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PaperclipPerfector  8d ago (text post)   28071 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025

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You seriously think social media is making teens more liberal? That sites known for right-wing QAnon conspiracy rabbit holes are somehow increasing support for trans rights?

The media has been talking about how surprisingly conservative Gen Z is (that is, the people young enough for social media / smartphones to be a major part of their teenage years but old enough to actually be 18+ for a survey). Wikipedia references social media as an influence making them more conservative.

  • -10

Sorry but there’s no way you can convince me that Tumblr or Communist controlled TikTok are making kids more conservative. If they are more conservative (dubious) it’s due to other forces, the media can freak out that they haven’t completely turned every kid into democratic socialists all they want

Social media is a mixed bag politically but it’s hard to argue with it being a major driver of increasing social liberalism in our society. I mean it does go both ways, but trans is more spread through social media than trad- most people know how their grandparents lived(even if they really don’t) and can see the appeal of that lifestyle if they squint.

I assume there’s more than one filter bubble at play. Twenty years ago MSNBC and Fox watchers were already getting two completely different spins. Now they can be siloed even within a single website. Boomer Facebook is not Zoomer Facebook, let alone Reddit or Livejournal.

I’d say the OP is overselling it. He’s ascribing way too much coherence and agency to “their movement.” This is something that’s followed organically from unprecedented access to information.

Look at it this way. Before the spread of printing, you might never have thought about contemporary religious schisms. Before the Internet, it was possible to go your entire life without ever being asked about preferred pronouns. As we grow more connected, we are asked to take sides on any number of previously invisible issues. These crystallize along existing fault lines with convenient labels like “personal liberty” or “traditional values.” Then the usual tribalism kicks in and the facts themselves melt into the background.

You seriously think social media is making teens more liberal?

Look up Redit from 10 years ago and tell me if it got more or less liberal.

There's certainly liberal content on most (if not all) social media websites. But the impact of their algorithms is almost universally to push users in the direction of right-wing content. Reddit's algorithms are theoretically transparent (i.e. officially what is highlighted is controlled by the votes of real people but there's regular claims of fake accounts being used to mess with the vote counts), so it may be one of the ones least affected by this.

But also, the nature of social media being a customized feed for every user means that it's very difficult to judge how liberal the median (or whatever) view of a site is. From my perspective, Tumblr is very woke, but I somewhat often see discussions of the conservative views being espoused elsewhere on the site.

10-ish years ago Reddit collectively bullied Ellen Pao out of being the CEO. Today anything mildly non-progressive gets dowvoted, removed, and the user gets banned. Twitter from a decade ago was also uncomparably more friendly towards right-wing thought than it is even now, after Elon bought it.

It is also very disputable whether the algorithms move people to the right (or to the left for that matter), rather than towards an establishment-friendly worldview within one's political wing

The algorithms give you more of what you like to engage with, so perhaps either everyone likes right wing content (doubtful) or you’re wrong about what the algorithms are doing

The algorithms give you more of what you like to engage with,

Almost every platform manipulates the algorithm to steer it's users towards what the company wants, rather than what the users want organically.

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