No kidding, I hope that those active people come over here. But a bit alarmed at how many centre-left types had convinced themselves that “an MP’s corporate account tweeting banalities” was seriously challenging them.
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Rachel Wolf, James Frayne, Henry Hill, Sam Bowman, Sam Dumitriu, Ben Southwood, Charlotte Pickles, David Gauke, Jesse Norman, Richard Sloggett, Aria Babu, In The Sight Of The Unwise, Nick Timothy, @rolandmcs.bsky.social, @joxley.bsky.social, quite a few of the political pollsters.
TBH you are much better off seeking out quality publications- a lot of good stuff on ConHome, WorksinProgress, our own opinion pages, the output of the think tank Reform. Many of the most important Tory thinkers never really tweeted.
Much healthier if UK left and centre wonks are on here, having debates in what they know is a space in which they know they need to seek out intelligent rightwing commentary that backslapping themselves. E.g. James Frayne was never a big Tweeter!
Anyway, a more cheerful final note: if you want some active, thoughtful people not on the UK left or centre, check out @reformthinktank.bsky.social, @luketryl.bsky.social, @joxley.bsky.social, @rolandmcs.bsky.social
Can you point to times when/where 'debate on social media by fearless enemies of groupthink' ever resulted in useful policy outcomes which wouldn't have been otherwise possible?
Sucessful movements need clubhouses as well as policy forums.
I don’t think it’s even about successful movements - fruitful arguments are about only one thing at a time, I think. There are Tweeters to my right whose stuff I miss (I think they’re still on Twitter but I never see their output anymore) but I miss chatting to them, not a sprawling multi-vector row
I'm a believer that *the myth of balance* is more of a danger to useful discussion online than "echo chambers" are.
I am under no illusion that my timeline is heavily ideologically skewed towards people I agree with. It's that way for a reason. I'm not under any illusion that it's representative
My simple challenge for these people is: when, and who, was the last time you changed your mind to a more rightwing position thanks to reading an opinion on Twitter? And the answer is gonna be neither cos these people are ALL to my left!
Tony Yates made me question my view on an issue (appreciate that’s not quite the same and he wouldn’t consider himself right wing - just more to the right than me)
I have actually changed my mind towards a if not rightward then less leftward position on the basis of Twitter people back when i still had an account there. But not often and not by much.
I think I did also, but at least as often it was about encountering people to my left with takes I simply couldn't take seriously and moving the other way as a consequence.
I think my positions on things like pre exposure prohylaxis, assisted dying, and surrogacy are more nuanced than they would have been without people who are more right wing than I am, but I am nowhere near self centred enough to think of that as objectivity.
Oh lord, yes. One of the problems of social media is getting to see every scumbag on the other side, and on the _same_ side where that side had disagreements. Social media is great for learning some rando with a stupid avatar thinks you're the Devil
I think what I now miss on here is seeing people not so much debating, but talking about the same things in the same place, because it was a good check on your own thinking.
I'm also aware that other viewpoints are available, often from intelligent and reasonable people. I'm not fooling myself that I have a broad spectrum of political opinion in my timeline. I think a lot of people are.
Well, indeed. I’m essentially always arguing from the right on here due to the skew, but I’m not kidding myself that my views represent the rightmost edge of UK thought. Whereas there are people who clearly thought they had a balanced timeline on Twitter, which, uh, no you didn’t.
A lot of people who think they are going “look how broadminded I am!” presumably because occasionally Jeremy Hunt posts about how lovely his constituency is or a link to a paywalled article they don’t click through, while signalling they cannot differentiate between the UK mainstream right & Trump.
Hmmm. If your point is ‘don’t kid yourself twitter was ever real life’ or even ‘real
Westminster’ then fine. But i definitely heard more from and about genuine right wingers through that route at its best than any other. Tho i would say … a much more free market version than eg May-ites or Reform.
My point was more about the 'it's a massive problem'. (I would also note that the fact it was largely a source of rightwing opinions that spent that time *losing influence and internal elections*)
Yeah, I think in general there is an awful lot of over-complicating 'the early stages of a website people are moving to because the old website is not fun anymore'.
And a lot of ‘we are a movement’ from folk who have been very emotionally engaged on the internet with each for well over a decade and ….. not moved the needle. it is possible this is just your hobby. It is also possible that that is fine.
Yeah, the other target of my thread is there are a lot of people on the centre-left who as far as I can tell have not changed their political opinions *at all* in that time, who are talking about the importance of being exposed to other opinions and how it is an echo chamber and I'm just a bit: hmm.
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(TBH, I'm not sure where I sit on the spectrum these days.)
Sucessful movements need clubhouses as well as policy forums.
I am under no illusion that my timeline is heavily ideologically skewed towards people I agree with. It's that way for a reason. I'm not under any illusion that it's representative
Westminster’ then fine. But i definitely heard more from and about genuine right wingers through that route at its best than any other. Tho i would say … a much more free market version than eg May-ites or Reform.