evan, 12 days ago

Interesting results.

I am somewhat disagree. I think algorithmic feeds distort the apparent consensus on many siloed networks, but that this effect is offset by the type of people currently on the fediverse.

seanbala, 12 days ago

@evan Completely agree. I love the Fediverse but I do wish there was a bit more ideological and intellectual diversity at times. I don't want to just be in a comfortable cocoon of familiar ideas but I want to be challenged.

chrisjrn, 12 days ago

@evan
IRONY ALERT
@evan

evan, 12 days ago

@chrisjrn OK, fair

badrihippo, 13 days ago

@evan I didn't know either way, but I went with "Somewhat agree" because personally I'd be more comfortable expressing opinions here than there...although I later realised that the Fediverse may not be (yet) a representative sample of the public 🌏

Anyway, looking at the results so far, the consensus opinion of the fediverse seems to somewhat disagree with the statement that the consensus opinion of the fediverse is more representative of public opinion 🌀🤪

Archnemysis, 13 days ago

@evan not a chance. This is a highly self-selected population (for various reasons). That is not to say siloed networks are representative either.

johnefrancis, 13 days ago

@evan I love it here, but I think it's somewhat an echo chamber. Either that or real people are actually pretty nice and agreeable and the other places were infested by divisive bots/socks even worse than I assumed.

wjmaggos, 13 days ago

@evan @evan

most of mainstream fedi is pretty left (still too much fedi blocking imo) and I don't know what it's like on the silos anymore. so I really can't say.

mpjgregoire, 12 days ago (edited 12 days ago)

@wjmaggos @evan
There was a poll on Fedi a year ago in which (as I recall) around 5% of the respondents said they were conservative and 1% very conservative. In the US, about a third of the public identifies as conservative https://news.gallup.com/poll/388988/political-ideology-steady-conservatives-moderates-tie.aspx . [0]

Thus politics on Fedi is highly out of sync with public opinion.

As for Twitter, I don't think there is a consensus at all. People stay in their own silos.

[0] In Canada, polling for "Conservative" makes search for similar data difficult.

drq, 13 days ago (edited 13 days ago)

@evan Somewhat disagree. We're not E-mail, we're a minority, still, and the Fediverse doesn't have enough mass as yet to attract Everyone. We do attract a specific sort of people who shares the specific set of values the Fediverse is built upon, and it would be nice if that described every person on the planet - but it doesn't. Unfortunately.

So, you can't say that we represent the public opinion - in the broad sense. We represent the opinion of our audience, which doesn't span the whole public. There's debate over whether or not we have to (you know it as Big Fedi and small fedi), and IMO we have almost everything we need to pull it off (except for big pile of money for every admin :), but this is not the case currently.

realsimon, 13 days ago

@evan With these polls you get the opinions of a handful of people, specifically the ones that follow and probably think like the poster. Federated or not, they're most likely representative for absolutely nothing. They're a fun little feature, but not more.