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naraburns  nihil supernum  16d ago (text post)   26859 thread views

U.S. Election (Day?) 2024 Megathread

With apologies to our many friends and posters outside the United States... it's time for another one of these! Culture war thread rules apply, and you are permitted to openly advocate for or against an issue or candidate on the ballot (if you clearly identify which ballot, and can do so without knocking down any strawmen along the way). "Small-scale" questions and answers are also permitted if you refrain from shitposting or being otherwise insulting to others here. Please keep the spirit of the law--this is a discussion forum!--carefully in mind.

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they'd been seeing a false SJ consensus created by banning everyone who spoke out, but now they see something closer to reality

This statement seems crazy to me. If there was an SJW consensus prior to Elon, all the same mechanisms and all the same incentives exist to create an equally false right-wing consensus. If your response is going to be, "well, my side is actually right!" then you're isomorphic to an SJW.

If your response is going to be, "well, my side is actually right!" then you're isomorphic to an SJW.

Regardless of what Musk does or does not do with Twitter, he cannot create a false consensus by himself, because he doesn't own Alphabet (including Google Search and YouTube), Meta (including Facebook and Instagram), Reddit, or Hollywood (or TikTok, but lol TikTok's a Chinese op and will push whatever's most destructive). Most of these people consume at least one of those.

My point is that having all of the major platforms do the same censorship (and Hollywood and the most-respected legacy media push the same line) creates a false consensus effect.

I understand your point better now-- you're talking about global (across the internet) rather than local (on twitter) consensus. I still disagree with it, but that's because I don't think a consensus ever existed. facebook and whatsapp have been notorious for right-wing behavior for a while, and of course reddit and twitter got trump elected in 2016. Andrew Tate and the manosphere have been popular on youtube for quite a while too.

or TikTok, but lol TikTok's a Chinese op and will push whatever's most destructive

This is true.

If there was an SJW consensus prior to Elon, all the same mechanisms and all the same incentives exist to create an equally false right-wing consensus.

Okay. Show the high-engagement Progressive accounts being banned from X through arbitrary application of platform rules. That's the mechanism that dominated prior to Elon, so according to you it should be the mechanism dominating under Elon.

Likewise, community notes didn't exist prior to Elon, and are a significant improvement to the function of the platform.

Show the high-engagement Progressive accounts being banned from X through arbitrary application of platform rules.

I'm sure that regardless of whether censorship is actually happening, I could do that. It wouldn't be proof either way, because anecdotes aren't data-- and similarly, any proof of twitter's previous institutional leftist bent is subject to the same fuzziness. That's why I'm referring to mechanisms and incentives. The actual, technological infrastructure of the site either does or doesn't allow for systematically influencing public opinion. The owner of the site either is or isn't incentivised to use it for that purpose-- and either is or isn't empowered to incentivise their subordinates to do the same. Everything else is downstream of that. Either twitter has always been and still is pushing a particular viewpoint, or it never was and still isn't.

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