To be really glad I don't live in America right now

[AnonymousBleep]

I really feel for ordinary Americans. It's bad enough on this side of the Channel, hearing daily about Trump's latest petty, spiteful, idiotic bullshit - that rant against the Bishop who asked him to have mercy on immigrants, the ridiculous and insulting attempt to blame 'diversity' for the plane crash - but living under it must be so much worse. And heaven help you if you're LGBT or a woman. Or an immigrant. Or not white. Or poor. Or anyone else Trump and his freakshow of a government despises. I moan about the UK all the time, like everyone else who lives here, because god knows it's far from perfect, but at least we don't have a government in charge who is trying to strip huge swathes of the population of their rights and citizenship.

Nope I really don’t. There are many countries I love including the US and actually the uk thanks to the last 14 years of Tory government and the lunacy that was Brexit annoys the shit out of me.Previously I’d have willingly lived there assuming I had an amazing package with water tight health insurance( if that exists) and children out of school age however right now with the current bullies in power no thanks.

Perhaps people quoting problems with gun crime in America might acknowledge the knife crime epidemic in the UK?
Also, going back to an earlier comment by OP that Reform won’t get in because only older people vote for them…..older voters at least get out and vote. I might be wrong, but I predict a silent majority will seal the success of Reform, for no other reason than strong discontent with the main two parties.

It’s bad but not comparable. Guns are the leading cause of death for children in the US.

@GCAcademic

There's been a massive swing to the right amongst young people, particuarly young men.

This is not true, for the US at least. I agree it seems that way (perhaps because of the rise of podcast bros and Musk Twitter), but the polls don't show it.

Right-wing identification by US young people is very stable. There's been a small recent uptick amongst young women, not men. The big trend is the huge rise in left-wing ("liberal") identification by young women, creating a big gender gap at that age.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/609914/women-become-liberal-men-mostly-stable.aspx

Young men stable, women moving leftward.

I believe gun homicides in the US last year were about 16k and children 5k.

Your faith in Reform is admirable.

Except of course, Twitter has changed, the algorithms push forward people I wouldn’t engage with. I never get people I follow on my notifications anymore, I get Lee Anderson, lozza foxand Nigel Farage despite the fact I don’t follow them.

I understand the theory of mind and try to read both sides but twitter is increasingly pushing Elon’s version and the people I follow are going to Blue Sky and Threads.

He’s removed their right to reproductive freedom when he failed to defend roe vs wade and several women have needed protection from him as he’s an adjudicated rapist.

I don't follow the algorithms and I have followed no accounts. I just have a lurker account. I go looking.

Musk may indeed be pushing certain posts, but the other side of the debate and people's actual, uncensored beliefs are all there for the reading.

The point was that the OP was upset that Farage has a platform, seems to think the BBC should have censored him. My point was that he has 2.2 million followers on Twitter and the BBC is no longer the go to for news.

That’s laughable. Knives don’t have the capacity to take out large numbers of children in the same way guns do. I also have no doubt that it will be dealt with and there will be cross party support for it as thankfully in the uk we don’t have anything like the NRA literally calling the shots.

And re Reform yes older people vote more however from what I’m seeing older generations seem to be moving more left. We care about the environment, the NHS etc. We missed the boomer years so aren’t used to the advantages boomers had and prioritising them isn’t our focus. We’re parents and will be grandparents. Anybody thinking of Reform will just need to look across the pond at the car crash that’s Trump in order to have a very big wake up call.

I haven't noticed that at all. Coming up on my Twitter feed are a lot of far right accounts. There have been no alternative views whatsoever.

Then go looking because there are literally millions of far left radical accounts, slightly left accounts and centrist accounts on Twitter. Millions.

I'm not on Twitter looking for accounts on politics. These are accounts I don't follow coming up on my feed.

You should be able to post some examples then.

That was not the claim I made.

The OP implied that Farage didn't deserve a platform. She seemed peeved that the BBC had "platformed" him, by which I assume she meant occasionally reported on him.

I told her that the BBC is not the go to for news now, but Twitter is. I explained to her that Farage has his platform on Twitter where he has 2.2 million followers and that on Twitter you can find differing opinions from absolutely every political stance imaginable, uncensored and not just what is being reported by main stream media.

These are just facts.

Twitter / X has changed radically since Musk took over. There is now a lot of content aligning with Musk’s views being pushed onto feeds. A lot of reasonable people have left the platform entirely, many are now on Threads or Bluesky. Organisations, including the county council are leaving Twitter behind.

This is not relevant.

If you go looking you will find millions of accounts on Twitter who are left wing, radical left wing and centrist as well as right wing too.

The OP seemed annoyed that the BBC had reported on Farage and annoyed that he had a platform. I pointed out that his platform is on Twitter where he has 2.2 million followers and that people do not go to the BBC for news anymore but to Twitter, where you can find political viewpoints from every imaginable place in the spectrum, uncensored and not just what the main stream media reports.

Whether people like Twitter or not or are happy with their feeds is not relevant to the entire reason Twitter was brought up.

Twitter is incredibly popular, and is now the 12th most popular social media site, moving up from 14th two years ago. I included a link to that stat in the original comment to the OP.

Bluesky has less than 10 million active daily users, Twitter has 240-300 million active daily users.

You talk about 'facts' then say you go to Twitter for news. It's well known that Twitter is a cess pit full of misinformation. Nothing there is fact checked.

Why has Farage been on Question Time 38 times? The amount of coverage he gets is disproportionate. I can't remember the last time I saw the leaders of the Greens or Lib Dems on QT or the news.

My point regarding Twitter was that you said alternative views were easily available. I pointed out that far right accounts are constantly on my Twitter feed despite me not looking for political content.

I don’t know anybody on Twitter, myself included. Pretty diverse group at work. I have teenagers and none of them are on it.

Nah. I always back check facts, unlike you. If someone makes a claim, I check it.

Nothing there is fact checked is a lie. Fact.

So you cannot type a question in to the search bar on Twitter, and cannot hit the news button or the trending button, cannot search for a person's quote or links?

That's on you.

Oh please tell me this is a joke? You don't know anybody on Twitter so the 250 million daily users don't count?

Dear Lord.

Who is fact checking everything on Twitter?

Aside from the simple fact that many tweets include links to verifiable sources, I fact check all claims made if they are important to me, or I ask for sources and links and check them out.

You don't.

That's why I know the facts, and you appear not to.

Who do you trust to fact check? BBC Verify? Why do you trust them?

I prefer raw reporting that I can judge for myself.

As for Farage and his appearances on QT. He does have something to say, he was instrumental in Brexit. And thereby he is supported by a lot of the public. The BBC at least begrudgingly let him in sight, complete with a full range of personal attacks when they do of course.

The greens and Lib Dem’s have done or said nothing of use in the past few years. This is television, for ratings, anc people don’t want to hear from these people. They have nothing of interest to say. Its that simple,

We live in parallel universes. On my planet Twitter is made up of accounts with people posting whatever they want. None of what they say has been checked for veracity.

On your planet every single Tweet includes links to verifiable sources. The rare one that doesn't, you contact the account holder and ask for their verifiable sources.

Your universe sounds much better.