Pretty interesting to see where the internet denizens collide with those on the other side (or not, in the case of the Trump supporter blob on the right there).
I wonder how much of that is due to conservatives feeling like they've been kind of "pushed" off the regular internet sites apart from the occasional stronghold here and there (/r/the_Donald or /pol/, for example).
As for reddit, I actually think it's generally pretty diverse (I see pro-Trump people all over the place). Yea, there are places like /r/politics that's basically Clinton-land, but, at least in regards to Clinton comments, if you aren't bashing her, expect to get downvoted just about everywhere - though perhaps that says more about Clinton than it does anything else
Well, sure, but twitter is another one of those sites that (apart from this blob) generally dislikes and in some cases actively resents conservatives/Trump supporters.
I'd say that in general, both sides actively resents the other side, especially on sites like reddit/twitter which are basically pulpit platforms - I am not sure you can say "Twitter in general resents Conservatives" unless if it just so happens that Twitter has more liberal users and they are more hateful but you'd have a hard time proving that one, I think. In either case, considering how Twitter functions and what this visualization is depicting, I am not sure this is relevant anyway. Who you follow is on you. It's hard to tell, but it kind of looks like the number of "Trump only" is significantly more numerous than "Clinton only." I suppose you could argue that Trump supporters don't want to hear Trump bashing? Alternatively, we could suggest that Clinton supporters are more open to listening to the opposing viewpoints? It's probably some combination of things.
As I recall, Twitter has been decried for censorship*, especially by "the right" and I'm wondering if that has an impact on the demographics. I haven't actually checked myself, but I think Trump is also more active on Twitter than Clinton is as well (especially recently), which might also appeal to certain types of people. *(I remember one person did an experiment with essentially "I hate all these white people voting for Trump" on one account and "I hate all these black people voting for Clinton" on another, and supposedly only the latter got taken down for violating TOS.) While perceived site bias doesn't directly affect whom follows either of them, it could impact the overall demographic of people that use Twitter to follow politicians in the first place. Which sort of speaks to what @SPiEkY was saying about Twitter and Reddit having potentially different demographics (albeit with some overlap most likely). *shrug* It's interesting to think about. Now if you'll excuse me I have a sudden urge to practice splatter painting.
It's hard to make any conclusion from single instances like this, and I am sure there are examples of the opposite occurring as well. Additionally, and this sort of thing happens with Apple Appstore approval and Facebook stuff as well, is that each of these "reports" goes to some individual who is making a judgement call - so two things are important here: one, that person is going to be biased on some level, and given that it's Twitter it's probably they are more likely to be liberal leaning, and two, different people might interpret the same/similar things differently. Apple Appstore is a great example of this where App Developers know to resubmit sometimes just to see if they get another person to review their app - and often times, the second time it goes thru even though they didn't fix whatever the first person thought was a problem.
So, you mean to say that you think that the demographic of Trump supporters that use Twitter is more likely to be insular specifically due to the fact that they believe Twitter is censoring them? What would you say is the psychology behind this, because I am not sure how that follows?
Personally, I think the spread here is representative of how the left and the right are disseminated on the internet. And maybe this is biased, but it FEELS like to me that liberals are spread out among more sites and are more willing to consume media from opposing views, while conservatives seem generally more likely to stay within the sphere of right-wing materials. But that may be just my bias. It also aligns with the general feeling that the left trusts various media outlets more while the right is more distrustful of most new sources other than the few that they agree with - but that may just be because more new sources are liberal leaning. Though it doesn't mean they have more viewership necessarily, since it seems the two sides are fairly equal in actual numbers - which, again, would give us a very similar visualization since it'd mean the right would tend to be more grouped up if their new sources are fewer. Though Pew Research does seem to agree: http://www.journalism.org/2014/10/21/political-polarization-media-habits/
See, I've found that conservatives (that I know personally) tend to actively seek out news and other such things that challenge their own views, but tend to take news sites with their bias in mind (not to say that they get the level of bias correct, but they at least are aware that it's there).
It seems to me that when this occurs, they are going there to get fuel to attack liberals with, not to try and understand the opposing view or to challenge their own views. It tends to be more of a "look at what those libtards are saying now" kind of idea. If this isn't the case with your group, I applaud them and would like to see some examples of what they said about things they personally don't agree with.
This part is kind of interesting, because it looks like what it is saying is that Conservative people on FB tend to START more insular (and have less diverse friends?), and then Liberals are more likely to block (which would kind of make sense given the first point - they have more potential friends to block).
This one is pretty interesting because it really shows how few sources are shaping a lot of the right's ideas (I am guessing brietbart has gained quite a bit since this survey was done though), but that's also consistent with the idea that media is liberally biased.
Bare in mind that many of the media sources are owned by, like, 5 or 6 parent companies, so it's not as diverse as it looks on a graph.
Agreed. None that I've heard of as yet, but it's possible. Regardless however it is stories like that which affect the perception of the website, even if that perception is ultimately inaccurate. That's not quite it. I'm just providing context. If I had to guess, the relative insularity is partially due to the perception of Twitter being biased, but more a general distrust of "Mainstream media" (which definitely, has most polls showing a huge discrepancy between those that trust and don't along party lines, I think the latest Gallup had Dems at ~50% and Republicans ~15%, forget Ind. but I think it was 20-30%?). So those following Trump might be doing so just because it's one of the ways "their guy" communicates, but they might not be inclined to otherwise use Twitter to follow a wider variety and just focus on that "basic" function. Of course, we are just talking about following two specific accounts, so that might be a minor factor overall, but still a tweaking of the base demographics. I think that Trump has been far more active on his account is the bigger difference. It's more active, so more people would follow it than Clinton's. Clinton's tweets have also usually been less sensational, which is likely another factor for more Liberals to follow Trump as well as well as Clinton (the "What idiotic thing has he said now?" kind of mentality) while those on the right are less inclined to care. The other potential major factor is that, essentially, Trump's main attack is that Clinton cannot be trusted to follow up on her own words, and/or out and out lies. While Clinton also attacked Trump for lying quite a bit, when you look at Twitter as being one of the largest spouts of "Trumpisms" and his own BS and un/mis-informed crap... Point being, Trump could use the hacked emails, her political record, etc. to attack Clinton, so there was no need for people to see what she was saying "now" on Twitter. While with Trump his Twitter is a source of his own flip-floping, rudeness, lying, or what have you since he's used it so much to make quips and comments and so on. But this is really just a guess. We also don't have data on what other accounts may have been followed, since, again, it's just looking at the two candidates' accounts. So it might not be as insular on the right as it looks... key word "might."
There's also the fact that it lists more of the liberal fringe sites than it does the conservative ones. Still, I think in general, the data in general is consistent with what I observe - that conservatives are more insular as a group, are more likely to have friends who share their views than those who don't.
This one gives a bit more detail about what they were talking about, with the Trump blob more heavily into Immigration and Guns, and the "both" blob talking about the jobs, economy and immigration, while the Clinton side is also guns and then racial issues.
