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Why the Guardian is no longer posting on X

(www.theguardian.com)
243 points Jimmc414 | 5 comments | 13 Nov 24 20:58 UTC | HN request time: 0.398s | source
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lend000 ◴[13 Nov 24 21:49 UTC] No.42130419[source]▶
It's wild how much most people rely on being in an echo chamber. It takes a psychological toll being confronted with opinions that challenge your worldview on a regular basis, especially if you cannot easily dismiss them.

I haven't seen any of the things the Guardian mentions on my feed -- it's mostly startup related, software related, finance news, and science/medical stuff with maybe ~10% of posts I come across having a political tinge (I do not seek out any political discourse in my feed). But this ratio hasn't changed much in the last few years, except that the flavor of political content has moved rightward (it started off pretty left, which I also did not seek out).

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throw16180339 ◴[13 Nov 24 22:50 UTC] No.42131092[source]▶
> It's wild how much most people rely on being in an echo chamber. It takes a psychological toll being confronted with opinions that challenge your worldview on a regular basis, especially if you cannot easily dismiss them.

I can easily dismiss antisemitic conspiracy theories, queerphobia, bigotry, and racism. There's an infinite stream of garbage positions, why would would I engage with them?

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1. lend000 ◴[14 Nov 24 00:30 UTC] No.42131806[source]▶
As I mentioned in a sibling comment, your feed is only toxic insofar you are likely to engage with it. I have never seen a single post on my feed of the vein you are describing.

By the way, there is equally ridiculous garbage on the left, if you go looking for it. You are doing the same thing that every partisan media outlet does, the oldest trick in the book: arguing against a strawman. Just because there is some leftist out there who wants to subsidize transgender operations for illegal immigrants or who wants to cancel anyone who assumes your gender, should I generalize that opinion to you and every left-leaning person on HN?

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2. throw16180339 ◴[14 Nov 24 02:37 UTC] No.42132591[source]▶
Elon endorsed antisemitic comments (https://www.politico.eu/article/elon-musk-row-uk-rishi-sunak...) and conspiracy theories. Several studies found that there was a substantial increase in hate speech (https://www.newsguardtech.com/special-reports/twitter-misinf...) after the acquisition. He substantially manipulated opinions on X to serve his own ends, most recently during the election. It's grossly misleading to compare this to a strawman.
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3. consteval ◴[14 Nov 24 16:14 UTC] No.42137651[source]▶
> your feed is only toxic insofar you are likely to engage with it.

Right, and bigotry raises engagement. This isn't rocket science. Garbage opinions get popular because of how garbage they are. It's the same reason why traffic slows down when there's a car wreck on the other side of the interstate.

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4. southernplaces7 ◴[15 Nov 24 12:57 UTC] No.42146487[source]▶
>Garbage opinions get popular because of how garbage they are

What a neatly convenient and circular argument for completely dismissing anything that gains appeal but you happen to dislike. It must be popular because it's garbage, and couldn't possibly have any parts worth examining.

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5. consteval ◴[15 Nov 24 16:03 UTC] No.42148102{3}[source]▶
It's just the truth, sorry to be the one to tell you.

The more garbage an opinion is the more outrage it causes. This means more engagement, more comments, more replies, more stitches, more views, more everything. This means creators are incentivized to make this content, and the "algorithms" purposefully promote this content too. Because, objectively, it does very well. Much better than tame or normal content.

It's not just "what I happen to dislike", lol, it's everything. Sure, there's skinheads and such on the right who say blatantly racist or sexist stuff. Some of them are even in Congress (MTG). But on the left, you have those cringe compilations with "blue hair" feminists. I'm a feminist, but I don't agree with those people.

Of course, neither is truly representative of "their side" or, really, anyone. They're just insane wackos. But those opinions garner A LOT of attention, because they're garbage.