4 ms·

I’ve spent days reviewing comments on Reddit, Twitter, YouTube, news articles, et al and I’ve never seen such a uniformity of opinion on anything in my life.

loeg 2y ago
Are you familiar with sampling bias.
- robertlagrant 2y ago
  Based on what I've read here they aren't.
  - griomnib 2y ago
    I literally have a PhD in social science and studied public opinion research at the graduate level with one of the field’s most highly accomplished political scientists of his generation. I also have a basic modicum of common sense and the ability to observe my environment.
    - robertlagrant 2y ago
      But you're new to sampling bias jokes :-)
riiii 2y ago
Yep. In today's world where everything is polarized to the extreme this seems to be unifying people. I don't think anyone had it on their bingo cards for 2024.
SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
Comments you see on the Internet are not a random sample! If there's one lesson I could drive home to everyone about media literacy, this is it. Everything you see online is intensely, competitively selected for its ability to drive engagement, and celebrating murder drives a ton of engagement precisely because it transgresses well-established and widely agreed norms. Indeed, as we've seen here, the murder drives so much engagement that people are eager to discuss it in the comments of any article that's even tangentially related!
- standardUser 2y ago
  > Everything you see online is intensely, competitively selected for its ability to drive engagement Mostly you're seeing accounts/sites you follow and choose to view and often those accounts have a consistent set of commenters. It's not like you log and the internet shows you entirely random things every time.
  - SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
    If you're viewing "Reddit, Twitter, YouTube, news articles, et al", that's usually not so. Each of these platforms optimize their default views to show you the content they expect will be most engaging, although the first three apply some algorithmic filtering to try and make the content engaging to you in particular rather than the average viewer. Equally importantly, the content that gets produced is subject to this same filter. If you think the killer was justified, or you think the impulse to justify the killer shows everything that's wrong with America, you'll be excited to go write out a banger Tweet on the topic. If you have the boring, conventional view that all murders are tragic and you hope killers are brought to justice for the sake of the victim's friends and family, it's not going to occur to you to comment on this particular one.
    - cruffle_duffle 2y ago
      Let’s not forget if you go against the grain and post “people are celebrating murder, which is gross” you are probably going to get downvoted—even on this site! This whole celebration of murder thing is so bizarre. The fact it seems to be the default “way to get upvotes” and speaking out is “downvote city” is… well… disconcerting to say the least.
      - standardUser 2y ago
        It speaks to the deep and broad frustration among Americans towards our healthcare system. This isn't just executives or politicians "screwing people over" like we see in so many other realms. There's a significant number of Americans who love someone who has actually died or suffered severer/permanent physical distress for the sake of insurance company profits. When someone's family gets blown up from the sky and that someone becomes a terrorist willing to use violence against the party they blame for their family members death, we may not like it but we don't pretend to not understand it. Similarly we can't pretend to not understand this phenomenon.
lancesells 2y ago
Have you seen Youtube or Reddit comments on anything? They don't reflect real-life. Youtube is probably the worst, most trollish comments of the "normal" internet and Reddit is a sort of progressive propaganda machine that will also call for the death penalty on a teenager that did something stupid (which lots of teenagers do) or a karen that was an asshole in a restaurant and isn't happy with her life. I haven't visited twitter in ten years or more so can't comment on that.
- kelseyfrog 2y ago
  I've had conversations with real people in real life who also overwhelmingly share the sentiment. It's not an internet bubble.
  - IncreasePosts 2y ago
    Those people are probably reading the same websites as you. I swear, users of a site have no kind of memory. Literally a month ago everyone on reddits jaw was agape as trump was declared the winner. After months of redditors telling each other Kamala would win in a landslide and Trump was floundering, and no one was coming to his rallies, etc. And now they're doing the same thing, telling each other that everyone in America loves that a dude was murdered in the street of NY(with a gun, literally 3' away from a random individual)
    - kelseyfrog 2y ago
      Nah, this is just moving the goalposts from "it's an Internet bubble" to "it's your personal bubble". I don't buy it. Neo-*ism ideologies share a common myth - the myth of necessary order. This forms a contradiction that if enforced by more order will self-correct with stocastic violence. Sorry, but that's simply reality.
      - IncreasePosts 2y ago
        "internet bubbles" don't exist solely on the Internet, they exist in the minds of people spending a lot of time on the internet on certain sites. They manifest on the Internet commonly. But they also manifest in the "real world" when those people communicate with others. Go ahead and deceive yourself that you're not in an echo chamber. I'm sure that will help you understand reality better.
tredre3 2y ago
> I’ve spent days reviewing comments on Reddit, Twitter, YouTube, news articles, et al and I’ve never seen such a uniformity of opinion on anything in my life. I felt the same way about the American election. Yet, Trump won. Online consensus on social media means nothing.

loeg 2y ago

Are you familiar with sampling bias.

robertlagrant 2y ago
Based on what I've read here they aren't.
- griomnib 2y ago
  I literally have a PhD in social science and studied public opinion research at the graduate level with one of the field’s most highly accomplished political scientists of his generation. I also have a basic modicum of common sense and the ability to observe my environment.
  - robertlagrant 2y ago
    But you're new to sampling bias jokes :-)

riiii 2y ago

Yep. In today's world where everything is polarized to the extreme this seems to be unifying people. I don't think anyone had it on their bingo cards for 2024.

SpicyLemonZest 2y ago

Comments you see on the Internet are not a random sample! If there's one lesson I could drive home to everyone about media literacy, this is it. Everything you see online is intensely, competitively selected for its ability to drive engagement, and celebrating murder drives a ton of engagement precisely because it transgresses well-established and widely agreed norms. Indeed, as we've seen here, the murder drives so much engagement that people are eager to discuss it in the comments of any article that's even tangentially related!

standardUser 2y ago
> Everything you see online is intensely, competitively selected for its ability to drive engagement Mostly you're seeing accounts/sites you follow and choose to view and often those accounts have a consistent set of commenters. It's not like you log and the internet shows you entirely random things every time.
- SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
  If you're viewing "Reddit, Twitter, YouTube, news articles, et al", that's usually not so. Each of these platforms optimize their default views to show you the content they expect will be most engaging, although the first three apply some algorithmic filtering to try and make the content engaging to you in particular rather than the average viewer. Equally importantly, the content that gets produced is subject to this same filter. If you think the killer was justified, or you think the impulse to justify the killer shows everything that's wrong with America, you'll be excited to go write out a banger Tweet on the topic. If you have the boring, conventional view that all murders are tragic and you hope killers are brought to justice for the sake of the victim's friends and family, it's not going to occur to you to comment on this particular one.
  - cruffle_duffle 2y ago
    Let’s not forget if you go against the grain and post “people are celebrating murder, which is gross” you are probably going to get downvoted—even on this site! This whole celebration of murder thing is so bizarre. The fact it seems to be the default “way to get upvotes” and speaking out is “downvote city” is… well… disconcerting to say the least.
    - standardUser 2y ago
      It speaks to the deep and broad frustration among Americans towards our healthcare system. This isn't just executives or politicians "screwing people over" like we see in so many other realms. There's a significant number of Americans who love someone who has actually died or suffered severer/permanent physical distress for the sake of insurance company profits. When someone's family gets blown up from the sky and that someone becomes a terrorist willing to use violence against the party they blame for their family members death, we may not like it but we don't pretend to not understand it. Similarly we can't pretend to not understand this phenomenon.

lancesells 2y ago

Have you seen Youtube or Reddit comments on anything? They don't reflect real-life. Youtube is probably the worst, most trollish comments of the "normal" internet and Reddit is a sort of progressive propaganda machine that will also call for the death penalty on a teenager that did something stupid (which lots of teenagers do) or a karen that was an asshole in a restaurant and isn't happy with her life. I haven't visited twitter in ten years or more so can't comment on that.

kelseyfrog 2y ago
I've had conversations with real people in real life who also overwhelmingly share the sentiment. It's not an internet bubble.
- IncreasePosts 2y ago
  Those people are probably reading the same websites as you. I swear, users of a site have no kind of memory. Literally a month ago everyone on reddits jaw was agape as trump was declared the winner. After months of redditors telling each other Kamala would win in a landslide and Trump was floundering, and no one was coming to his rallies, etc. And now they're doing the same thing, telling each other that everyone in America loves that a dude was murdered in the street of NY(with a gun, literally 3' away from a random individual)
  - kelseyfrog 2y ago
    Nah, this is just moving the goalposts from "it's an Internet bubble" to "it's your personal bubble". I don't buy it. Neo-*ism ideologies share a common myth - the myth of necessary order. This forms a contradiction that if enforced by more order will self-correct with stocastic violence. Sorry, but that's simply reality.
    - IncreasePosts 2y ago
      "internet bubbles" don't exist solely on the Internet, they exist in the minds of people spending a lot of time on the internet on certain sites. They manifest on the Internet commonly. But they also manifest in the "real world" when those people communicate with others. Go ahead and deceive yourself that you're not in an echo chamber. I'm sure that will help you understand reality better.

tredre3 2y ago

> I’ve spent days reviewing comments on Reddit, Twitter, YouTube, news articles, et al and I’ve never seen such a uniformity of opinion on anything in my life. I felt the same way about the American election. Yet, Trump won. Online consensus on social media means nothing.