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Comment by w3mmpp | Hacker News Reader

> "yep, no conservative viewpoints allowed here."

At least it'd be clear if they said so, nothing worse than the current situation where they think it but won't say it because it'd be bad for business.

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Are you implying that twitter doesn't allow conservative viewpoints or that obvious lies ARE conservative viewpoints?

I'm implying that twitter favor non-conservative viewpoints, tolerate them because obviously it's good for business, but do whatever they can, without getting caught, to favor more liberal viewpoints.

Curious to see if there's evidence for this. I am not sure how one would go about measuring this - but perhaps it would help if you elaborate on how this favoritism manifests in the way Twitter operates. Is there anything like that or is this based more on your personal feelings on the matter?

It's my own experience.

Here's an example:

I have 2 accounts, one that I use for politics and news, conservative leaning, WSJ, Thomas Sowell, Peter Robinson (Uncommon Knowledge), Kimberley Strassel... that brand of conservatism, not talking about the crazy alt-right shit here which I don't follow, and a second account that I use for my work with only software dev stuffs and mainstream/more neutral media, Reuters etc, nothing that could brand me as conservative.

On my political & news account I'm always getting recommendations for CNN and other left-leaning commentators and media (no recommendation for other conservative outlets) at the top of my recommendation list, or some kind of outrageous claim that a right leaning person would have done, for example, right now got:

"Kellyanne Conway compares voting in person to waiting in line for cupcakes".

Another one: "Trump makes unsubstantiated claim that mail-in ballots will lead to voter fraud"

I also got "Don Lemon" on "Trending".

That's the kind of recommendation I'm not getting on my work account, where it's mixed between news (without any outrageous/divise claims unless there's really something crazy that happened that day) and other subjects targeted to my interests.

Is it a scientific proof, no, but once you spend enough time comparing with multiple accounts like that you can see a pretty clear pattern on how they try to influence, and it's not subtle even.

Just not true at all, there's tons of conservatives on twitter not having any problem at all. - Trump's problem, and that of his allies, is that they talk bullshit all the time. It is lies, half-truths, threats of violence and insults all day every day.

I mean, I even disagree that there's major 'anti-conservative' bias at all.

Some prominent conservatives have been banned from the platform, like Alex Jones, but it wasn't due to their views on Keynesian economics, it was for spreading outright lies about Sandy Hook.

Diving deeper into almost any of the examples that people dig up as 'anti-conservative bias' reveals trolling, hateful attacks, or other bad behavior, completely independent of the author's political views, and earnestly deserving of removal.

> I mean, I even disagree that there's major 'anti-conservative' bias at all.

Are you a conservative yourself?

I'm gonna take a guess that you are not so how would you know?

It's a real question, no trick.

My counter argument to yours is that Twitter has a major anti-progressive bias. This can be shown by the number of people that have been banned due to responding against racism.

Since you're not a progressive, you can't counter my claim as there's no way you would know about any anti-progressive bias.

Indeed I wouldn't dare, I don't follow any progressives (I think), don't read their tweets, don't get the recommendations they do etc.

Now I can tell you as a conservative, because I experience it every day.

Exactly, for some reason people will throw out toxic lies, racism, conspiracy theories, etc. and then act like those are just their 'political views'. I hope we aren't at a turning point where conspiracy theories and suppression of journalism is a 'political viewpoint'.

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