Alex Jones using Twitter/X is on-brand.
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Of course, Tim Onion is primarily on Bluesky, other than to occasionally rile up Musk
I hadn't realized how hilarious this is until now
I don't understand your point
Since Musk's acquisition of Twitter, it has increasingly become a right wing echo chamber and place to promote conspiracy theories. And Alex Jones' InfoWars and Elon Musk's Twitter are both likely to show you advertisements for supplements of dubious effectiveness and other generally scammy products.
So yeah, Jones fits right in there.
So on the one hand you had Twitter, where the impression you would have had in the first few days of November is that Trump was probably going to win the election.
On the other hand you had most other platforms like Reddit, with relatively heavy-handed moderation, where the impression you would have had in the first few days of November is that Trump was probably going to lose the election.
So when you want to make a prior judgement on an extremely consequential outcome, which a posteriori was not even close, and one information ecosystem gives you the right answer, and most of the other information ecosystems give you the wrong answer, which information ecosystems do you classify as "echo chambers"?
It's possible that this was just a fluke, but it should certainly make you update your priors on which ecosystems provide a more representative sample of base reality.
If I confidently declare ahead of time the result of a coin flip, I may turn out to be correct, but my confidence was still unjustified. And furthermore, my getting it right would not necessitate a “fluke”.
I’m on Reddit a fair bit and while it’s difficult to know the overall biases of the greater community based on what I see individually, I don’t have a lot of trouble believing that there was a bias toward a particular desired result. But, I honestly didn’t see much in the way of a bias one way or the other in the expected result. I mostly saw a lot of anxiety over not knowing what result to expect.
Elections are not remotely a "coin flip" though?
> I’m on Reddit a fair bit and while it’s difficult to know the overall biases of the greater community based on what any one person sees
Left. Censored media leans left. Censored forums, news, communities are censored to give credit to left ideas. Symmetrically, left ideas only thrive by hiding information.
With complete transparency, people lean right.
One of the two echo chambers was bound to be correct in terms of vote counting.
what's the standard now for a not close election? dems have to always win the popular vote now?
4 swing states were decided by a 1% difference. this election was close.
the game is to win the swing states. that is all that matters and both parties know it.
Trump won all 7 swing states and the popular vote by a few million. it was not a close election whatsoever. even Clinton won Nevada
Reddit depends very much on which subreddit you are. There's plenty of racists, trump supporters and so on on reddit.
Given the large amount of information that Twitter claimed that turned out to be false, one correct claim doesn't really change much. It goes from around 0/1000 correct to 1/1001 correct. Even a broken clock is correct twice a day.
The vibe on other platforms was that it was going to be close, not that Kamala was going to win, which is the correct even handed judgement, and now all the votes have being counted, was correct.
The idea that I stopped clock is right twice a day but because it's twitter that means it's always right is a bit... come on. Hackernews commenters are supposed to be better than that.
You realize old Twitter was literally censoring things they knew to be true but politically damaging, right? Or are you still operating in 2022?
Twitter is right wing because your country (and the world) are shifting right. Sorry.
You realise new twitter is literally censoring things that are a mild inconvenience to the Boss - who happens to be the new President-for-life buddy?
They were censoring leaked pictures of Hunter Biden's penis.
You can't run a service where it shows every single post that someone wants to put up, even if they're "legal". It'd get full of spam, offend everyone so much they leave, or just force everyone to see Hunter Biden's penis.
> it has increasingly become a right wing echo chamber and place to promote conspiracy theories.
In what way? I still only see the very same industry-focused information that I first started using Twitter for. If anything, X has improved in pulling in information from more industry players than I was seeing before, so I consider it to be an even more compelling product now.
But perhaps that same algorithm improvement is what you ultimately mean? As in, that X has become better at finding the information you want to see, so if you have an interest in "right wing" or conspiracy content then it is a greater likelihood of it exposing you to that than the Twitter of yore did?
Just yesterday the Guardian newspaper put out a statement saying they will no longer be posting to x/twitter cause it’s gone down the toilet.
https://amp.theguardian.com/media/2024/nov/13/the-guardian-n...
Make a burner account and log in to it. You will see what the parent comment is talking about.
If you use lists, then you probably won't notice that much. However if your looking at the "for you" page, shits just kept on getting more extreme. Just wildly off the deepend scams or abuse.
Before you could just filter out that stuff as it was fairly rare. but its just everywhere.
I take it that left wingers feel that "community notes" isn't effective or sufficient to combat right wing beliefs that are wrong?
The people on the right seem satisfied for now that they can "combat misinformation with more information". (That's a misquote by the way, I believe he said better information, not more. On second thought, he may have said it both ways.)
Has anyone discussed why the right believes this can work, and the left doesn't?
The problem isn't "beliefs that are wrong", the problem is that it's Calvinball.
Say something happened, they'll say you don't have proof.
Show proof that it happened, they'll say it isn't a big deal.
Demonstrate a negative consequence, they'll say it's an isolated incident.
Show that it happens a lot, they'll say the victims deserve it.
And so on. Of course I don't have any proof.
Bullshit Asymmetry Principle[0] always applies.
By the time Community Notes has appeared, tens or even hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of people will have seen the misinformation.
Even once Community Notes have appeared, many won't read them.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_asymmetry_principle
Community notes isn’t scalable.
So when you have people like Musk constantly posting by the time a note is added the value of it has long since diminished.
Also your left/right wing argument is entirely something you’ve invented.
The reason it's increasingly an "echo chamber" is because liberals are so offended by actual free speech that they stopped posting there. To blame conservatives for this development is illogical.
It really hasn’t.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65246394
there are both in-depth studies and anecdotal evidence that suggest hate speech has been growing under Mr Musk's tenure.
Data Shows X Is Suspending Far Fewer Users for Hate Speech
My experience disagrees with yours, I suppose.
To me, as a casual user of the platform, that has been the trend. I've been visiting less because of it.
> Twitter/X
Why not call it one or the other?
Call it Twitter. Everyone knows what you mean, and it annoys Elon.
I'm not even your average Elon hater, and I still think X is a stupid name. Dude should've just kept the name and brand that everyone knows already.
Elon just likes X. I feel he bought the entire site in part due to ego. And it was part of the "everything app" branding too IIRC.
old good ole Twitter was when your feed was only those you followed.
new X is when your feed what Elon wants you to see and react to.
Or "Twitter, the site desperately trying to be know as X".
My favorite so far is: “The platform [Elon Musk] wants you to call “X” for his own sexual gratification”. It’s admittedly too wordy though.
I heard that deadnaming is uncool.
I think the product should be called Twitter and the company called X. Sort of like Facebook/Meta. Which is what Musk should have done from the beginning, but we can fix it for him.
Call it X. Everyone knows what you mean and it really stirs shit up with people who are emotionally attached to the old brand name.
> Call it X. Everyone knows what you mean
When I see "X", I think X Window System.
I saw your comment and thought, "I bet this guy is a Windows user." I was right! LOL.
https://hn.algolia.com/?type=comment&sort=byDate&query=autho...
Use both and get everybody!
I like "Xitter" because it's pronounced the way it is
I believe Xitter (pronounced 'shitter') is the preferred satirical term, and one that many deem to be an accurate portrayal of the sites user experience since it was taken over by Mr Musk.
Xitter is my favorite!
I like Xitter too. Also "the dead bird site" which occurs quite a lot on Mastodon
I like Birdchan
Maximum clarity