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Comment by techorange | Hacker News Reader

Here's the thing that bothers me.

In opposition to this someone would likely say "You were ok when liberals were censoring everything, and now the shoe's on the other foot, go shove it"

But actually, someone deciding to make biased media doesn't bother me that much. I mean, it's not great, I would prefer X have non-partisan ownership, but it happens, and free societies have an exhaust valve, particularly America:

People are contrarian. The more you see conservatives try to control media in avoidable ways, the more people will fight that influence. In the wake of the election Meidas Touch, a liberal podcast just overtook Joe Rogan.

The thing that concerns me is this: I think some people in power know this. Well I think all people in power know this, and I think some people currently in power who are intent on doing something about it.

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Isn’t X’s ownership less bias now? You don’t get banned for mainstream political opinions anymore, and the fact-checking seems less biased (as evidence: Elon gets hit with community notes all the time). Certainly Elon makes a bigger scene, but politically he seems more center than Jack was. I mean it wasn’t that many months ago that Elon was considered a solid blue Democrat

> Isn’t X’s ownership less bias now?

No, decidedly not. The prior ownership may have been a little too close the government in the type of conversations they have. The current owner is arguably literally the government and may hold more sway over the Republican leadership than the president of the United States.

Like a year ago your argument may have made sense. Now… I’d love to hear your rational objective argument why Musk is less biased than Dorsey.

Try opening X with new account and tell me there is no more bias now. In my completely non politician X I keep getting cringe Elon takes and some other far right content. One might argue there is less moderation (which is also not true btw), but there is definitely much more bias than it used to be.

I don't think so, because not all opinions have equal power. By allowing nazis and white supremacists a safe haven, you inadvertently shift the entire platform right. Because those opinions are so extreme, even those who disagree are nudged in that direction. Whereas centrist or slightly left-leaning opinions, which describes almost all of the American left, don't create that much inertia. It's easy to say "I'm not a nazi, but <insert more tame conservative opinion>".

Just intuitively from what I've seen, there's been a large cultural shift towards the right in the past 5-10 years. I believe the internet is general is the primary cause of it. Extreme opinion are given space, even if they're not taking 100% seriously. They don't need to be, it's a spectrum, and even just 5% humor leads to being more right than you were before.

This could, maybe, be balanced if there were an equal number of extremists on the left. But there just isn't. I don't see communist gatherings. I don't see communist twitter accounts. I'll see a communist here and there, but even at worse it's almost always a democratic socialist. I don't see communists committing a January 6th. Point is, the extreme right goes unchallenged in their extremism, and the moderate voices of the modern left are essentially being drowned out.

The end result is Twitter is decidedly conservative facing overall. And, really, the entire country, and, possibly, the whole world.

Elon's opinions and moderation preferences have changed quite severely since he was considered a solid blue Democrat. He no longer allows himself to be hit with community notes, for example, ever since he was community noted for spreading misinformation about the Ukranian president's approval ratings.

Elon gets hit with community notes all the time, just last week he made a post to the effect of “the fed doesn’t use SQL” and community notes was on him almost immediately.

That would be https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1889062581848944961, which I agree was community noted before he intervened to remove it.

I appreciate your balanced view. It reminds me of “I disagree with your opinion, but will defend your right to share it” (paraphrased)

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