leaning" > [...] your calibration is off Big social media moderation is systemically biased, for instance, Twitter is/was staffed overwhelmingly (at times almost exclusively) by people who support Democrats [1]. [1]: https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/twitter/totals?id=D000067113 https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/twitter/totals?id=D00006711...
  - evgen 4y ago
    Yes, the reason those people support Democrats is that they are educated and live on the coast. Tell me where you live and what your level of education is and I am happy to place a very large bet on your political choices.
    - objetovoador 4y ago
      So you're admitting that basically this entire sector of the economy is a monoculture, but downplaying that there's any negative systemic bias cause that's somehow just a deterministic function of geography.
      - evgen 4y ago
        I am stating as a simple fact that education leads to a tendency to have a particular political affiliation given the current stances of the two major parties. This has nothing to do with a particular economic sector: college-educated truck drivers and college-educated lumberjacks would be the same. Reality has a well-known liberal bias so it turns out that this education-influenced tendency is more of a positive systemic bias than a negative one.
        no-dr-onboard 4y ago
        > Reality has a well-known liberal bias That's a big claim in the middle of a totally different argument.
        objetovoador 4y ago
- commandlinefan 4y ago
  > social media sites appear to be "left leaning" The actual users always appear to be pretty evenly split - it's the moderation policies that are inevitably biased.
stjohnswarts 4y ago
Reddit hard leans to a younger crowd. There are plenty conservative hold outs there, but don't expect a tech-centric, very young, mostly college educated crowd to support conservative positions in the popular subs, it's just not ever going to happen. I'm pretty moderate and get yelled at all the time when I talk about the merits of capitalism over collectivism and communism, even though I support stuff like public education and state sponsored health care as a right. Most of reddit seems to think the government can make everything better, and I've lived long enough to know that's simply not true.

amanaplanacanal 4y ago

I wonder though. If all of the big social media sites appear to be "left leaning", maybe what you are really seeing is the center, and your calibration is off.

JimtheCoder 4y ago
Wouldn't the political orientation of the moderation teams be relevant here? If the moderators of all of these organizations were reflective of the general population, then maybe, but are they?
lprd 4y ago
I'm of the opinion that that spectrum has been artificially shifted quite a bit in the last 5 to 10 years. This push has led to a lot of political unrest and has resulted in drastic polarization.
- stjohnswarts 4y ago
  I think wokism has been taken way to far to the point it tries to subvert freedom of speech, critical thinking, and reality. Almost half the country is NOT far left and no amount of guilt tripping in the media is going to change that, and I say that as a very left person. We have to compromise and be civil and the people in the middle need to go vote despite the fact that both parties seem to want to be polar opposites.
Auracle 4y ago
The internet is still a place if the young. High schoolers, college kids, and people without children all have more free time and very much lean left.
objetovoador 4y ago
> If all of the big social media sites appear to be "left leaning" > [...] your calibration is off Big social media moderation is systemically biased, for instance, Twitter is/was staffed overwhelmingly (at times almost exclusively) by people who support Democrats [1]. [1]: https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/twitter/totals?id=D000067113 https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/twitter/totals?id=D00006711...
- evgen 4y ago
  Yes, the reason those people support Democrats is that they are educated and live on the coast. Tell me where you live and what your level of education is and I am happy to place a very large bet on your political choices.
  - objetovoador 4y ago
    So you're admitting that basically this entire sector of the economy is a monoculture, but downplaying that there's any negative systemic bias cause that's somehow just a deterministic function of geography.
    - evgen 4y ago
      I am stating as a simple fact that education leads to a tendency to have a particular political affiliation given the current stances of the two major parties. This has nothing to do with a particular economic sector: college-educated truck drivers and college-educated lumberjacks would be the same. Reality has a well-known liberal bias so it turns out that this education-influenced tendency is more of a positive systemic bias than a negative one.
      - no-dr-onboard 4y ago
        > Reality has a well-known liberal bias That's a big claim in the middle of a totally different argument.
      - objetovoador 4y ago
commandlinefan 4y ago
> social media sites appear to be "left leaning" The actual users always appear to be pretty evenly split - it's the moderation policies that are inevitably biased.

stjohnswarts 4y ago

Reddit hard leans to a younger crowd. There are plenty conservative hold outs there, but don't expect a tech-centric, very young, mostly college educated crowd to support conservative positions in the popular subs, it's just not ever going to happen. I'm pretty moderate and get yelled at all the time when I talk about the merits of capitalism over collectivism and communism, even though I support stuff like public education and state sponsored health care as a right. Most of reddit seems to think the government can make everything better, and I've lived long enough to know that's simply not true.