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How to create an unbiased political Twitter feed?

I just had this idea to make an account that follows smart political/social commentators with opposing views. Right now I have in mind: Sam Harris, David Pakman, The Hill, Steven Pinker, Malcolm Gladwell. Any rational Right-wing commentators I should follow? Left-wing people? Other?
 
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CrimsonShadow

Administrator and Community Engineer
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I think part of the issue is dividing everything up into "sides" rather than issues -- which means everything is inevitably polarized.

This whole dividing up of the entire social landscape and government policy into "right" vs. "left" is one of the things that I believe is handicapping progress the most right now.

To be truly unbiased, I think you have to fight against this characterization/concept as a whole, rather than just trying to combine both the polarized 'sides' into something that's supposed to be neutral.
 

Marlow

Premium Supporter
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Ezra Klein and Matt Yglesias. Paul Krugman is pretty knowledge about econ matters although he gets a bit carried away with politics at times.

If you want good political coverage, I’d suggest NPR.
 
Paid subscription to the Wall Street Journal + paid subscription to the New York Times is still probably the best access to commentary from everywhere you can get (I have had subscriptions to both since college and have never been disappointed)

Just in today's issues, you already get some Kruggman in NYT and some good stuff in the WSJ opinion section (though the WSJ editorial board has been in a civil war with itself since the last election, it's still pretty good)

The take-away is you still need to pay money for good reporting and opinion. It's unfortunate, and there are exceptions- but if you aren't paying money for it then it probably isn't good.
 
@Tony at Home That's true for good reporting, but Twitter has its unique snapshot format that I think is useful in a different way, giving you an at-a-glance view of a wide range of perspectives. Not a substitute but still has its advantages.
 

Marlow

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I think Crimson has some good points above. I'd look to follow people or things that give good info on the issues, not just political spin on the issues. For economic issues, I'd suggest following The Indicator, Planet Money, and Marketplace on Twitter. These also have podcasts associated with them.
 
I just had this idea to make an account that follows smart political/social commentators with opposing views. Right now I have in mind: Sam Harris, David Pakman, The Hill, Steven Pinker, Malcolm Gladwell. Any rational Right-wing commentators I should follow? Left-wing people? Other?
I'm late to the party here but I did this and it was a nice respite from my FGC Twitter account (fgc Twitter is awful) so I highly recommend it.

A few I'd add: Michael Malice (brilliant and funny outside the box political thinker), Ryan Holiday (great author and proponent of Stoicism, I highly recommend his book Ego Is The Enemy, it's life changing), Associated Press and/or Reuters for news, and Edward Snowden.
 

Ermaktor

Outworlder MK9 OG
The best you can really do is follow reporters that aren't beholden to special interest groups (or individuals), that actually post raw footage of news as it occurs on the ground. As CS said, you'll find a lot of partisan nonsense, even if you do what I told you, the important part is being informed and ignoring the partisanship.

Outside of that, you won't have someone genuine to vote for that can actually compete regardless.
And once you understand the group(s) that are working to undermine your country, you'll become biased with no outlet.
You'll simply become demoralized and that's part of their plan.

https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo
https://twitter.com/ElijahSchaffer

These guys are great, but they have a religious narrative:
https://twitter.com/TruNews

I don't 100% agree with any of them, but they provide raw evidence consistently to the best of their ability.
Good luck & don't get demoralized.

You absolutely WILL NOT get proper news from WSJ, nor the NYT.
Nor any other "official" media outlet. They're all controlled. Literally every last one of them.
 

Wigy

There it is...
Ultimately most people do have political leanings and can still be closer to moderate than anything.

You can say i just want to listen to interesting and educated people but ultimately I think you have to force yourself to actively look on both ends of the spectrum so you don’t accidentally end up in an echo chamber.

I think Twitter is the worst possible place to look for political information. Its a shit show of polarisation, virtue signally and prejudice.

Go listen to people talk and debate about issues. Anyone can sound infallible and correct if their opinions cant be challenged by somebody who knows what they’re talking about.
 

hkriderz

Lin Kuei Scum, yellow robot enthusiast
I just had this idea to make an account that follows smart political/social commentators with opposing views. Right now I have in mind: Sam Harris, David Pakman, The Hill, Steven Pinker, Malcolm Gladwell. Any rational Right-wing commentators I should follow? Left-wing people? Other?
For good leftist commentators, I recommend Sam Seder (The Majority Report), Secular Talk, and Democracy Now. They're fair but from a leftist perspective.

I don't know many rational right wing commentators nowadays sadly. Maybe check out Saagar Enjeti. Right winger, co-hosts a show called The Hill. Most the others are just grifters imo.
 
@hkriderz I like kyle kulinski a lot. RIP Michael Brooks :(

@Wigy Right, I def also listen to commentary on YouTube, and do my own research on anything that sounds specious no matter who’s saying it. I think Twitter is mostly what you said, but can also be a good place to get a kind of bird’s eye view on current political opinion. And I believe there’s also legitimate reporting on there occasionally, like the Householder scandal in Ohio that otherwise would have missed my radar completely (shocking story, you should look into it).

@Ermaktor I do think all media eventually tailor their reporting to appease the people who fund them. And it doesn’t have to be a grand deep-state or billionaire cabal conspiracy either; it just happens organically. People are hired who toe the line, so when they’re asked by their boss to omit that story, focus on this headline, or cut that segment of the video, they do it. Bill O’Reilly himself describes it:
 

Ermaktor

Outworlder MK9 OG
@Ermaktor I do think all media eventually tailor their reporting to appease the people who fund them. And it doesn’t have to be a grand deep-state or billionaire cabal conspiracy either; it just happens organically. People are hired who toe the line, so when they’re asked by their boss to omit that story, focus on this headline, or cut that segment of the video, they do it. Bill O’Reilly himself describes it:
Right, and the people that own the corporations and media platforms that force people to tailor their information are Leftists.
And we already agreed that there are no longer any good Rightwing voices.
Do you think that these two things are more than a coincidence?

The Right, conservative & nationalist viewpoints have been suppressed by the Left.
So not only do you only hear 1 side of the spectrum 99% of the time (The Left), but now they're censoring people for discussing Right-leaning ideals on social media.
And now people are leaning so far to the Left that they're identifying with foreign ideologies and demonizing the West as a whole.
 

Marlow

Premium Supporter
Premium Supporter
Right, and the people that own the corporations and media platforms that force people to tailor their information are Leftists.
Any evidence to back that claim up? I can think of Sinclair Broadcast Group and Rupert Murdoch off the top of my head who both have large platforms and are quite conservative.

Just in general I would assume most CEO's, corporation owners, or wealthy people would tend to run conservative. https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2019/04/02/the-politics-of-ceos/
 

trufenix

bye felicia
Didn't even make it a whole page before someone claimed the left is trying to mind control the entire country with media.