> More generally, the systemic bias tends to lean against conservative voices far more often than liberal voices.

This is a popular, but baseless conspiracy theory.

The myth of social media anti-conservative bias refuses to die https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/platform-bias.php

Google invests more in making sure that it has quality search results, and the algorithms are just different. Not really that complicated.

The NY Post is a low quality tabloid that is just a step above the Enquirer, for example.

>Google invests more in making sure that it has quality search results

Define "quality"

You may find Google results more to your personal liking

Yet others will find Other Search Engine™ has "better" results

I have a hard time believing that the results page for “Joe Biden creepy” is not at least semi-manually curated. For example, none of the “creepy” videos that show up are the most comprehensive versions of the clips someone would want to watch to inform themselves of what somebody is referring to when calling him creepy. It’s also not hard for me to believe Google would take such action, given the political makeup of their employees, and the fact that they have been recorded suggesting their commitment to making Trump a “blip” in history.

It’s also worth noting that was only one example I cited. It doesn’t change the fact that Twitter has only ever “fact checked” Trump (by linking to CNN), and that Facebook prohibits you from sending links to JoeBiden.info in private messages. Are these not clear examples of bias?

You can make the argument that these companies have the right to as much bias as they want on their own platforms. But you cannot in good faith make the argument that such bias does not exist, or that it’s some conspiracy theory to suggest that it does.

Here’s the thing: most of us here don’t really care about left or right. We care about good and bad ideas. And for the most part, the Republicans espouse really bad ideas, so bad in fact, that reasonable people vocally call them out on these bad ideas. You and others misperceive this attention as “bias”. Why? It’s simple.

Studies of conservatives show that they prefer authoritarianism and unquestioning loyalty over competency and expertise. When their loyalty to an idea, a leader, or a political ideology is questioned, it undermines their worldview. So the “bias” you are really describing, is just good old fashioned critical thinking, which by its very design, confronts and questions authority, and upholds values of openness, tolerance, and free inquiry—the bane of conservatism.

All you have to do is come up with good ideas. It’s that simple.

Thanks for telling me what I prefer.

Critical thinking is great. We should all do it. Just because I agree with that doesn’t mean I want or need some company to do the “critical thinking” for me.

In fact, the things you’re defending tend to get in the way of critical thinking. It’s hard to apply critical thought with incomplete information, which is what tends to be available when news agencies apply selection bias to which stories they report, or search engines remove results they deem derogatory, or social media platforms forbid sending links in private messages.

Are you arguing that the factchecking and verification filters Facebook, and now Twitter, are currently using, somehow impede free inquiry? We should be tolerant, but we should not tolerate intolerance. More to the point, we should not tolerate false news, hoaxes, or conspiracy theories intended to mislead or cause harm. Sadly, conservatives have come to /depend/ on that kind of “fact suppression” to sway people over to their side. We saw it with the rise of birtherism, with the hate-fueled advent of the Tea Party, and in the tribal nativism that led to the election of Trump.

You raise the “incomplete information” tactic, which denialists on both the left and the right depend upon. Climate denialists say we shouldn’t mitigate because we don’t have enough data or they argue that the data is suspect. We know, and we have consensus. Do we need more information about the 18,000 lies Trump has spread already?

Facebook and Twitter are already on record (and off record per the WSJ article yesterday) showing that they gave the benefit of the doubt to conservatives because algorithms were consistently selecting their rhetoric as problematic. Twitter wouldn’t filter out the Nazis, for example, because it also targeted Republican politicians.

I’m not arguing whether the bias should or shouldn’t exist. I’m arguing that it does exist, which you seem to be refuting for some reason. And I’m certainly going to argue that if platforms try to claim neutrality, they better show evidence of it, or else stop claiming to be neutral.

Are you okay with Facebook banning links in private messages? Why can’t I link to JoeBiden.info, a clearly marked parody website full of factual information, in a private message to a friend? What possible reason could there be for this, other than bias?

Are you okay with Twitter editorializing the president’s tweets, but not doing the same for those of Adam Schiff or Joe Biden? Both of them have promoted baseless conspiracy theories on Twitter, like suggesting Trump is a Russian agent. Yet they’ve never been “fact checked.” Are you okay with the idea that the person in charge of the fact checking initiative at Twitter has a history of publicly calling Trump a “Nazi” and a “racist tangerine?” Does this seem like an arrangement that will result in anything but biased “fact checks?”

I’m having a hard time seeing how this is good for critical thought, as you seem to be suggesting. Telling people what to think is not the basis upon which critical thought develops. If anything, such editorializing will only further polarize people and increase their emotional attachment to pre-existing beliefs.

I don't Twitter and I don't follow Trump, so I don't know the answer. Does Twitter fact check every Trump tweet? Does it ever find any to be factual? If Trump tweeted that he loves the Jets, would that get fact checked? If he tweeted that FEMA has done a superb job in guiding the WHO through this whole pandemic, would that get fact checked? Or do only some tweets get the treatment?

Genuine question: what do you think of Twitter selectively applying their ToS to Trump?

Anyone else would have already been banned, so this is kid gloves

If conservatives are so hurt by tech companies then why does Trump owe his presidency to Cambridge Analytics and Facebook?

Who else's tweets are they going to fact check? The Dalai Lama? They have to start somewhere, and a guy who's using their service to spread disinformation about vote by mail in a blatant attempt to rally his base around contesting an election if it doesn't go his way - hours after terrorizing the surviving family of a political staffer for no obvious reason (again with no basis on fact) - seems like a great place to start. Especially if your company isn't (completely) run by invertebrates. Twitter handed Trump a bullhorn. They didn't need to, but they did. For purely business reasons, I'm sure. But they _own_ that bullhorn, and they can take it away whenever they like. "Just business," his TV character would say.

I can make a website right now; donaldtrumpcantposthere.com; and I can put a little chat room there and people can type whatever they want and maybe it'll show up, but you know what? Whoever posts there, I can do whatever I want with it. I might get in trouble for _other_ things (facilitating online bullying, distributing copyrighted material, etc.), but "free speech" is not one of them. That's how it works when you deal with private corporations. Don't like it? Move to China :b

I'd be fine with Twitter fact checking the Dalai Lama. For example, his most recent tweet says "When this blue planet is viewed from space, there are no national boundaries to be seen."

Here's a photo from space of the India-Pakistan border: https://qz.com/india/516864/the-india-pakistan-border-is-so-...

Assuming that's not a fake photo (or that this one is: https://time.com/4780003/international-borders-from-space/), I would say that sufficient evidence exists to say that what the Dalai Lama stated is factually incorrect.

My point is his factually incorrect statements are generally innocuous, whereas the same statement by the _President of the United States_ is much more of a problem. I think it's unreasonable to expect Twitter to regurgitate such dangerous statements uncritically. The slippery slope thing or the "why do anything if it isn't perfect" thing needn't enter into this: Donald Trump's Twitter account is an objectively different problem than the Dalai Lama's Twitter account. (That's a really cool picture, by the way!).

How about UFO sightings? Bigfoot? Debunked Russian Conspiracy tweets by Adam Schiff?