Comment by jmugan

5 days ago

Oddly enough, X is the only platform i've been able to teach to not show me culture war stuff, from either side. It just shows me AI in the "For You."

6 comments

jmugan

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kypro  5 days ago

The uncomfortable truth to most "the algorithm is biased" takes is that we humans are far more politically biased than the algorithms and we're probably 90% to blame.

I'm not saying there is no algorithmic bias, and I tend to agree the X algorithm has a slight conservative bias, but for the most part the owners of these sites care more about keeping your attention than trying to get you to vote a certain way. Therefore if you're naturally susceptible to cultural war stuff, and this is what grabs your attention, it's likely the algorithm will feed it.

But this is far more broad problem. These are the types of people who might have watched political biased cable news in the past, or read politically biased newspapers before that.

  • quirkot  5 days ago

    the issue brought up in the article isn't that "the algorithm is biased" but that "the algorithm causes bias". A feed could perfectly alternate between position A and position B and show no bias at all, but still select more incendiary content on topic A and drive bias towards or away from it.

guywithahat  5 days ago

I have the same thought, my X algo has become less political than HackerNews. I suppose it depends on how you use it but my feed is entirely technical blogs, memes, and city planning/construction content

PaulHoule  5 days ago

I've been pretty consistent about telling Bluesky I want to see less of anything political and also disciplined about not following anybody who talks about Trump or gender or how anybody else is causing their problems. I see very little trash.

  • jmugan  5 days ago

    Maybe it has gotten better recently. I tried and tried with Bluesky, but it would not abide.