Has social media made the UK more right wing?

[Rascal]

I am quite new to facebook and its full of right wing stuff, i have been on twitter for years and that is a pit of hatred. Who needs the Daily Mail when you get hate for free on social media.

Am i wrong? whats your experiences?

 

[TinFoilHat]

I am quite new to facebook and its full of right wing stuff, i have been on twitter for years and that is a pit of hatred. Who needs the Daily Mail when you get hate for free on social media.

Am i wrong? whats your experiences?

It's part of the reason I came off it.

It makes money by interaction. So I was always getting right wing bullshit on my feed. Whilst they were getting "woke" status and memes on there's.

 

[Metal Biker]

Facebook suggests things based on your previous search activity.

So what have you been looking at, you naughty boy!?

 

[BlueHammer85]

Social media especially Twitter is completely overrun by right wing accounts - but I think most people see through it and it’s having the reverse effect. Hence Labour are going to smash the Tories (who are pandering to the extreme right) in the election.

 

[City Hobgoblin]

There is some really hateful and pernicious stuff on there, and usually not worth trying to flag it up as offensive or inflammatory.

 

[I'm With Stupid]

Social media especially Twitter is completely overrun by right wing accounts - but I think most people see through it and it’s having the reverse effect. Hence Labour are going to smash the Tories (who are pandering to the extreme right) in the election.

I think people are going to vote Labour because of their own personal experience of living under the Tories more than anything else. A lot of the criticism of the Tories (and Brexit) over the last 14 years has been theoretical, ideological, or affecting 'someone else.' I think we've finally got to the stage where almost everyone, not just 'benefit scroungers,' young families and the working classes, has suffered a drop in living standards. Even people on low six figure incomes are noticing the problems now. Mortgage prices up, energy prices up, taxes up, and every public service delivering a worse service. I reckon that's got more to do with it than Twitter.

On the main question, I think people have short memories tbh. I remember when the whole political discourse was determined by a handful of right-wing media sources. The Sun and the Star were doing "PC-gone-mad" long before the "woke brigade" was a term. Explicitly homophobic and racist headlines were commonplace.

There's definitely an argument that it makes this more polarized, but let's not pretend that people reading these newspapers back in the day were getting some sort of carefully curated, balanced view of the news.

I think it's made some people more extreme in general, but that's not exclusive to the right wing. Out-and-out conspiracies are definitely more of an issue though, because as bad as the newspapers above are, they do have a certain amount of legal responsibility that doesn't exist for social media.

 

[Koniec]

It just gives hate filled arseholes a way to spout their nonsense in a safe space. Most wouldn’t say the stuff they say in public or to a persons face.

 

[Mazzarelli's Swiss Cheese]

Social media tends to polarise everything. You could start a debate about your favourite crisps on twitter and it would somehow morph into a left v right slanging match.
You see this with Israel/ Palestine with the left unquestioningly supporting Palestinians and the right pretending butter would not melt in the Israeli govts mouth. there is very little balanced debate around the 'middle'.
The way social media is policed / moderated probably feeds this and perhaps a RW bias?

 

[blueinsa]

It’s an echo chamber.

Its right wing if you’re that way inclined and left wing for those that way inclined.

Both sides bat shit crazy.

 

[ChicagoBlue]

It’s an echo chamber.

Its right wing if you’re that way inclined and left wing for those that way inclined.

Both sides bat shit crazy.

False equivalency.

X is a right wing cesspit.

I only go on X if there is a link on here, but if I look at the next video underneath the City video, it is nearly always some right wing political bullshit (I’m not!), something religious (I’m not!), or some classroom/gang fight (in which I have zero interest and find repulsive). If I hit “For you” I get more of that, but if I hit “Follow” I get none of it because I don’t follow any if that other BS!

I don’t do any other social media, and I’m glad I don’t!

 

[Blue Maverick]

Twitter is unbelievable now, it used to be good for a laugh but now my feed is somehow filled with absolute shite, it’s just a sess pit, I used to use it for up to date news etc but now it’s full of nutters, and conspiracy theorists. I hope it sinks without a trace and soon, I don’t think many sane people use it anymore.

 

[M16 citeh]

There's probably something in this I think social media isn't inherently right wing but the right have the money to target advertising on all sites. Also their rhetoric is much easier to package into short posts and appeals to peoples sense of alienation thst we all seemingly face in this modern era.

 

[Magicpole]

If it isn’t right wing nutters, it’s religious nutters. Sometimes you get those two shower of cunts combined, into a right wing evangelical Trump supporting ****. Warning you about demons, Biden and socialism. Telling us the latest prophecy on how we are all going to die and if we don’t join them we are fucked. They are all utterly thick, horrible arseholes I love to wind up by asking them about the horrible bits in the Bible. For some reason they don’t want to talk about that. I can’t for the life of me work out why.

Must go, my grandson has been cheeky, I’m off to the edge of town to stone him to death. My brother is getting topped too. Just heard he didn’t believe in the same god as me. The ****.

 

[TinFoilHat]

There's probably something in this I think social media isn't inherently right wing but the right have the money to target advertising on all sites. Also their rhetoric is much easier to package into short posts and appeals to peoples sense of alienation thst we all seemingly face in this modern era.

I tend to agree with this. The bottom line for X/FB etc is monitising content for their profit.

There no morality with FB management. Run by a neo liberal whilst Musk thinks he's being edgy with X turning it into an extremist cesspit that pays for his space dick launch.

 

[grunge]

Facebook suggests things based on your previous search activity.

So what have you been looking at, you naughty boy!?

While that is part of it there algorithms are screwed, I get so much random shite.

You can see the suggestion loop it goes through. Anti Vegan->Anti Woke->Conspiracies->Gun nuts->Hunting->God botherers->back to the start and reloop and maybe add a new one into the mix the next time around. in the last few months I started to get lots of Thai sites and nightclubs being suggested. I have never shown any interest in going to Thailand!. the only thing I can think of is I went to a funeral for a mate who passed away and his wife is Thai and therefore there were a lot thai people at the funeral, it was a day or 2 after than I started getting all the random Thai posts.

I think I've blocked a good couple of thousand suggested pages over the last few years due to being total random nonsense. I actually think my block list is so long that I've made it even more confused to be honest :)

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

It’s allowed free thinkers to offer overly simplistic answers to complex problems, which the gullible lap up.

This gullible subset seem to believe that they’re the voice of the silent majority.

It’s not really about right or left, it’s about university of life alumni being worn down by life and believing that the whole world is now against them.

 

[grunge]

Twitter is unbelievable now, it used to be good for a laugh but now my feed is somehow filled with absolute shite, it’s just a sess pit, I used to use it for up to date news etc but now it’s full of nutters, and conspiracy theorists. I hope it sinks without a trace and soon, I don’t think many sane people use it anymore.

Its comically bad

Ignoring the vileness of some posters, you can see the bots in action on posts that someone decided they wanted boosting. lots of one liners that are very generic, IE a bad news story "Ohh no", "Thats Terrible", "Prays to them" etc etc all in separate tweets from the same user etc . you can sometimes see 40/50 responses from the same bot to the same post just saying those random 1 liners.

there's also the bots that just regurgitate the same info in the original post in slightly different wording. It all seems to be about promoting some tweets to hide others I think.

 

[KS55]

It’s worth remembering that FOX is the most watched news network in the US.
Says it all, really.

 

[bluethrunthru]

Even people on low six figure incomes are noticing the problem

This is their problem - the elderly are stubbornly in behind them according to polling but when you have earners in the top 6% feeling a proper pinch on their disposable incomes then as a Conservative Govt its so over for you. Social media can only help so far but Susan Hall carpet Bombing Twitter is doing nothing for their campaign and Greg Hands is the same all over the socials and having zero impact. Putting ads out to support the London Mayoral campaign that feature violent scenes from NYC doesn't help but I guess a poor social media impact is reflective as an example of how poor their candidates and staff are. Anyone with any actual talent and nowse will sit these elections out

 

[inbetween]

False equivalency.

X is a right wing cesspit.

I only go on X if there is a link on here, but if I look at the next video underneath the City video, it is nearly always some right wing political bullshit (I’m not!), something religious (I’m not!), or some classroom/gang fight (in which I have zero interest and find repulsive). If I hit “For you” I get more of that, but if I hit “Follow” I get none of it because I don’t follow any if that other BS!

I don’t do any other social media, and I’m glad I don’t!

No social media I see favours the political left or right. Instead the algorithms mostly seem to focus on grifters and those who make money from peddling conspiracy theories. This would make sense because those people pay the social media companies to boost their posts because they make money from likes and products sold to the easily influenced. X/Musk is unique in that it is quite open because it calls this free speech (even though yes that 'free speech' is still a revenue base).

The social media companies don't actually care about whether what is said is baseless or even outright false because at the end of the day it is revenue. No media company makes money from the dull truth because the world generally just isn't that exciting. Just look at the speculation around Kate Middleton which became an industry in itself and they all got it wildly wrong, she did actually have an illness and no wasn't assassinated by MI5. How much money was made from that speculation?

It is pretty simple really to spot it on social media. If somebody is offering their words alongside a product or something then there is a very strong chance of bullshit. The real problem nowadays is people do actually know that deep down however they're so poisoned by their biases that they'll still listen and even buy the stuff anyway.

The greatest achievement by Trump was making money from peddling falsehoods and it even gifted him the presidency, it might even happen again! He even started his own social media company to preserve and keep all the money for himself, is it any wonder that he wouldn't come back to Twitter!

We're living in the age of the grifter.