Conservatives: Stop Crying Wolf On Tech Bias

[Virginiá]

Conservatives: Stop Crying Wolf On Tech Bias Or No One Will Ever Take You Seriously

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180828/11102240529/conservatives-stop-crying-wolf-tech-bias-no-one-will-ever-take-you-seriously.shtml

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Here is the gist: conservative site complains that Google is biased in favor of liberal media sources because they show up the most in the top results. Their rationale, one would presume, is that because conservative media sites simply exist, and that America has lots of conservative readers, that their news would show up in similar amounts to liberal news sites. This is a totally boneheaded interpretation of how Google ranks websites and search results, and it's more like something someone who has literally no idea how they rank sites would come up with. The conservative websites offered up don't have nearly as many references as liberal sites do, so they rank less. It's a simplistic view of the issue at play here, but still.

How many times are conservatives going to rail against tech companies in the public sphere, trying to turn their people against them, only to find out later what they thought was bias was just tech stuff they didn't understand, but didn't bother to clarify ahead of time? Did anyone in this situation even stop to think that maybe their conservative media websites just aren't nearly as popular, or is that idea too much of a hit to their pride?


The more this comes up, the more it seems like conservatives want tech companies to have quotas for ideological content. I mean, obviously they are going to want Google to "fix" this, right? Maybe invite some "leading conservative movement leaders" over for a meeting? The page ranking is neutral, but it favors liberal media because liberal-to-centrist media is more popular. So to account for their unpopularity, instead of trying to win over more readers, conservatives want to instead rig the system to give their websites more visibility despite less readers. That kind of sounds familiar, actually (re: voter suppression and gerrymandering)

[The Dowager Mod]

Appropriately enough, if you Google "Donald Trump bitching," you'll get Donald Trump bitching about Google. 

[JA]

Isn't this basically how right-wing conspiracies develop in the first place? They get all worked up due to their lack of comprehension of an issue, then blame some conspiracy because they don't understand what's going on.

[dead0man]

I agree in full, people complaining about biases that aren't really there is annoying.

[Wrong about 2024 Ghost]

This is just one more lame version of the usual right-wing complaint that reality has a liberal bias. What's actually going on is that their worldview is based on delusions.


Liberals, or any other non-conservative group are not always accurate, or right, or in the right. But American Republicans appears to be unique among first-world 21st century political organizations in how much of their core beliefs are based in departures from reality and willingly warped  reasoning. The closest similar groups are probably their ideological cousins in Islamic Extremist terrorist organizations. (Which were in turn jump-started back in the 80s by... American Republicans.)

[dead0man]

Liberals, or any other non-conservative group are not always accurate, or right, or in the right. But American Republicans appears to be unique among first-world 21st century political organizations in how much of their core beliefs are based in departures from reality and willingly warped  reasoning. The closest similar groups are probably their ideological cousins in Islamic Extremist terrorist organizations. (Which were in turn jump-started back in the 80s by... American Republicans.)

yeah, 'cause there wasn't 1000 a plane hijackings by Islamists in the 70s or nuthin'.  

It's hard to force every wrong in the world into the backpack of American Republicans, but you're giving it the old college try!

[Take your vitamins and say your prayers, Brother!]

Liberals, or any other non-conservative group are not always accurate, or right, or in the right. But American Republicans appears to be unique among first-world 21st century political organizations in how much of their core beliefs are based in departures from reality and willingly warped  reasoning. The closest similar groups are probably their ideological cousins in Islamic Extremist terrorist organizations. (Which were in turn jump-started back in the 80s by... American Republicans.)

yeah, 'cause there wasn't 1000 a plane hijackings by Islamists in the 70s or nuthin'.  

It's hard to force every wrong in the world into the backpack of American Republicans, but you're giving it the old college try!

Planes were routinely hijacked to Cuba from NYC on their way to Miami in the early 1970s.

[dead0man]

the 70s was peak terrorism.  The reason people think it's worse today is for the same reasons they think everything else is "the worst" now too....because we hear about every single thing.  Well, that and we're really really soft these days.

[C r a b c a k e]

Curiously enough the WSWS (a trotskyist website I go on occasionally out of morbid curiosity and obsession with their arts section) also constantly complains about Google supposedly deranking them in search results.

[Doomer]

Isn't this basically how right-wing conspiracies develop in the first place? They get all worked up due to their lack of comprehension of an issue, then blame some conspiracy because they don't understand what's going on.

Yep.

[Frodo]

First they whined about the fabled liberal media bias, and now they are going after search engines? 

[Stranger in a strange land]

Whenever I watch an even vaguely political video on Youtube, even a left-wing one, my recommended videos become full of "WATCH BEN SHAPIRO OBLITERATE OVERWEIGHT BLUE-HARIED FEMINIST WITH FACTS AND LOGIC", "22 REASONS ANITA SARKEESIAN IS WRONG ABOUT <INSERT FEMALE CHARACTER IN VIDEOGAME", 3-4 "skeptic" videos and occasionally content from actual Alt-Right channels. What gives?

[หมูเด้ง]

Whenever I watch an even vaguely political video on Youtube, even a left-wing one, my recommended videos become full of "WATCH BEN SHAPIRO OBLITERATE OVERWEIGHT BLUE-HARIED FEMINIST WITH FACTS AND LOGIC", "22 REASONS ANITA SARKEESIAN IS WRONG ABOUT <INSERT FEMALE CHARACTER IN VIDEOGAME", 3-4 "skeptic" videos and occasionally content from actual Alt-Right channels. What gives?

Again. Irony. The media. Deep state. Their clients.

[ηєω ƒяσηтιєя]

Whenever I watch an even vaguely political video on Youtube, even a left-wing one, my recommended videos become full of "WATCH BEN SHAPIRO OBLITERATE OVERWEIGHT BLUE-HARIED FEMINIST WITH FACTS AND LOGIC", "22 REASONS ANITA SARKEESIAN IS WRONG ABOUT <INSERT FEMALE CHARACTER IN VIDEOGAME", 3-4 "skeptic" videos and occasionally content from actual Alt-Right channels. What gives?

[Wrong about 2024 Ghost]

Liberals, or any other non-conservative group are not always accurate, or right, or in the right. But American Republicans appears to be unique among first-world 21st century political organizations in how much of their core beliefs are based in departures from reality and willingly warped  reasoning. The closest similar groups are probably their ideological cousins in Islamic Extremist terrorist organizations. (Which were in turn jump-started back in the 80s by... American Republicans.)

yeah, 'cause there wasn't 1000 a plane hijackings by Islamists in the 70s or nuthin'.  

Just so I'm clear here... Are you claiming that there were "1000 a plane hijackings by Islamists in the 70s" which would somehow prove that the Regan Administration was not involved in the origins of the jihad in Afghanistan? And are you extending that claim to somehow argue that because of the "1000 a plane hijackings by Islamists in the 70s" the Republicans are actually rational and reality-based?

Or are you conceding that modern Republicans are dominated by delusions, and you just wanted to score some tangential point?

[หมูเด้ง]

Whenever I watch an even vaguely political video on Youtube, even a left-wing one, my recommended videos become full of "WATCH BEN SHAPIRO OBLITERATE OVERWEIGHT BLUE-HARIED FEMINIST WITH FACTS AND LOGIC", "22 REASONS ANITA SARKEESIAN IS WRONG ABOUT <INSERT FEMALE CHARACTER IN VIDEOGAME", 3-4 "skeptic" videos and occasionally content from actual Alt-Right channels. What gives?

Even when I watch history videos on the way to work, I always see these pain in the ass alt-Right videos pop up.

[Crumpets]

Whenever I watch an even vaguely political video on Youtube, even a left-wing one, my recommended videos become full of "WATCH BEN SHAPIRO OBLITERATE OVERWEIGHT BLUE-HARIED FEMINIST WITH FACTS AND LOGIC", "22 REASONS ANITA SARKEESIAN IS WRONG ABOUT <INSERT FEMALE CHARACTER IN VIDEOGAME", 3-4 "skeptic" videos and occasionally content from actual Alt-Right channels. What gives?

[Robert California]

the 70s was peak terrorism.  The reason people think it's worse today is for the same reasons they think everything else is "the worst" now too....because we hear about every single thing.  Well, that and we're really really soft these days.

I’m sure I’ll think of something more to say on this, but while 1970’s terrorism is certainly more interesting (in my view) than contemporary terrorism, one of the main departures was, of course, the decision to use the plane itself as a weapon rather than the mere setting of an attack (which we are perhaps lucky to have not experienced since). There was some evolution in this direction in the 1980’s and 1990’s with vehicles-as-weapons, including both cars and planes. Beyond that, wasn’t a substantial amount of Middle Eastern terrorism tied in with “New Left” terrorism, and with (opposition to) Israel in particular? I do find it funny, nevertheless, that Reagan announced in ~1985 terrorism to be like the number one public safety priority or something like that. Even funnier is how little reaction there was in the seventies to routine bombings beyond what we would tolerate today.

[ηєω ƒяσηтιєя]

the 70s was peak terrorism.  The reason people think it's worse today is for the same reasons they think everything else is "the worst" now too....because we hear about every single thing.  Well, that and we're really really soft these days.

I’m sure I’ll think of something more to say on this, but while 1970’s terrorism is certainly more interesting (in my view) than contemporary terrorism, one of the main departures was, of course, the decision to use the plane itself as a weapon rather than the mere setting of an attack (which we are perhaps lucky to have not experienced since). There was some evolution in this direction in the 1980’s and 1990’s with vehicles-as-weapons, including both cars and planes. Beyond that, wasn’t a substantial amount of Middle Eastern terrorism tied in with “New Left” terrorism, and with (opposition to) Israel in particular? I do find it funny, nevertheless, that Reagan announced in ~1985 terrorism to be like the number one public safety priority or something like that. Even funnier is how little reaction there was in the seventies to routine bombings beyond what we would tolerate today.

[IceSpear]

Whenever I watch an even vaguely political video on Youtube, even a left-wing one, my recommended videos become full of "WATCH BEN SHAPIRO OBLITERATE OVERWEIGHT BLUE-HARIED FEMINIST WITH FACTS AND LOGIC", "22 REASONS ANITA SARKEESIAN IS WRONG ABOUT <INSERT FEMALE CHARACTER IN VIDEOGAME", 3-4 "skeptic" videos and occasionally content from actual Alt-Right channels. What gives?

[dead0man]

Liberals, or any other non-conservative group are not always accurate, or right, or in the right. But American Republicans appears to be unique among first-world 21st century political organizations in how much of their core beliefs are based in departures from reality and willingly warped  reasoning. The closest similar groups are probably their ideological cousins in Islamic Extremist terrorist organizations. (Which were in turn jump-started back in the 80s by... American Republicans.)

yeah, 'cause there wasn't 1000 a plane hijackings by Islamists in the 70s or nuthin'.  

Just so I'm clear here... Are you claiming that there were "1000 a plane hijackings by Islamists in the 70s" which would somehow prove that the Regan Administration was not involved in the origins of the jihad in Afghanistan?

I don't know, but it proves the GOP didn't start Islamist terrorism.

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no, and thank you for asking and not just putting words in my mouth like most posters do.

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yes, do you think that's a bad thing?  Do you think you've never done it?  'cause I've got to imagine that you have, what with you being a human that likes to argue about politics online and all.  If not, you're a better human than the other 99.5% of us.

[HisGrace]

I've always just ignored stuff like this because I've never had any trouble finding right wing content online, so if there's a conspiracy to suppress it the conspirators obviously suck at it.

How delusional do the guys at PJ Media need to be to think that they (plus the National Review and Weekly Standard) are somehow at the same notoriety level as the New York Times, CNN, and the Washington Post?

First they whined about the fabled liberal media bias, and now they are going after search engines? 

This made a hypothetical future scenario occur to me. The response to decades of "liberal media" accusations was for conservatives to essentially ghettoize themselves, information-wise, with talk radio, Fox News, and all the internet stuff today. Could there eventually down the line be a conservative (or some other name like "Patriot" or "No-Spin) search engine that only includes results from "approved" sources? Pretty much like Russia and China's censorship of the internet, only people would be imposing it on themselves because they're so afraid of contrary information. That's pretty much what's happened now, a lot of conservative news sources are basically just propaganda outlets for Trump, only instead of being forced to read them conservatives are doing so voluntarily and end up being pretty much as brainwashed as someone in an authoritarian state. If that happens with the internet at large it would be a scary thing and I really don't know how you would get out of it.

[Wrong about 2024 Ghost]

Liberals, or any other non-conservative group are not always accurate, or right, or in the right. But American Republicans appears to be unique among first-world 21st century political organizations in how much of their core beliefs are based in departures from reality and willingly warped  reasoning. The closest similar groups are probably their ideological cousins in Islamic Extremist terrorist organizations. (Which were in turn jump-started back in the 80s by... American Republicans.)

yeah, 'cause there wasn't 1000 a plane hijackings by Islamists in the 70s or nuthin'.  

Just so I'm clear here... Are you claiming that there were "1000 a plane hijackings by Islamists in the 70s" which would somehow prove that the Regan Administration was not involved in the origins of the jihad in Afghanistan?

I don't know, but it proves the GOP didn't start Islamist terrorism.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

no, and thank you for asking and not just putting words in my mouth like most posters do.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

yes, do you think that's a bad thing?  Do you think you've never done it?  'cause I've got to imagine that you have, what with you being a human that likes to argue about politics online and all.  If not, you're a better human than the other 99.5% of us.

Your response is fair, but you're still wrong. Islamic terrorism was going nowhere before the United States (with lots of assistance from Saudi Arabia and Pakistan) supported the more fanatic rebels in the Afghan Civil War. And then when the war eventually ended, Islamic terrorism took off.

 (I don't agree with this site's opinions, but I believe their graph is accurate.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_terrorism#History

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https://www.newsweek.com/war-terror-road-september-11-151771

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And this is all tangential to the core point: Republicans are unique among political parties in functioning nations in how far their beliefs depart from reality.

[Progressive Pessimist]

A persecution complex is one hell of a drug.

[Democrat 2028]

A persecution complex is one hell of a drug.

And the GOP is fully addicted to it.