The Consequences of Social Media Bias

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It's the current year we have been graced by social platforms our Internet forefathers and free speech advocates could only dream about. Whatsapp, Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook, Skype..we're truly freer to speak to the world than we were before. Or are we?

Twitter which is now chaired by Jack Dorsey has been under a lot of scrutiny for the company's shadow-banning and removal of vocal users who do not line up with Jack and his Silicon Valley team's views. Twitter trends that support things Twitter does not support are artificially moved down the list by sometimes and replaced with counter-trends or tame tags that have 1/20 of the activity and over a much larger span of time. Trolls are also allowed to operate in vast numbers while people with the wrong opinions or attempting to share valuable information with the public that negates media reports are removed almost with immediate effect.

Jack was hired in order to save Twitter's stock from tanking, and his approach has not only disenfranchised large numbers of existing and banned users, it has actually caused TWTR to drop to as low as $16 a share compared to $30 last year. Add to that their largest shareholder is now a rich Saudi Arabian who is demanding further censors to the platform, further outrage has ensued and the list of interested Twitter buyers has shortened. SoftBank Japan are the next likely takers, though if a deal isn't struck where will Twitter go from there?

Solution: Other new platforms are looking to take Twitter's place in the form of Gab http://gab.ai/ , Candid http://www.getcandid.com/ and others soon to be joining the free speech market like Flocking. Gab claims to be advocates of free speech, with no moderator censorship and self governance amongst users and for the most part is achieving this with great success in its beta. The line is long, and at present it is an echo chamber for conservatives largely neglected and silenced by their peers and other platforms, but all are welcome and centrist commenters are also taking a shine to it. Candid is drawing interest, though criticism from its reviewers. There are also worries that the technology they are developing is being passed back to organisations like Twitter to ironically fuel censorship even further on already established social media platforms.

Let us be clear - while a corporation can choose who to host on their services they endanger their integrity by silencing users. When you are no longer able to socialise for simply having a difference in opinion, you will go elsewhere. And that is exactly what is happening now. Twitter's user growth has stagnated, and user retention is slowly dropping. Other platforms are looking to take the place of if and Facebook. While there's no major alternative to Facebook (Facebook and Google are in bed with the same beneficiaries and lobbyists, after all, so Google+ is out) it won't be long before someone picks those users up in the next 12-24 months as it again employs bias in its trending news, moderation, timeline filtering and double standards in its guidelines.

TL;DR - popular social media outlets are biased and people are getting fed up. Twitter is tanking. Facebook needs to learn from this.

What are your thoughts?
I remember when Facebook used to be just a social media thing, and it was nice to catch up with friends and families. Now the well is poisoned and my timeline is filled up with social justice and people telling me what to do or think. Facebook and people making groups through it have employed thought soldiers, intentional or not, and it has ruined the experience for me completely. Outside of my need to promote my own business and a couple that I assist in managing, without the silly animal vids and sports fail vids I'd find the whole thing completely unbearable.

I think the consequence of this groupthink and bias will backfire. Platforms like Gab will rise as a result. Even WikiPedia is now facing competition because it is outdated and the bias of its owners has created a monopoly on which thoughts and facts are correct on a majority of articles.

The only thing I can add is that I think the pattern is going to be the same with the new platforms (they'll eventually get too big for their boots and start controlling everything as well).

No doubt. But for now I'd like to support the ones offering a real voice.
Goes to show monopolies are bad in any area of life. Progress and creativity are stifled along with our individuality.

I wish more people spoke on forums and chatrooms like they used to. Facebook feels and is so personal, peoples' lives are too interlinked with it. For me it doesn't feel like people can be individuals, at all. It's just RL groupthink but far worse, and it affects you IRL too.

But yeh, I'll let you get back to the topic. I'm sleepy.

Very interestingly, Scott Adams (the Dilbert cartoonist, a pretty famous guy) believes he is being shadow-banned on Twitter for political reasons. He's given Twitter two days to explain:

http://blog.dilbert.com/post/1519810220 ... banning-me

What happens if they don't ... he's keeping that mysterious.

He has joined Gab as of today.
He also had to disable comments in his blog due to the heat he was taking from people who had followed him there from Twitter. While he himself has not officially endorsed a left or right candidate, he was getting attacked for what some saw as pro Trump articles and Twitter did nothing to defend him, but worked to block his Tweets from reaching us.

For days he was absent from a lot of our timelines even though we keep a very watchful eye on his Periscope and Tweets. A lot of us didn't even see his Tweets until people who could see them retweeted them. So their shadow-banning is reaching a point where they are micromanaging it with great detail - shadow-banning some users, and only some of their posts, to some of their subscribers in order to debunk any criticism of it as conspiracy theory babble. This is because in the past they did it too obviously and got called out on it, even going as far as to bulk-remove people's subscribers (they are doing this still by the way).

While this thread looks like a mouthpiece for Gab I really do recommend it.
There couldn't be a better time for a Facebook alternative to spring up, either. Again, I reiterate that Google+ will not be that alternative because both Google and Facebook are meeting and working with the same special interest groups as each other, who, have a great impact on their censorship much like Twitter.

Oh, I'm sorry you're seeing so much social justice... maybe you'd prefer Syria instead where everything and everyone is sacrificed in the name of one man? Of course, you're unlikely to be that man.

Everything else is a conspiracy theory... fact of the matter is that they restrict accounts that have crusades of personal attacks, and if Milo e.g. doesn't fall under that category I don't know what does.

But, sure... you're free to use any echo chamber you desire... although whether the far-right is concentrated in Gab or whichever other system, it's still a minority, although circlejerks make it seem like they're at the center and omnipotent. Well, kids have their toys in their playpens.

Scott Adams is the creator of Dilbert and has made no such personal attacks on anyone or shared any offensive or obscene material, yet he was subject to the same treatment as Milo short of bans.

O'Keefe while controversial had his account removed because he was going to share the videos he has now shared.
Ordinary people who have shared the above person(s) content were also banned for "breaching guidelines".

I'm going to be honest, Mootoo, if you have a set opinion on something, and even if you agree with other people's opinions, it can be a very scary thing to see groups of your closest friends and family share content without reviewing it properly or reviewing the critics of that content in the comments section, and then pushing you on a daily basis to validate and support their views. As someone who works and does not have time to see everyone I'd like to, it can be a very alienating process. Frankly, if you were to speak to me the way you did just now as a friend or family member it would be rather heartbreaking. If you took the time to distance yourself from this website and your personal viewpoints just for a moment, and and connected with other real people near you you would maybe understand.