I think this whole concept speaks to how differently we all use social networks. For some, it’s a passive news source. For others, it’s entertainment. For others, it’s a place to be social.
Ideological balance is the least important feature for me in picking a social network. I’m there to joke around and talk to interesting people. In real life, my friends and I don’t go “You know what bar we should go to? That new ideologically balanced one down on 2nd St.” (and then my horny friend says we should go to the bar where he met a hot girl once and we end up at TikTok1, AGAIN).
1 That’s a joke. I’m 40 and my friends pick bars based on proximity, beer selection, and how long they have the baby sitter for.
I’m more interested in ideological balance, because I’m looking for social media to curate news sources for me. If all I’m getting is conservative or progressive articles, it’s not doing its job.
I had a pretty good setup on Reddit with just the right subs to get a good ideological balance (despite Reddit being pretty left leaning), but I bailed when they pulled the API BS and I’m staying away due to their data harvesting. Lemmy is much worse than Reddit as far as bias goes, but it’s better than nothing I suppose. I’ve had to actually go back and follow news sources to rebalance my media consumption, which is a pain because there’s so much BS on news sites.
I don’t want to be social, and if I want entertainment, I’ll play video games or watch a movie/TV show. I just want to stay informed and hear other peoples’ takes on current events, ideally from a diverse set of perspectives. And yet, my main options are left wing or right wing sources, both of whom will misrepresent stuff and nobody will correct them.
I’m probably not going back to Twitter/X because I hate the format, but I am happy to see that at least someone thinks it’s somewhat balanced. I’m working on my own Reddit/Lemmy alternative with the express goal to make it easier to get a balanced feed, so hopefully some day I’ll be able to eat my cake and have it too.
I think this whole concept speaks to how differently we all use social networks. For some, it’s a passive news source. For others, it’s entertainment. For others, it’s a place to be social.
Ideological balance is the least important feature for me in picking a social network. I’m there to joke around and talk to interesting people. In real life, my friends and I don’t go “You know what bar we should go to? That new ideologically balanced one down on 2nd St.” (and then my horny friend says we should go to the bar where he met a hot girl once and we end up at TikTok1, AGAIN).
1 That’s a joke. I’m 40 and my friends pick bars based on proximity, beer selection, and how long they have the baby sitter for.
I’m more interested in ideological balance, because I’m looking for social media to curate news sources for me. If all I’m getting is conservative or progressive articles, it’s not doing its job.
I had a pretty good setup on Reddit with just the right subs to get a good ideological balance (despite Reddit being pretty left leaning), but I bailed when they pulled the API BS and I’m staying away due to their data harvesting. Lemmy is much worse than Reddit as far as bias goes, but it’s better than nothing I suppose. I’ve had to actually go back and follow news sources to rebalance my media consumption, which is a pain because there’s so much BS on news sites.
I don’t want to be social, and if I want entertainment, I’ll play video games or watch a movie/TV show. I just want to stay informed and hear other peoples’ takes on current events, ideally from a diverse set of perspectives. And yet, my main options are left wing or right wing sources, both of whom will misrepresent stuff and nobody will correct them.
I’m probably not going back to Twitter/X because I hate the format, but I am happy to see that at least someone thinks it’s somewhat balanced. I’m working on my own Reddit/Lemmy alternative with the express goal to make it easier to get a balanced feed, so hopefully some day I’ll be able to eat my cake and have it too.
Common decency and skeptical thinking skew left. So forced equilibrium actually promotes evil.