, 15 tweets, 7 min read Read on Twitter
I see lots of liberals bristle (and conservatives crow) at findings like these from @EPoe187 and @ImHardcory. That's both unfortunate and unnecessary. It isn't that libs are more censorious than cons (which is why I don't think the phrase "double standard" makes sense). Rather...
It's that we all, lib and con alike, tend to be more supportive of censorship to protect a group we (i) view as disadvantaged (and therefore would benefit from censorship); and (ii) have warm feelings toward (and therefore deserve it).
Ex. 1: Muslims are widely viewed as one of the most disadvantaged groups in America (AP-NORC 2018), but libs have much warmer feelings toward them than cons. Since only libs satisfy criteria (i) and (ii), they are much more likely to support censorship, as Bo and Cory show.
Ex. 2: Both libs and cons have warm feelings toward women, but libs are much more likely to view sexism as a major problem in America. Only they satisfy both criteria, so you get greater lib support for censoring negative speech re. women leaders, which again Cory and Bo confirm.
But what happens when things are reversed? Pretty much exactly what you'd expect.

E.g.: Cons, who tend to view police as sympathetic victims, are nearly 3x more likely to view criticism of them as hate speech and show higher support for pro-police censorship (Cato 2017).
(Though note that Dems, unlike liberals, are about as supportive of pro-police censorship as Reps are. There's a story there.)
The theory extrapolates to other groups as well. Cons are obviously very suspicious of the media, which they view as disadvantaging a whole host of groups they like (e.g. Trump, the GOP, etc.). Surprise! They are also much more likely to support all kinds of media censorship.
I don't have the stats on hand, but I'm sure you'll find similar results with other kinds of speech critical of groups that cons/Reps support and view as relatively disadvantaged, e.g. allegations about US or Israeli military conduct.
So are libs more censorious than cons, or vice versa? I doubt it. They just distribute their censorship in different ways and in service of different groups. What Bo and Cory have done above is very fascinating, but (as they'd happily admit) it only gives us part of the picture.
And yes, I am aware that there is some slippage in these tweets between cons-libs and Reps-Dems, but you get the general idea.
One last thing: I see a lot of talk about the ways that liberal bias in the academy distorts research (see below for a well-known example). I think that's probably true, which is why I value the work that @JonHaidt and @HdxAcademy are doing.

But!

conservativecriminology.com/uploads/5/6/1/…
I wonder if something similar, but in reverse, is happening in this article. @ImHardcory and @EPoe187 say that liberals have a pro-low status group bias, which is why they support censorship. Maybe. But maybe libs and cons just view different groups as low status.
In other words, maybe liberals and cons BOTH exhibit a pro-low status group bias (including when it comes to censorship), they just have wildly diverging beliefs about who is low status. Libs focus on racial/sexual/religious minorities, cons put their focus elsewhere.
That's why we should be careful about drawing "equalitarian" conclusions from surveys like AP-NORC (via @ZachG932), which tend to focus just on groups that liberals are more likely to view as low status, while ignoring the groups that are viewed that way by cons. That's the bias.
Missing some Tweet in this thread?
You can try to force a refresh.

Like this thread? Get email updates or save it to PDF!

Subscribe to Jeffrey Sachs
Profile picture

Get real-time email alerts when new unrolls are available from this author!

This content may be removed anytime!

Twitter may remove this content at anytime, convert it as a PDF, save and print for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video

1) Follow Thread Reader App on Twitter so you can easily mention us!

2) Go to a Twitter thread (series of Tweets by the same owner) and mention us with a keyword "unroll" @threadreaderapp unroll

You can practice here first or read more on our help page!

Follow Us on Twitter!

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just three indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3.00/month or $30.00/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!