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Why the Guardian is no longer posting on X

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Re: Why the Guardian is no longer posting on X

#261

Post by jay_kyburz »

cguess wrote: post #188
jay_kyburz wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but, a new organization should at least _strive_ to be objective, even if the journalists have subconscious bias. If you lean in to your biases you stop being news and start being entertainment.

"Reality has a well-known liberal bias" There's a difference between being objective and being unbiased.

wtf. Dictionary.com says "Objective most commonly means not influenced by an individual’s personal viewpoint—unbiased (or at least attempting to be unbiased). It’s often used to describe things like observations, decisions, or reports that are based on an unbiased analysis."

https://www.dictionary.com/e/subjective-vs-objective/

I'm not sure why you quoted it, but "Reality has a well-known liberal bias" is a joke you make at the expense of right wing people for not believing in reality.

Re: Why the Guardian is no longer posting on X

#262

Post by jmward01 »

class3shock wrote: post #229
briandear wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Journalism” isn’t failing to report a story because of who it might offend. If it happened, it’s valid. Even worse, journalism isn’t telling the opposite story because the real story might offend. That’s the problem with the Guardian. They spend a lot of this time writing defensive stories, while missing the real ones. Didn’t Guardian write a single story about how Kamala Harris got her political start under the pat…

Some but certainly not as much criticism as was written about Trump. Mentioned negatives include her support for Israel, lackluster interview performance, poor performance in 2020 primaries, and previous stances as a prosecutor. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/02/rashida-tlai... https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/22/kama... https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/24/kama...…

Quantity vs quality. Journalism faces the question of 'how to present in an unbiased way' and the answer often comes out as 'equal coverage' which is, as answers go, terrible. Most of the time one 'side' isn't equal to the other when comparing statistics and doesn't deserved to be covered 'equally'.

Re: Why the Guardian is no longer posting on X

#264

Post by talldayo »

fragsworth wrote: post #253
talldayo wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What ruined Dorsey for me was the crypto nonsense. I didn't use Twitter but it seemed like he was the typical asocial self-loathing nerd for a while. Then he went full on savior-syndrome and tried to use Twitter as a marketing tool for NFTs and cryptocurrency, more or less signing the platform's death warrant. I don't know a single person that actually enjoyed Twitter's brazen embrace of crypto. If he was still a bum…

On one hand you have the richest man on earth purchasing one of the largest social platforms, and singlehandedly wielding it to subvert American democracy. On the other hand you have a guy who kinda liked crypto. You call it "basically a mirror"? Do you see the absurdity of comparing the two things as if they're even remotely close to one another?

If American democracy can be subverted by a fucking iPhone app then we deserved it. I'm not going to accept the "psyop steal" accusations this time around any more than I tolerated it in 2020. Misinformation is a perennial issue, and Twitter wasn't protected by some holy ward against hostile takeovers or even government meddling. It's fundamentally flawed, which is why Dorsey had to let it be destroyed with all of it's users being eaten alive inside it.

The damage caused by both owners has been equal, in my opinion. Elon Musk is a fundamentally bigger shithead, but as someone that doesn't have an account on Twitter I genuinely don't feel like this is an issue. This was an inevitability from the very moment Twitter started running a profit deficit it could never pull itself out of.

We forget that there's an easy solution to things being uploaded online that make you angry. "Just Walk Away From The Screen" - @tylerthecreator, 2012

Re: Why the Guardian is no longer posting on X

#265

Post by wezdog1 »

aeternum wrote: post #211
fwip wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Community notes are not impartial, they are written and approved by the users who sign up to do so (and actually take the time to do this unpaid labor). Thus, they tend to reflect the biases of the kind of people who most want to (and have time to) write and approve community notes, drawn from the pool of people who use your site.

Now do democracy and voting. Or how about serving on a jury. Or serving on a school board. By your definition those also must not be impartial and maybe that is a fair definition but what does it imply? Do you similarly distrust democratic outcomes, jury decisions, etc.?

Would you prefer a trial by community notes or by jury.

Re: Why the Guardian is no longer posting on X

#266

Post by fwip »

aeternum wrote: post #211
fwip wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Community notes are not impartial, they are written and approved by the users who sign up to do so (and actually take the time to do this unpaid labor). Thus, they tend to reflect the biases of the kind of people who most want to (and have time to) write and approve community notes, drawn from the pool of people who use your site.

Now do democracy and voting. Or how about serving on a jury. Or serving on a school board. By your definition those also must not be impartial and maybe that is a fair definition but what does it imply? Do you similarly distrust democratic outcomes, jury decisions, etc.?

Jurors do not self-select into jury duty, though some try harder than others to get out of it. So the effect is less.

Voters are partial to the candidates they vote for; that's why they vote for them.

Re: Why the Guardian is no longer posting on X

#267

Post by mmooss »

incog_nit0 wrote: post #259
mmooss wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IME the comments almost universally had no value, and were very often toxic. I wouldn't want that on my website - why? What value do they add for anyone? Nobody allows that on their website now - that was before many lessons were learned. HN doesn't allow anything like it (and never has, afaik).

> What value do they add for anyone? Counterpoints are useful to help negate echo chambers where we end up clicking on the articles which validate our world view. In addition the most upvoted comments (at least on the Financial Times website) are sometimes more informed and nuanced than the articles themselves. The article often gets the debate rolling - come for the articles, stay for the comments (so to speak).

> Counterpoints

In the comments section of news websites, it wasn't counterpoints. It was just aggression, lies, toxicity, etc.

The Financial Times is pretty rarefied air. Everyone must be subscribed, so no anonymity (I would guesss). How much does a subscription cost? $300+ per year?

Re: Why the Guardian is no longer posting on X

#268

Post by selivanovp »

tzs wrote: post #231
jasonfarnon wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget youtube. Of course, when they were doing that, it wasn't "pushing political agenda" it was just "doing what's right" and "respecting the rights of others". Are there books recounting the history of editorial positions put forth by these platforms? I really had no idea where google stood on political issues in the 2000s. I remember thinking they were quite pro-free speech sometimes callously so through th…

I watch a lot of YouTube, often without an ad blocker, and I see almost no political content on my home page. The only place I regular saw political content was in the in-video ads which appeared to be just normal paid ads purchased by the campaigns.

It depends on what country you live in. Youtube was throwing Navalny and his friends videos into my feed no matter the "don't recommend videos from this channel" button. It somewhat lowered the intensity, but they still tried to mix their political agenda into my feed.

Re: Why the Guardian is no longer posting on X

#269

Post by selivanovp »

jasonfarnon wrote: post #176
selivanovp wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not know if Musk tweaked the algorithm in favor of Trump as I've left Twitter several years ago due to getting tired of propaganda bots. But what I do know is that Google and Facebook (as well as previous Twitter owners) practicing targeted propaganda for years already, pushing political agenda in your throat no matter how you ask them to not recommend you specific authors, channels or topics. I don't think we a…

Don't forget youtube. Of course, when they were doing that, it wasn't "pushing political agenda" it was just "doing what's right" and "respecting the rights of others". Are there books recounting the history of editorial positions put forth by these platforms? I really had no idea where google stood on political issues in the 2000s. I remember thinking they were quite pro-free speech sometimes callously so through th…

[flagged]

Re: Why the Guardian is no longer posting on X

#270

Post by dools »

grahamj wrote: post #240
valval wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since it’s the platform that takes freedom of speech the most seriously, it caters to people who are for freedom of speech.

Hey remember this? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41662702 Fun times

I don't even know why they bother with that kind of research. It's obvious that Trump can just lie and all his supporters believe it because they have a propaganda arm that's perceived as "news". The Trump believers all think that "MSM" is lying to them but for some reason they think that Fox and NewsMax and Alex Jones aren't (when the exact opposite is true).

It's like the whole hush money thing. Turns out it just doesn't matter, they should have let Stormy Daniels say whatever she wants because Trump just has to go on stage and make stuff up and then Hannity will repeat it and it becomes right-wing canon.

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