New Study Finds No Evidence Of Anti-Conservative Bias In Facebook Moderation (If Anything, It's The Opposite)
from the there-we-go dept
Over the last few months, it’s been weird to watch how any time we point out that there’s no actual evidence of anti-conservative bias in the content moderation practices of social media, some in our comments absolutely lose their shit. One commenter, has been on a rampage in just the last week to declare me an evil liar for refusing to admit the “obvious” fact that there’s anti-conservative bias in moderation. However when I and others ask these people for that evidence, it never seems to show up.
I imagine they are not going to like this story either. A new study from CrowdTangle, a data analytics firm that is owned by Facebook, and has access to Facebook data, seems to suggest that if there’s any bias, it goes the other way:
In fact, according to CrowdTangle, a data-analytics firm owned by Facebook, content from conservative news organizations dominates Facebook and often outperforms content from straightforward news organizations.
Additionally, over the last month on Facebook, Trump has captured 91% of the total interactions on content posted by the US presidential candidates, according to CrowdTangle. Biden has captured only 9%.
And if the moderation efforts are designed to harm conservative media, it doesn’t seem to be working:
Over the last month, the top performing news organization in the US was Fox News, a conservative network which largely echoes the Trump White House’s messaging.
Fox News captured 13% of all interactions among US news organizations with more than 29 million likes, comments, and shares, according to CrowdTangle.
The second top performing page belonged to Breitbart, a right-wing website that is largely supportive of the President and has close ties to the White House. Its Facebook page accounted for 9% of the total US media interactions over the last month with more than 20 million likes, comments, and shares.
And in just looking at “political pages” the data again shows a lean towards more conservative pages:
Ben Shapiro, the prominent conservative news personality, generated more than 25 million interactions over the past month on his page, accounting for 29% of the total share from US political media on Facebook, according to CrowdTangle.
The second top US political media page belonged to Breitbart, with 23% of total interactions.
Other conservative outlets in the top 10 for US political media over the last month: The Western Journal in fifth with 4% of the total interactions; TheBlaze in seventh with 3% of the total interactions; IJR in eight with 2% of total interactions; and the Washington Examiner in ninth with 2% of interactions.
Now, does this mean that Facebook has an “anti-liberal bias”? No. It’s just how these things shake out in the end and how Facebook’s algorithms work. Though, this data suggests, at the very least, one of the key reasons why the Trumpist crowd keeps resorting to the false narrative of bias: it’s working the refs to make sure that they get these kinds of results.
Filed Under: anti-conservative bias, bias, content moderation
Companies: facebook
Comments on “New Study Finds No Evidence Of Anti-Conservative Bias In Facebook Moderation (If Anything, It's The Opposite)”
Well that settles that
That will surely settle things and put an end to partisan bickering and complaining.
#sarcasm
(We have sunk low enough that obvious sarcasm needs to be delineated as such.)
Lots of anit-liberal bias on AM radio. I don’t see liberals complaining.
Re: Baron "I don't see liberals complaining."
It’s hard to find, on terrestrial radio (local radio, at least in my city) any place for liberals to complain. A decade or so ago we did have one station that appealed to progressives, but it was, I think, bought out and be came sports/Spanish/RLimbaugh-loving, etc. We also had 2-3 local weekly newspapers, but they have become advertising rags or just disappeared (not even surviving on fb). Fortunately, with the Internet, everyone has a lot more choices… though few of them can be called "local".
Re: Re: Baron "I don't see liberals complaining."
You avoid talk AM radio? But it is so entertaining lol.
Used to listen while carpooling, got rather good at predicting what would come next.
Re: Re: Re: Baron "I don't see liberals complaining.&am
The sixth story will amaze you!
Re: Re: Re:2 Baron "I don't see liberals complaining
"The sixth story will amaze you!"
The bit where the Deep State Lizard People were turning the frogs gay as part of a blatant assault on the god-fearing law-abiding citizens right to bear arms?
Yeah, you can say a lot about alt-right conspiracy theories but they sure do bring the laughs to the party.
Re: Re:
Because "liberals" are generally intelligent enough to switch channels rather than demand the one they happen to find most comfortable bow to their every need. If only everyone we like that..
I’m pretty sure the echoing goes the other way.
Re: Re:
They bounce off of each other.
Re: Re: Re:
I think of it as something like the effect you get when you have two mirrors facing each other,
Re: Re: Re: Re:
[White House & Fox News]
That’s the principle of a laser, leading to something powerful and coherent eventually breaking out that can blind people and do great damage when focused.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Good point.
Re: Re: Re:
Yeah, it’s a feedback loop.
In the Bush Administration, it was pretty clearly the White House setting the agenda and Fox pushing it, but not the reverse. Now it’s both.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Thad, the Bush – Fox collusion analysis on attacking Iraq is correct.
Of course, the actual chain went like this:
Now it’s more like this:
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Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Creative, your imagination is. Stupid, but creative. I had a dream where Obama was Mel Gibson in brave heart, drawn and quartered as a public spectacle. Does that make me a racist, or a movie fan?
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
Makes you sound a bit of an idiot, but it’s certainly on par with the birthers to now claim Obama was born a scottish clansman.
That your dream may have been inspired by the sheer hatred you people still have about the Black Man who dared become president in the US does indicate a smidge of racism.
Because, you know, Obama isn’t president anymore.
At least we liberals, when we compare historical facts about prior administrations like Nixons and Bush’s don’t harp about it as if Nixon was standing right behind us whispering "I am not a crook!".
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Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
Come on, you know and I know that Obama is behind the riots, he was behind the persecution of Flynn, the proven Phony Russia collusion narrative, all of it. Just like Mel.
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
…and that, I assume, is a good example of the type of "conservative" speech which gets vetted.
Thank you for providing evidence to back Mike’s assertion.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Is there any alteration to make it positive feedback loop?
I know that it is unstable and would self destruct.
Re: Re:
I notice you were careful, and didn’t inadvertently describe Fox News as a "conservative news network."
Re: Re: Re:
"I notice you were careful, and didn’t inadvertently describe Fox News as a "conservative news network.""
No – that is CNN
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Performance Measure
If you take a test, and answer 100 of the questions correctly, but the prof marks 10% of your answers as wrong, you still did pretty good on the test with 90%. And the prof acted scummy.
Measuring the absolute performance of social media commentators in terms of interactions cannot measure bias. It just means that conservative commentators are active on social media, and they get a lot of interactions. And the the corporate censors acted scummy.
You can attract attention, and be a target for censorship at the same time.
Re: Performance Measure
Please provide evidence of statistically significant and disproportionate moderation actions against conservatives for holding conservative views.
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Re: Re: Performance Measure
No such study has been done to date. Instead, we get to witness biased behavior- when a conservative speaker says something that (maybe) violates the rules, that speech is censored. But when a leftist says something that violates the rules, no action is taken.
Today’s example is congressman Matt Gaetz
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/06/01/technology/twitter-matt-gaetz-warning.amp.html
Vs the people on the favored side of the isle, openly coordinating riot activity go scott-free.
https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2020/05/31/twitter-allows-looters-to-coordinate-criminal-behavior-while-it-declares-blacklivesmatter/
Re: Re: Re:
You’ll need to stop citing Breitbart if you want people to take your claims seriously.
Re: Re: Re: Performance Measure
Funny how you have choosen a right wing attack piece to show that the left is given preferential treatment.
Re: Re: Re:2 Performance Measure
Is no one going to comment on the fact that this study on Facebook’s bias was done by a Facebook owned company? I thought I was reading the Onion for a second.
Re: Re: Re:3 Performance Measure
It certainly means that we should take the findings of this study with a grain of salt.
However, there is still the elephant in the room, that no one claiming anti-conservative bias has addressed.
There is no evidence that it exists. What evidence has been provided is evidence of moderation based on actions, not ideology.
So while I don’t take this as exoneration, that is largely due to a lack of any evidence of guilt in the first place.
If anyone wishes to step up to the plate and provide evidence of statistically significant and disproportionate moderation actions against conservatives for holding conservative views, then a real discussion can start happening.
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Re: Re: Re:4 Performance Measure
Word salad. That’s how elitist leftist lying liberals talk. Next you will argue about the meaning of statistical significance. Then disproportionate. Then, who fucking cares?
Parler.com
Kind of fun to witness the last gasps of Techdirt as we put a knee on your neck. Figuratively. Mike crying, that was good.
Re: Re: Re:5 Performance Measure
When you can’t dispute the facts, attack the messenger. The #1 tactic of dishonest people.
Re: Re: Re:5 You are sad even by cartoonish villain standards
That last gasp has lasted what, a decade now?
How many years have you been saying Dr Claw voice “NEXT TIME MASNICK… NEXT TIME!”
Re: Re: Re:5 Performance Measure
Keep dreaming, asshat.
Re: Re: Re:5 Performance Measure
Shiva didn’t invent email.
He lost his senate bid, and badly I might add.
Re: Re: Re:3 Performance Measure
You mean that thing that was literally in the second paragraph of the article? No, why would anyone bring that up?
Re: Re: Re:3 Performance Measure
"Is no one going to comment"
FTFA:
Now, are any of you guys who are claiming bias going to show any kind of reading skills that lead you to evidence that what you’re claiming is true?
Re: Re: Re:3 Performance Measure
"I thought I was reading the Onion for a second."
If the Onion published a piece where they claimed the catholic church had published a thesis around the axial spin of Russel’s Teapot then I’d know the joke was about the catholic church taking the axiom of Russel’s Teapot WAY too seriously.
The alleged "conservative bias" is a claim no one has ever proven. Not even those who claim to have been affected, because every time they get asked "So, what was it which got moderated and blocked?" they leave the debate without answering.
Which is too bad because the answer might prove that what was getting blocked were hardly "conservative values" unless those by necessity include hat speech these days…
Re: Re: Re: Performance Measure
The article you are responding do has done such a study.
Matt Gaetz openly advocated for hunting down American citizens.
This tweet glorifies violence, and had a warning placed on it. It was not removed. It was not censored. It is still visible – you just have to click through a warning.
This is a high-profile, high-visibility person getting more speech back at them for what they said. Matt Gaetz is a person in the public eye. Everything he says will come under more scrutiny due to the position he holds as a legislator. Speed of action on his account is to be expected. I would expect the exact same speed of action on AOC, Pelosi, etc.
Breitbart’s article, if true (BreitBart has a long history of sketchy, cherry-picked reporting, so they remain a suspect news source), shows a small set of low-visibility tweets among the millions of tweets per day that haven’t been addressed immediately. There’s no mention made of the low-visibility tweets by self-styled conservatives who aren’t in the public eye that also go unmoderated for long stretches of time.
So again, I ask:
Please provide evidence of statistically significant and disproportionate moderation actions against conservatives for holding conservative views.
Re: Re: Re:2 Performance Measure
Correction: The article you are responding mentions just such a study.
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Re: Re: Re:2 Performance Measure
Again, it measured numbers of interactions (a dubious measure of success, let alone anything else) and did not measure bias. The closest supporting hypothesis might be "conservatives are successful at getting attention on the platform, therefore there must not be any bias by administrators". A very shaky logic at best.
Re: Re: Re:3 Performance Measure
Please provide evidence of statistically significant and disproportionate moderation actions against conservatives for holding conservative views.
Re: Re: Re:3
Which, I would imagine, did not constitute a statistically significant dataset for the purposes of fully determining a bias against conservatives. Which means any such claim of a bias is still bullshit.
Re: Re: Re:3 Performance Measure
Let me ask you something: if any alleged bias has little-to-no effect on the results, and having bias is in no way illegal or unlawful and is actuality protected by both the CDA and the Constitution, does the existence of bias actually matter? If placing a hand on the scale is not punishable and fails to actually tip the scales in their favor, why does it matter?
There are two pieces of logic in play here:
And the argument is not whether conservatives are moderated more on [platform/search engine] but whether there is sufficient evidence to support that conclusion along with these two things: the moderators at [platform/search engine] have an anti-conservative bias and that bias is responsible for anti-conservative-leaning results in moderation. There’re also the separate but related questions of whether the end results actually lead to conservative opinions being silenced or suppressed and whether or not this is legal, lawful, and/or protected by the Constitution. This study addresses two of these: whether evidence is sufficient to support that any imbalance in moderation decisions must be due solely (or at least primarily) to anti-conservative bias by moderators and not other factors like tone, interactions, etc. and whether conservative opinions actually end up suppressed in the larger picture.
Basically, any bias doesn’t appear to actually matter. We lack evidence to support that conservatives actually get moderated more by a stastically significant margin when all other factors (tone, interaction, speaker’s past history, number of followers, number of total posts, number of objectionable posts, how badly and obviously it goes against the T&C, etc.) are taken into account, any bias that does exist doesn’t appear to be affecting whether or not people are getting the message anyways, and it’s perfectly lawful, legal, and constitutionally protected even if all the allegations of bias are true.
Re: Re: Re:4
It also doesn’t matter because people aren’t owed a spot on Facebook. If they don’t like the bias of that platform, they can go find one with more like-minded biases.
Like Gab.
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Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
You are so smooth, Stephen. Your arguments are repeated time and again. You are kind of the mascot here. How do you feel about the “let it burn” platform of Techdirt? You like it, right? AntiFa is good, right? You seem to know a LOT about it.
Re: Re: Re:6 Are you sadly pathetic or pathetically sad?
Oh I think he does a wonderful job volunteering by working with the mentally disabled who frequent this site. Those like you who mistake kindness for weakness. And who do nothing but try to bully others until a real bully comes along, then they act like the whipped cur that they are.
Re: Re: Re:6
I’ve got marshmallows, so long as someone else brings the graham crackers.
Re: Re: Re:3 Performance Measure
"A very shaky logic at best."
And yet at least indicative – unlike your own assertion which actually disproves your own argument.
You’re the one claiming to know the axial tilt of Russel’s Teapot. Thus it’s up to you to prove to us it exists at all.
So far all you have to show is a case where a man who called for the unconstitutional assault on american citizens, on american soil, by american troops, was met with Free Speech providing a warning label to his tweet. This you call "anti-conservative bias"?
And on top of the other link you showed, where a known alt-right bullhorn for white supremacy activists whine because Twitter can’t get to every non-high-profile person with a smartphone, only shows from which echo chamber you get your news.
Koby, did you march with the Very Fine People in Charlottesville? Because that’s what your arguments suggest.
Re: Re: Re: Performance Measure
Are you referring to the Matt Gaetz that was suggesting the us commit war crimes? He is not the only one to make such silly statements, what about them?
Re: Re: Re: Performance Measure
"No such study has been done to date."
…except for the one described in the OP.
Face it, Koby, if you guys stopped defining racism and bigotry as inherently conservative values then you would, like the rest of us, not be seeing an "anti-conservative" bias either.
Your problem is that you consider the view of the tiki torch wielding white supremacist who goes onto facebook to rail about how black men should all go back to africa to be an inherently conservative one.
Now if you want to stand up and be counted with the Very Fine People who truly believe hitler was the good guy in world war 2 then be my guest.
Case in point – your "Example link":
"The post, from Representative Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican, had likened protesters to terrorists and called for them to be hunted down."
LAST i checked, the right of assembly and the right of free speech was still very much a US institution backed by the constitution. The way Gaetz went on – by suggesting drone strikes, tank attacks and assassination on US soil doesn’t make it better. If your views means "Burn the constitution and the bill of rights" then that’s not exactly conservative. The bias was against someone who advocated military force to be applied against a civilian population on home soil. Also known as a direct war crime.
That someone happened to be a politician. I have absolutely no problem with politicians being held to a higher standard than every Tom, Dick and Joe who holds a twitter account. THAT is a core conservative view, in case you were still confused.
So, Koby, I have to ask – given your frequent forays around here, will you at some point stop taking your own arguments out back and shooting them? Because if the links you present only demonstrate that what is moderated is politicians calling for war crimes and that what is NOT sufficiently moderated is scattered tweets by anyone with a smartphone then that isn’t fact in your favor.
Re: Performance Measure
And as always, you still have zero evidence of this fact you’re asserting.
Re: The punchlines just write themself...
Okay, now you’re just turning into a joke. When asked for evidence of conservatives getting the short end of the stick all you’ve done is simply repeat the claim and throw out terrible examples that I and others have shown to be flawed in multiple ways.
When yet another study comes out that show that no, conservatives have no problem getting their word out on social media you just try to brush it aside.
If an actual study isn’t enough to prove the case that conservatives aren’t being persecuted on social media then the claims and anecdotes of those arguing in favor of that are clearly not going to cut it, and can be neatly tossed into the garbage where they belong with Hitchen’s Razor.
Get back to us when you have some actual evidence and maybe people will take the ‘conservatives are being treated unfairly on social media’ narrative serious, because as it stands it’s coming across as nothing more than bigots whining that there are consequences to their speech and the gullible using it to fuel their persecution complexes.
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Re: Re: The punchlines just write themself...
Another failed attorney. Wait, isn’t mike a failed would be loser attorney? Why do you ALL sound like him?
Re: Re: Re: The punchlines just write themself...
Said the clueless asshat that sounds like all the other clueless asshats. Impressive.
Re: Performance Measure
You’re free to provide your evidence of bias any time you choose, you know? Why do you not do that, I wonder?
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Re: Re: Performance Measure
I dunno, maybe because you’re an elitist snot nosed Brit that no one gives a fuck about.
Re: Re: Re: Performance Measure
Are you having another episode? Time to take your meds?
Re: Re: Re: Performance Measure
Which still doesn’t make you silly claims one bit more valid. Tough shit.
Re: Re: Re: Performance Measure
So I assume you (and those who advocate that they’re being banned on social media) always address those who disagree with you in this manner.
Perhaps that’s the reason why you’re banned.
Being conservative is only part of a larger problem – you’re a fucking asshole.
Sounds similar to the Huawei situation, to me. No evidence anywhere, from anyone but Trump, among others from security services, are still condemning it, blocking it and doing whatever they can to force other countries to do the same! I can understand a personal hatred against the way a country is run, against it’s leaders but to want to break a company because it makes better products than elsewhere, incuding the USA is a bit over the top!!
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Gee, A study of Facebook by an company owned by Facebook declares that Facebook is doing a good job. What could go wrong with that?
It seems the results of this study really depend on how the various groups are classified. The linked CNN report calls Fox News a Conservative Network. Does this put CNN in the straight forward category for this report? If you classify Fox News as straight forward network, this probably moves CNN,ABC etc. into the Liberal camp and would likely change the report outcomes.
Would be really nice if they would publish the list of how they classified the various networks and organizations.
Re:
Please provide evidence of statistically significant and disproportionate moderation actions against conservatives for holding conservative views.
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Re: Re: Re:
That’s a bullshit question, because even if we had a list of every moderation decision ever made, and whether the commenter was conservative, the platforms do not give reasons. There would be no way to know whether any action was taken because they "held conservative views". Not like anyone’s alleging that, are they? Maybe they’re alleging it was for expressing conservative views, but again, unless we see a leaked Facebook guide saying "take down stuff that was posted by conservative"—and some evidence that the moderators can identify "conservatives"—we’ll never know.
Re: Re: Re:
No, it was a request for proof. This is a question — well, two, actually:
Can you show that a single act (e.g., posting anti-queer language that violates the TOS) performed in equal amounts by self-identified conservatives and self-identified liberals results in Twitter punishing a disproportionate number of conservatives (e.g., 80% of conservatives and 20% of liberals)? If such punishments are handed out in relatively equal measure, can you show that Twitter doles out harsher punishments to conservatives in a disproportionate fashion?
When someone makes a claim that social media services have an anti-conservative bias, a fair chunk of us regular commenters here on TD will ask that someone for the data that proves their claim. Don’t blame us when they can’t provide that data. We’re not the ones responsible for their failure.
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Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Proof? Evidence? You pathetic and elitist lying leftist losers always fall back to legalese when you have nothing to say. Everyone is a liar, except you. Funny. I believe him and agree with him.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
"Proof? Evidence? You pathetic and elitist lying leftist losers always fall back to legalese when you have nothing to say."
So we’re all supposed to believe What Some Guy Told You On Breitbart rather than Our Own Lying Eyes when you claim the equivalent of "the earth is flat"?
If "not being a complete moron" is your standard for being an elitist then there’s just no helping you people.
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
The projection on this one is bright enough to send a signal into deep space.
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
"The projection on this one is bright enough to send a signal into deep space."
I’d wager we could use it to replace coal and gas as an energy source. Hey, there’s an idea on how to let the alt-right crowd actually be *useful for once.
We really need to find a way to deal with the toxic waste they generate first though.
Re: Re: Re:3
Of course you do~. People like you would rather believe and take things on blind faith and stick to a sociopolitical dogma that you refuse to question than ever come close to admitting that you’re wrong about something and change your thinking about that something.
“I think it’s better to have ideas. You can change an idea. Changing a belief is trickier.” — Rufus, Dogma
Re: Re: Re: Re:
"the platforms do not give reasons"
And why should they be required to?
Remember now … we do not tolerate the government telling private business what to do because we live a capitalistic pseudo free market where business takes priority over everything else including human lives.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
"That’s a bullshit question"
Asking you to prove what you’re claiming is so serious that free speech rights need to be removed from these countries is bullshit?
" There would be no way to know whether any action was taken because they "held conservative views""
Yet, "conservatives" from random idiots here to the orange man himself are claiming it’s so rampant and obvious that the law needs to be rewritten to prevent the platforms from policing their own property. Strange, huh?
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Thanks for proving our point, genius!
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Re: Re: Re:
Please do your own homework. Your request has nothing to do with my posting.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Fallacy: shifting of burden of proof. It’s not the defense’s job to present the prosecution’s evidence. You made the claim, so you have to back it up.
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Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Right, and you are another failed attorney, right? Are you barrack obama, or Hillary Clinton? Or just a run of the mill elitist? Eh?
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
Just because a black man became a president and a woman stood as candidate you Very Fine People are going to keep whining about that until the sky falls, aren’t you.
Quick question; Are you even aware that the one and only thing you accomplish around here is to demonstrate to everyone else reading Techdirt comments just what sort of garbage counts itself as "conservative" these days?
Do you have any other arguments other than "The Bad People At Big Tech Won’t Let Me Call Black People Ni__ers No More!! Waaah!", backed by hysterics about the "bad black man" who sat in the oval office once whenever you get called on your bullshit?
I guess you could be a troll trying to look like a typical alt-righter but if that is the case it’s quite unnecessary because those clowns need no assistance in proving themselves idiots on camera and online.
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Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
Hey bro. Whatever happened to Shiva? He still in hiding from that asswhooping he took?
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Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
Are you just a dumb fuckwit? You sure sound like it.
Of course. That’s what they’ve been doing since the Reagan Administration: they accuse the media of having a liberal bias, the media bend over backwards to accommodate conservatives to prove they don’t have a liberal bias, repeat forever.
Just look at how they howl about the "liberal" New York Times despite its toeing the Republican Party line on everything from Iraqi WMDs to whatever Bedbug Bret Stephens is ranting about these days.
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Re: Re:
In today’s NY Times news, they caved to the leftists.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/nypost.com/2020/06/02/new-york-times-changes-headline-following-pressure-from-democrats/amp/
Re: Re:
Yes, and…so what? One headline out of how many, again?
Re: Re: Re:
"In today’s NY Times news, they caved to the leftists."
I have to say that Trumps threat of invoking the riot act of 1807 is NOT well expressed with "Trump vows to end it now".
That’d be like calling a death threat a "counterargument to shut X up for good".
Koby, you want to, uh, maybe put out an argument which doesn’t make it quite so obvious that you’ve made up your mind about what the result should be and are now scraping the bottom of the barrel for anything to back that result?
Re: Re: Re:
"In today’s NY Times news, they caved to the leftists."
What is this nebulous leftist to which you refer? I’m not interested in your pigeon holing and stereotyping, I want to know what you think the word means.
If one were to walk down main street us and ask a random sample of one hundred us citizens this question, how many unique answers do you think there would be?
Who was it making all these requests that eventually brought action? I doubt it was poor people marching in the streets that did it because as we all know they are given lots of words but little action that occurs way too late.
Re: Re:
It would appear Mike also has some thoughts about the New York Times.
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"according to … a data-analytics firm owned by Facebook". (By way of CNN, no less.)
So – once again – Mr. Masnick’s evidence consists of "the accused parties say they’re innocent". à la "Bill Clinton says he didn’t molest any women, ergo he didn’t. The dozens of women saying otherwise are whiners working the refs."
BelieveAllSocialMediaCompanies
Re:
Please provide data that says social media companies punish conservatives at disproportionate rates for actions carried out in equal measure by liberals and conservatives, or that said companies punish conservatives for their political views alone rather than for violating the Terms of Service. Until you can do that…well, I’m not going to take a corporation’s word as God’s, but I’ll believe them more than I’ll believe you.
Re: Re:
You going to bloat this comment thread to 500 replies again, Trumpfluffer?
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Re: Re: Re:
I sure hope so. I love that big thread, especially when Masnick was crying and swearing, it was great.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Do you actually get off on being abused by your betters? Or is it that so many people have beat you so many times it’s the only way you communicate.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Keep dreaming?
Re: Re: Re: Re:
When a parent cries and swears after their baby pisses and shits their pants, it’s not due to any power their offspring supposedly has.
But keep defecating your own diapers if that makes you feel powerful, champ.
Re: Re:
"Mr. Masnick’s evidence consists of "the accused parties say they’re innocent"."
It’s disturbing that so many people claiming that anti-conservative bias is a real thing don’t seem to understand the fairly simply concept of burden of proof. You claim it, you prove it. It’s not Mike’s job to provide evidence of anything, it’s yours.
The sheer volume of noise about this would suggest there’s ample proof that shouldn’t be hard to put into a convincing form. And yet… nothing. Just anecdotes, blind faith and hyper-partisan hackery.
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"So – once again – Mr. Masnick’s evidence consists of "the accused parties say they’re innocent"."
You’re welcome to provide the evidence of their guilt any time you wish., Yet, you refuse to. Why is that, I wonder?
Re: Re:
"So – once again – Mr. Masnick’s evidence consists of "the accused parties say they’re innocent"."
Which should stand up well unless you’ve already proven that they’re guilty. Democracy, rule of law, and the Bill of Rights are all new concepts to you, aren’t they?
Thank you – once again – for demonstrating that "guilty until proven otherwise" is the calling card of the Very Fine People. At least this time you picked a suggested guilty party which wasn’t Guilty of Being Brown.
"The dozens of women saying otherwise…"
Four isn’t even one dozen, let alone several. Kindly put you may want to revisit grade school.
And the same law applies to Clinton which applies to everyone else. If Broaddrick, when under oath denied being raped there’s very little the law can do, no matter that she later on implied the rape charge on venues where neither she nor Clinton could be held legally responsible.
Did you have anything factual to add to your argument or is it, per usual for you, just "…blah blah, Masnick is bad because reasons, blah blah snark snark, shit rhetoric"?
The only takeaway anyone gets from reading your posts is that "my god, the right wing has finally fscking lost it completely".
All you’ve got on offer is obvious hatred with the occasional naked bigotry tossed in for good measure.
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Mr. Masnick’s evidence consists of "the accused parties say they’re innocent"
Why say more when the accuser has no evidence to prove guilt?
The data on "interactions" may or may not correlate to bias. And the source of any data should always be taken into consideration when attempting to assess the validity of the data. I think a deeper dive would be in order, but that is probably difficult to do.
In the interest of full disclosure: I do not participate in Facebook. Twitter either, for that matter.
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"A new study from CrowdTangle, a data analytics firm that is owned by Facebook, and has access to Facebook data…"
Oh, OBVIOUSLY no bias there.
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No one has ever, even once, offered evidence of an anti-conservative bias.
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As compared to the professional liars claiming there is this mythical bias?
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Did you hear Clinton’s Attorney stammer recently about her emails? What a liar. You are probably another stammering lying attorney. You write like one.
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"Did you hear Clinton’s Attorney stammer recently about her emails?"
So, still nothing on offer as an actual argument except for a candidate who failed to make president and an occasional whine about the Bad Black Man?
Your style is still unmistakable, Baghdad Bob.
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STILL with those emails? Weird fixation.
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It’s impressive, isn’t it? Trump is currently sending military out to quell dissent? Look at this thing that happened 4 years ago! 100k+ dead as a direct result of his attempt to pretend that a global pandemic would not hit the US? Benghazi! Actual attempts to undermine democracy by attacking mail in votes that Trump knows will increase voter participation (and thus, in his own words, increase Democratic votes)? But what about this thing we imagined Obama might do without proof?
It’s a cult, and its members are not capable of dealing with the reality that their god emperor has no clothes.
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Hey! Trump isn’t the emperor without clothes. He’s the führer without clothes. Get it right.
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"Weird fixation."
Poor Baghdad Bob will never get over the fact that a woman can become a presidential candidate and a black man can become president of the US.
He probably wakes up drenched in sweat and tears, every night, screaming "But Obama!!!". And will likely keep doing that for the remainder of his life.
…and then, come day, he goes online and doesn’t understand why "But Obama" isn’t putting the rest of us in states of shock and horror. Being a racist must be hard. The only people who agree with you are deranged fsckwits, and every time you state your honest opinion that Ni___rs and Queers need to be hung you get discriminated against by having your right to free speech stifled by people actually arguing against you.
A sad little covfefe is he, indeed.
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Did you hear Clinton’s Attorney stammer recently about her emails?
What’s stopped everyone from locking her up over it during the past 3 years? I’m finding it really hard to give a shit about her emails since despite all the hype, you’ve delivered nothing.
Oh well, at least the check for the wall was real…
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It gets even worse for the Republicans when you consider that except for the House of Representatives, they’ve had a majority in just about every sector of government.
You’d think that getting Hilary in jail, one of Trump’s recurring chants and top reasons he landed the Presidency, would be a slamdunk for the current administration. Instead he managed to get the "very finest people" from his inner circle tossed in prison instead.
It takes a special someone to have all the ducks lined up in a row for them and still fuck up this bad…
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"Oh, OBVIOUSLY no bias there."
Whether the study itself is biased or not this is still the situation;
Conservatives; "censorship. Bias".
Everyone else; "Show us".
Conservatives;
…
…
…
"But OBAMA!!!".
You presented an extraordinary claim no one else can observe. It’s up to you to demonstrate the proof of your assertion. And that proof has to be a little bit better than, after weeks of asking, a single commenter managing to dredge up a link where Matt Gaetz gets a warning label attached to the twitter post where he calls for actual war crimes to be performed on the US citizenry.
It’s fscking pathetic. What the hell happened to the conservatives of years ago who could deliberately and calmly produce actual arguments? Oh, wait…they were so repulsed by the demagogues and clowns of the neocons and birthers they left the GOP.
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"The data on "interactions" may or may not correlate to bias. "
Even if it did correlate, that has little meaning.
Off-topic
Stephen T. Stone – if I could direct message you on this I would, but there’s no function to do so on here. I’d go to an article more on point, but this is the one I see you paying attention to right now, so I beg forgiveness of going off-topic in the service of visibility.
In an article some months back, I saw you give a very to-the-point and informative explanation of the importance and meaning of the "Black Lives Matter" phrase, and why the "All Lives Matter" rejoinder misses the point and cheapens the message. I can’t find that explanation, and I need it, to check that my own explanations to people don’t fall short of the mark.
Can you share again, in whatever accessible option you choose?
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A quick Google search seems to have found the comment you wanted, but rather than link to it, I’ll repost the relevant portion here (with some altered wording for easier reading):
But I do have something else to say on the matter: Right now, the lives of White Americans aren’t under attack by the state. Right now, the lives of Black Americans are — and really always have been — under attack by the state. “Black Lives Matter” exists as a means to focus on the systemic and systematic oppression of Black Americans and (with any luck) generate meaningful action to improve Black American lives. “All Lives Matter”, then, is a bit like “you can’t shout ‘fire’ in a crowded theater” vis-á-vis free speech discussions: Yes, the saying is generally true, but it adds nothing to the discussion we’re having about Black American lives.
“All Lives Matter” erases the notion that Black Americans have a fundamentally different life experience than White Americans. The phrase looks at the fates of Black people like George Floyd and Philando Castile and Ahamud Arbery and Taylor, then says, “this is normal, this is fine, this is nothing to be worried about”. That insidious phrase ignores the fact that Black and Indigenous Americans have lived in a fascist state since the founding of the United States — and no one cares enough to do even the bare-minimum something about that until the carnage and the violence can no longer be ignored by the people in charge.
Anyone who uses “All Lives Matter” as a “counter” to “Black Lives Matter” should — and I cannot stress this enough — go fuck themselves.
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I am sincerely sorry to the nth degree for fucking that up.
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Thank you very much, Stephen. I wasn’t able to locate it in the midst of the haystack my searches were returning.
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Yeah, Steven often “scrubs” his old posts. Like when he said he was black, or gay. But I have all the records. I have Hillary’s emails, too.
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"Like when he said he was black, or gay. But I have all the records. I have Hillary’s emails, too."
Is this where you follow up with your customary threats of death and rape, liberally peppered with ethnic or ableist slurs, Baghdad Bob, the way you usually do when you can’t produce an actual argument to back your seething hatred with to save your life and lose your shit completely as a result?
It’s always nice to see that anything we say about the Very Fine People and their GOP fan club is, if anything, understated.
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No matter how much you taunt him, he’s not gonna fuck ya. You’ll just have to masturbate over Hilarys emails, screaming ‘you’re going down now bitch’, as you normally do.
Re: Re: Re:3 Good times bro
Oh do you remember the ones where we made you literally cry while you fantasied about getting pounded by Donny’s Cheeto dick?
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"Right now, the lives of White Americans aren’t under attack by the state."
That’s not entirely true. The protests have been surprisingly diverse, which means those not normally directly affected by police violence are seeing and feeling it up close and personal. If anything good comes out of all this it might be a few more white folk realising how bad the situation really is.
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Or maybe a whole lot of white folk with guns shooting looters instead of taking them to jail for 3 hours.
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"Or maybe a whole lot of white folk with guns shooting looters…"
Implying that of course the looters aren’t "white". Not that we really needed the slip given your recent record of suggesting having the black people shipped back to africa.
So…where’s your customary seague into the evils of women in politics or black men in actual elected office? Normally you’d be raging out yet another "But OBAMA" to make whatever point you thought you had.
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Cool story bro. If you actually were legally allowed to own a gun you’d shoot your tiny pidgin dick off in the first 15 minutes.
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I’d also put it like this:
"Black Lives Matter" is intended to signify that Black Lives Also Matter. The ones who insist on saying "All Lives Matter" have wilfully or otherwise misinterpreted it as meaning Only Black Lives Matter. The fact that they’re apparently responded to this misinterpretation with fear says more about them than they would care to admit.
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“ ‘Black Lives Matter’ is the identical principle as Christ’s Beatitudes: it names, elevates, and insists upon the dignity of those society is oppressing” — Anthony Oliveira
'... that doesn't count!'
Imagine that, the ones crying about how social media is being silenced in fact have no problem getting their words out, it’s almost as though the whole thing was and is nothing more than a lie playing to the persecution complex of the listeners to drum up support from the foolish and/or gullible…
I’d say I look forward to the response in general to yet another debunking of the ‘persecuted conservatives’ lie but if the comments in this thread are any indicator it’s just more of the same, denial and lies.
CNN says it is not Fake News
So I followed the link.
Where is ANY study. I mean with the data, the stats, etc.?
This is just another CNN FakeNews puff/hit piece.
Who did the study? CrowdTangle, owned by … Facebook!
“In fact, according to CrowdTangle, a data-analytics firm owned by Facebook, content from conservative news organizations dominates Facebook and often outperforms content from straightforward news organizations. ”
How much did they have to torture the data (again, where is the raw data) to get this result and if it showed bad liberal bias would they have publicized it?
This like the Amazon PR as news sent to local stations that put it on the air without any disclaimer.
How much is Zuck paying you to amplify this? This is perhaps the worst bit of echoing an ad on Tech Dirt so far and there were many bad ones.
How about Investigating yourself?
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CNN says it is not Fake News
So I followed the link.
Where is ANY study. I mean with the data, the stats, etc.?
This is just another CNN FakeNews puff/hit piece.
Who did the study? CrowdTangle, owned by … Facebook!
“In fact, according to CrowdTangle, a data-analytics firm owned by Facebook, content from conservative news organizations dominates Facebook and often outperforms content from straightforward news organizations. ”
How much did they have to torture the data (again, where is the raw data) to get this result and if it showed bad liberal bias would they have publicized it?
This like the Amazon PR as news sent to local stations that put it on the air without any disclaimer.
How much is Zuck paying you to amplify this? This is perhaps the worst bit of echoing an ad on Tech Dirt so far and there were many bad ones.
How about Investigating yourself?
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Would you have preferred if Breitbart had come to that conclusion?
(…oh who am I kidding, Breitbart would’ve never come to that conclusion.)
Re: CNN says it is not Fake News
Funnily enough, a little bit over a year ago another organisation looked over the same type of data and came to the same conclusions.
If you manage to open the door and step out of your echo-chamber you can read about it here: https://www.newswhip.com/2019/03/top-publishers-facebook-february-2019/
Re: CNN says it is not Fake News
On the one hand, neither CNN nor Newswhip provided (or provided links to) formal methodologies, raw data, formulas/algorithms, etc. On the other hand, neither would Breitbart. Or most other folks publishing societal studies.
I see this as equal parts "failure in reporting", "failure in method", and "the limitations of Big Data analysis" (IE, "where you going to store all of that, on the off chance someone wants to look at it?")
No small part of the value in a study lies in its repeatability. We lack the ability to repeat these studies – the data was not retained, the methods not disclosed. And more’s the pity, few studies ever ARE repeated – you don’t get a prize for saying, "yep, we confirmed his pioneering results."
We are more inclined to trust studies that say the same thing, when they come from (as far as we know) independent sources. But unless we can repeat them, analyze any statistical methods they use, can we count them as more than anecdotes?
And sure, even I am inclined to believe these studies calling anti-conservative bias mythical. But since that was my inclination to begin with, am I committing selection bias?
Having waded through all that, here’s a bit of humor to lighten your day, brought to you by snopes.
Re: Re: CNN says it is not Fake News
Think of it this way, the studies (note: plural) that are available says there is no bias (or at least not a noticeable one) against conservatives. If there was a bias against conservatives – why hasn’t any of the conservative think-tanks managed to dredge up a study that shows it?
It should be noted that the absence of evidence isn’t the same as no evidence. Considering the howling coming from some very visible conservatives I would posit that there is no evidence because if there where, it would be a slam-dunk win for them – instead all we see are disingenuous arguments and whining.
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Re: Re: Re: CNN says it is not Fake News
Right. No evidence. Are you talking about Russia Collusion? Or MIchael Flynn? No evidence. I heard Flynn is going to replace Wray. And I have evidence.
They are all going to hang. Figuratively, that is. Even Obama. Then the riots will end. It’s all him, desperately trying to save his skinny black neck. After he hangs, America will recover.
Re: Re: Re:2 CNN says it is not Fake News
Nah we’re talking about the complete lack of evidence to boy Shiva ever did anything remotely like inventing email.
Re: Re: CNN says it is not Fake News
"And sure, even I am inclined to believe these studies calling anti-conservative bias mythical. But since that was my inclination to begin with, am I committing selection bias?"
Only if you assume that the hypothesis of Russel’s Teapot has the credibility to merit a study in the first place.
Fact of the matter is that the alt-right crowd hollering all over The Daily Stormer and Breitbart are the ones raising the issue of having what they call "conservative" values blocked and banned, but every example produced so far is a deeply bigoted comment violating the openly provided ToS of the platform in question.
Essentially every time we ask for an example to back their assertion that "conservative" values are banned, not just racism or bigotry they do the equivalent of pulling down their pants, taking a dump, pointing at the heap and screaming "See? See? But OBAMA!".
In other words they make an extraordinary claim and have so far failed to produce ANY indications that said claim is correct.
The only "proof" they see fit to raise so far is that twitter put a warning label on the tweet of a politician who called for war crimes to be committed by US troops, on US soil.
They’d honestly be better off if they were being more outspoken about which beliefs they felt were censored. Or maybe, if they actually WERE honest about those, perhaps not. Coming out swinging for the KKK and stating that Hitler was right might not provide them the sympathy they want.
Re: CNN says it is not Fake News
"Where is ANY study. I mean with the data, the stats, etc.?"
Which means we still have "conservatives" making a wild assertion no one else can perceive, which they fail to back with any evidence…
Do you even realize which part of the political spectrum you’re on when you insist that any accusation should be considered valid without proof? Your claim is extraordinary. You provide the proof, or at least ANY indication such bias exists.
Until you do we’re left having to assume that no such bias exists.
And, for the record, having asked the question for weeks to be met with only a single link where a Gaetz had a warning attached to the tweet where he called for the US to commit war crimes on home soil, against US citizens isn’t the evidence you’re looking for.
Not unless you’re making Gaetz statement a typical core conservative value. In that case we – and you – have a worse problem on our hands.
At this point, it’s fairly safe to say that conservative claims of bias against them is not born from anything approaching reality given how Facebook, Youtube and Twitter have bent over backwards to avoid applying their rules to high profile bigots, only acting when the public backlash becomes too much to bear.
Conservatives will cry Anti-Conservative/White/Christian bias until the internet is actively stifling left wing viewpoints as anything less than complete dominance and the ability to silence reality itself will never be enough. We’re dealing with people who look back on the red menace era of American history with nostalgia, the constant wars to overthrow anyone remotely left wing, the Hoover FBI and McCarthy being able to ruin careers with smears to drive the country right through fear and intimidation.
I tried to write something sarcastic, because white grievance is a never-ending thing, but I just couldn’t get there.
Anyways, go read Biden’s speech. The man just did more presidenting than someone else has in 3-1/2 years.
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What?! Has there been "presidenting" going on the last 3-1/2 years?! Why didn’t anyone tell me about this!
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Yeah, that was him, marching to the church across from the white House. Big guy. Tough as nails. Balls of steel. Trump.
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What you on? Trump doesn’t have any balls, he was cowering in the White House during the protests.
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Not strictly true. He also ordered violence on peacefully assembled protesters by invoking a law that hadn’t been used for 200 years so that he could do a dumb photo op. Yet, the people who wailed and moaned about wild fantasies of Obama doing such things are openly supporting him.
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"Yeah, that was him, marching to the church across from the white House. Big guy. Tough as nails. Balls of steel. Trump."
The guy who needed to have jackbooted thugs disperse the protests outside before he dared to take his bodyguards with him for a walk?
Yeah, that was Kim Jong-Un…uh, Trump. Not much of a difference, really. Except Kim can do everything Trump only dares to dream of.
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You of course ment waddling his obese ass over there and having to take a break for 15 minutes because the strain on his bloated heart. The sad thing is not even as stupid and delusional as you are bro, believe the shit you spew.
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Only intelligent and brave people of Trumps stature so willingly throw petrol on a fire with the idea that that will extinguish it.
//I’d better label that as sarcasm, as Trump followers will latch onto intelligent and brave, and ignore the rest.
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"Anyways, go read Biden’s speech. The man just did more presidenting than someone else has in 3-1/2 years."
The bar is not high. pocket lint is more presidential than the guy who’s been in office since 2016.
Let me guess, this anti conservative bias includes the publishing of facts when those facts make conservatives look bad. Reality has this bias that some just can deal with, perhaps it is mental condition, idk.
Certainly it is not their own actions that are responsible.
The default conservative opinion is that they are an oppressed minority that must circle the wagons in order to fight against the tyranny of the ‘mainstream media’.
If you point out that FOX News is regularly the #1 or #2 most watched cable station, the conservative Sinclair Broadcast group owns more TV stations than anyone else, conservative talk radio shows are some of the most popular syndicated radio shows, more than a few ppl read the WSJ etc., then all of a sudden their large media presence (and in some cases dominance) obviously means that the vast majority of American’s support conservative beliefs ideas and the left is just a lunatic fringe.
Heads I win, tales you lose.
Put out troll bait and -- surprise -- here come the trolls
There is no point to articles like this. Facts, studies, evidence, proof, argument: these are all wastes of time. Conservatives have an antidote for all of them: UNASSAILABLE BELIEF.
Articles like this amount to nothing but troll bait.
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If it bothers the trolls so much, then it’s the responsibility of the trolls to stop leaving anti-troll bait.
The trolls can fuck off to 4chan or Gab if their fee-fees can’t take it.
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Ok
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Now… what’s that response they use on 4chan again?
"U mad bro?"
Re: 'And here's another demonstration that you're wrong...'
If you’re going to deal with constant and repeated claims about ‘conservative persecution’ it’s worthwhile to highlight yet another study pointing out that no, that’s not true, as going silent just concedes the floor and lets the lie stand.
If someone is going to lie they absolutely need and deserve to be called on it.
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Re: Re: 'And here's another demonstration that you're wrong...'
Right. Except here of course. And except Facebook, Twitter and the like. They, and you (TechDirt) can lie, censor, and pretty much do anything you like, all the while pointing at others. That’s the point of being elitists.
Re: Re: Re: 'And here's another demonstration that you’re still wrong...'
Remember when you used to pretend to be an inventor and almost had a point? Before the dementia ravaged your brain?
No I guess you wouldn’t bro.
Re: Re: Re: 'And here's another demonstration that you're wrong...'
"Not being a loser in life" doesn’t count as being "elitist", Baghdad Bob.
And some day when you stop sounding like an inbred redneck randomly tossing bad words at every post where your repetitive ad hom gets owned by saner minds, you might learn that too.
I think the worst part of having to continually step in every time you drop a turd in the thread is that I always walk away feeling like I just kicked a mentally disabled person who truly can not help his own anger, frustration, and unwillingness to learn.
In the words of so many other people here; Sincerely, get help.
"That’s the point of being elitists."
Having an actual education and professing in facts before belief isn’t exactly elitist. If it is to you then that only means you’ve set the bar very low.
We can’t help you find ordinary humanity to be too much of a burden to aspire to. It’s not OUR fault you want to go off and be pond slime so you aren’t forced to actually think.
P.S. You forgot to blame Obama. And Hillary. The Very Fine People might kick you out of the club. Just sayin’.
Laying down the Gauntlet once again
To anyone claiming anti-conservative bias exists:
Prove it.
But you can’t. You have no evidence, or you would be chomping at the bit to show it. You have no data, or it would trumpeted from coast to coast.
When asked, you try to deflect. You try to attack the people asking for the evidence. You try to pound the table and change the subject. You try re-asserting the claim and ignore the ask for evidence.
And in the process, you reveal yourselves as liars, or the dupes of liars.
By your own actions, by your own refusal to provide evidence, by your own desperate attempts to avoid that question, you only prove the invalidity of your claim.
Because of you I can confidently say that there is no anti-conservative bias.
Re: Laying down the Gauntlet once again
"To anyone claiming anti-conservative bias exists:
Prove it."
That’s too simplistic. Prove it… but also prove that it’s only down to "conservative" thought. It’s not Twitter’s fault if "conservatives" act in certain objectionable ways more than others. If you have 2 people on the street protesting, one is a "liberal" holding a sign and nothing else, the other is a "conservative" shouting abuse into peoples’ faces, it’s not anti-conservative for the latter to be removed and the former to remain. Generally speaking, this is why the difference exists on Twitter, at least.
I think the real problem is that, online, some people have taken "abusive asshole" to be a conservative value, and are unable to understand the issue. I can condemn the people looting even though they ostensibly share my values, it’s a shame that others cannot do this.
I think there is anti-liberal bias in the news media, this is probably due to their corporate ownership feeling the need to suppress news that might scare their skittish viewers into crashing the market.
There may actually be real evidence of anti-liberal bias occurring. However, I do not see any of these anti-bias warriors addressing that. I wonder why, not.
There are so many different types of bias that could affect a particular group of people, I wonder which one(s) are most complained about by which groups.
A very noticeable bias is bias of omission. After many of the facts of a story come out, it is interesting to go back and review the original stories to find what they left out. The difficult part is – was it intentional.
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"There may actually be real evidence of anti-liberal bias occurring. However, I do not see any of these anti-bias warriors addressing that. I wonder why, not."
Because liberal people who get biased against by, say, Breitbart or the daily stormer have plenty of other places they can exchange ideas with receptive audiences.
Whereas the sad-faced bigot or racist, once booted from facebook for being a horrible asshat can only go back and trumpet his ideas to other racists and bigots on stormfront. And frankly speaking, the racist and bigot alike thinks those guys are a horrible audience.
The fact that a liberal can discourse with the majority of the rest of humanity without being tossed out on his ear is a never-ending source of envy to those people.
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I often say this, but the truth is not that these "conservatives" don’t have an audience. It’s that the audience they have is so small. They had a taste of how large (and therefore how monetisable) the mainstream is, and when they were forced back into their hole they realise it’s impossible to get that response from the audience they have. There’s just not enough fake red pills and food buckets to sell that would get them the income they can get from ads on a popular mainstream site.
They hide behind the speech issue, and the natural toxicity of the audience is a problem, but the real thing they want is those sweet ad dollars they once had from YouTube."Liberals" don’t have the same problem because a pro-human rights stance isn’t offputting to advertisers in the same way that bigotry is. What these guys haven’t quite understood yet is that some of those "liberals" are in fact conservatives, they just don’t have the same issues because their speech is not characterised by hatred.
"What these guys haven’t quite understood yet is that some of those "liberals" are in fact conservatives, they just don’t have the same issues because their speech is not characterised by hatred."
Well, it’s only natural they’d be upset and frustrated. After all, the self-styled "conservatives" just keep getting provoked by those "liberals" you refer to quoting that leftist propaganda leaflet called "The Bill Of Rights".
"There’s just not enough fake red pills and food buckets to sell that would get them the income they can get from ads on a popular mainstream site."
Yeah, not everyone can make a living out of selling snake oil pharmacopeia which turn their customers that lovely shade of zombie-smurf greyish blue. That niche market is filled by the witch doctor worshipping the Gay Frog cause.
I confess I’d sort of missed the monetary angle completely. Like "Whoosh!" completely. Never even considered the fact that there might be losers out there in bulk so desperate to make a living they’d be willing to market and monetize racism.
That’s fscking embarrassing. I mean, It’s not as if Prenda and ACS:Law didn’t show everyone where the bar of standards was, and there’s no dearth in history of bottomfeeders willing to catch a ride with even the most repulsive of causes.
"That niche market is filled by the witch doctor worshipping the Gay Frog cause."
I wish. For whatever reason people like Jim Bakker are more successful at that stuff than Alex Jones. Having the idiots permanently scarring themselves is handy, but I still care enough about human lives to be sad about them.
"Never even considered the fact that there might be losers out there in bulk so desperate to make a living they’d be willing to market and monetize racism."
Something I’ve found illuminating recently is the podcast Knowledge Fight, in which a damn good researcher not only debunks a lot of lies told by Alex Jones (and sometimes other targets), but also points out some if the regular patterns those guys follow. It’s interesting how many insane rants lead directly into sales pitches, for example, almost as if that was the entire reason for the rants…
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"Having the idiots permanently scarring themselves is handy, but I still care enough about human lives to be sad about them."
Maybe it’s moral harm from the time my first job shunted me into database administration, but I still occasionally find myself weighing the scale with "too stupid to live" in one end and "sanctity of human life" in the other more carefully than I should.
…and while reading and writing here the radio just announced a few of the more fervent adherents of the cult of the Screaming Orange had been using bleach as mouthwash and drink. You couldn’t make this shit up.
"Something I’ve found illuminating recently is the podcast Knowledge Fight, in which a damn good researcher not only debunks a lot of lies told by Alex Jones (and sometimes other targets), but also points out some if the regular patterns those guys follow."
Thank you very much. Going to look that up.
"It’s interesting how many insane rants lead directly into sales pitches, for example, almost as if that was the entire reason for the rants…"
Yeah…for all the comparison I keep doing to Trump and his ilk to P.T. Barnum it looks like I’ve missed the angle where the loudest and most odious bigots might well just be in it because the audience they cater to is so starved for attention they’ll throw money at anyone willing to stand up and scream what they mutter to one another in echo chambers. It really shouldn’t surprise me given how much I’ve been following ACS:Law and Prenda doing the same sort of "marketing" for copyright…
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"…and while reading and writing here the radio just announced a few of the more fervent adherents of the cult of the Screaming Orange had been using bleach as mouthwash and drink"
The day after he made his announcement, Lysol and other manufacturers had to go public to warn people not to do what the president said, because they were getting a lot of calls from people asking if they should do that. I have no doubt that some others didn’t bother to double check the facts and did it anyway.
It’s a sad indictment of the state of things that people have to go public to stop people killing themselves due to what the president says, but it does lend credence to the idea that his base is a cult. But, also remember that while they should be ignored when making future policy decisions, it’s possible for cult members to be deprogrammed.
Facebook is a dreamland for populists
It is really, really, really functioning as a multiplier for catchy unchecked shit that people feel more people should be listening to. As such, it is much better at spreading manure than facts.
So with Trump having grabbed the messaging of the Republican party and self-described "conservatives" (who want to defend the status quo against the Constitution), there is little wonder that the majority of messages spread by Facebook are "conservative" as well as the majority of attempts limiting such spread where it leaves legality (never mind terms of service).
Facts and laws are boring. Also they may be in conflict with maintaining the status quo of society and people’s beliefs, in particular the ones no responsible newspaper would publish.
Of course the Trump government wants more control over Facebook et al. Not because they are "anti-conservative" but because they are a great populist tool, and being able to erase all traces of opposing voices would make them even better.
Liars
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Excellent rebuttal
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An argument isn’t just contradiction. An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition. Argument is an intellectual process. Contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of anything the other person says.
Liars
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Again, a great counterargument.
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An argument isn’t just contradiction. An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition. Argument is an intellectual process. Contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of anything the other person says.
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