Does the left live in a bubble?

The day after the 2019 general election, Nick Cohen tweeted: “Never mistake your Twitter feed for your country”. He was implying that those of us on the left, rooting for Jeremy Corbyn to win the election, were out of touch with the average voter as we’re cocooned in an internet echo chamber filled with people who agree with us. 

I don’t make a habit of agreeing with Nick Cohen, but he did have a point. I had mistaken my Twitter feed for my country. I had mistaken my country for one where people cared about other people. A country where we didn’t vote in a posh buffoon simply because it was the fastest way to make Brexit go away, so that most people can go back to ignoring politics while everything else gets worse.

I wanted a Corbyn government that would tackle rising homelessness, child poverty, crumbling schools and the looming environmental disaster. The country (or at least large parts of it) had a different idea. I had made a painful mistake. If I could move to my Twitter feed I would.

Does the left live in a bubble?

It’s not just the day after a general election that I feel like this, although it’s particularly strong on those days. The left is frequently accused of living in a bubble. Another example is this Helen Lewis piece claiming (supported by a lot of evidence) that the Twitter electorate isn’t the real electorate.

Lewis cites the example of the response to Rebecca Long-Bailey’s use of the phrase “progressive patriotism” in her pitch to be the next Labour leader, and how this was seen by some on the left as dangerously close to racism. Lewis states that “to read so directly across from ‘patriotism’ to ‘racism’ is a fringe position.”

I had criticism of the use of this phrase, but as Lewis said: “Some 67 percent of Britons describe themselves as ‘very’ or ‘slightly’ patriotic. Telling two-thirds of the country that they are secretly racist is a courageous electoral strategy.” I guess my dislike of the idea of progressive patriotism is proof, if anymore where needed, that I’m out or touch with the general voter and live in a bubble.

Personal bubbles

I wonder if this is mainly a by-product of the fact that most of our politics is done online? I don’t get my political news, views and discussion from BBC news bulletins. I get it mainly from the internet, and predominantly from what is served up to me by Twitter and Facebook algorithms.

These algorithms look at the things that I read, the post I interact with and the people I follow to build up a picture of me. They then filter the content that Facebook or Twitter shows to me to reflect my interests: i.e. left-wing politics. This personalisation of content is done to keep my attention focused on Facebook or Twitter for longer so that they can show me more ads, which is how they make their money. 

This all seems harmless until a general election rolls around and I’m left bewildered by the fact that everyone didn’t vote for the party offering more money for schools, hospitals and homelessness prevention, despite the fact that all this was very well received by my Twitter feed.

“The common ground of news”

Adrienne LaFrance said, in an article for Nieman Reports: “The fear that personalization will encourage filter bubbles by narrowing the selection of stories is a valid one, especially considering that the average internet user or news consumer might not even be aware of such efforts.” 

LaFrance interviewed Judith Donath, author of “The Social Machine: Designs for Living Online” and a researcher affiliated with Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, who said: “You may have friends or colleagues, and you read the same things in common. You may decide different things about it. Then you debate with those people. If you’re not even seeing the same news story, it leaves you with a much narrower set of people with whom you share that common ground. You’re losing the common ground of news.”

This is what happened to me. Twitter wasn’t showing me the posts from the people who thought that all the nice things that I wanted from a Corbyn government were a waste of money, or posts from the people who wanted to “get Brexit done”, or the people who thought Corbyn was insufficiently patriotic to be Prime Minister. If Twitter had shown me these comments I would have logged off in a sulk and they wouldn’t have been able to show me more ads for hotels in Croatia.

Techno-fixes

There is a technological fix to this, as explained in this Ted Talk on filter bubbles by Eli Pariser. He said that the issue is that Twitter and Facebook give their users an information diet consisting of only things they like, which he calls “information desserts”. However, as any parent knows, it's best to give your children a balanced diet, not just what they like.

Sometimes children need to be given things they don’t want to eat for their own good. I’m referring to us all as children because that’s how the tech platforms treat us and it’s also, frankly, how we act online. According to this idea, it would be good if Twitter showed me some posts of people yelling about how immigrants are stealing the country and we need to vote Tory to stop it, even if I wouldn’t like it.

In principal I’m in favour of this, as long as there's a Daily Express reader somewhere having videos by Hbomberguy dropped into his timeline after he tweets “Get Brexit done” a certain number of times.

Would this work?

I can see the benefit of a varied information diet. According to Pariser it’s a diet of: “Some information vegetables. Some information desserts.” Vegetables, in this case, being people saying that Corbyn is a softy, unpatriotic, metropolitan, immigrant loving liberal and desserts being people saying that maybe the government should do something about all the people sleeping in the bus station every evening.

I’m a little skeptical if this would work. There is lots of evidence that facts (or other people’s opinions) don’t change our minds. Although I am heartened by this story of a young man who fell down a YouTube hole, became alt-right and then changed his views when he encountered left-wing YouTube.

Is this a left-wing problem?

The Facebooks and Twitters of this world might be creating filter bubbles through personalising our timelines, but that’s not specifically a left-wing problem. Everyone is on the internet, even my 69-year-old mum (hi mum, I’ll reply to your email about socks after I’m done writing this).

The accusation of living in a bubble is mainly levelled at the left, specifically the radical left. You don’t see Brexiter, Tory voters being accused of living in a conservative bubble where everyone is frothing about immigrants or Cultural-Marxism destroying Britain. No one says they should be given information vegetables in the form of Owen Jones or Laurie Penny columns.

The views of people who complain about immigrants or metropolitan elites are taken to be common sense. Occasionally, people point out that common sense can be wrong, but that still accepts right-wing views as the default position of most people. I guess if right-wing is the default position then the fact that I disagree means that I do live in a bubble and I’m disconnected from reality.

Centre or right?

Maybe the majority of people in the country are conservative. The evidence for this is a few minutes looking at the supposed “centre ground” of British politics. In January this year, former Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron wrote an article in the Guardian about what “progressives” need to do to win. In this he said: “At present, Labour’s brand is so terrifying that it pushes voters into Conservative arms.” From reading this you would think that 2019 Labour manifesto includes pledges for a massive war to liberate Palestine, the abolishment of prisons and gender, and confiscating all money above what the average Labour voter earns.

I can see why most people might find that programme a bit too spicy for their bland British sensibilities. However, only the most brain-dead, Daily Mail mainlining, Little Englander would think that’s what a Corbyn government would have been like. Then again, it’s probably what Tim Farron, supposedly in the centre of British politics, thinks a Corbyn government would have been like. Apparently, money for teachers and nurses, helping the homeless, cheaper public transport and green jobs is “terrifying”.

My bubble is my happy place

If you haven’t guessed from my tone so far, I’m not happy with the world outside my bubble. I don’t think most British people are Nigel Farrage, but if this is Tim centre-of-politics Farron’s reality then I don’t want to live in it. So, I’m currently looking at moving to my Twitter feed and I must say that, judging by the pictures, some of these flats in Animal Crossing are very nice.

I don’t know where this leaves the Labour Party. The sad truth is that we do have to win over some people who think that Tim Farron is right and thought Corbyn was so scary that they had to vote Tory. I don’t like saying it, and I’m going to wash my mouth out with soap afterward, but after two defeats for Corbyn I’m starting to think that there aren’t enough craft beer drinkers in Britain to vote in socialism.

That doesn’t mean Labour has to give up on socialism and spend their time chasing some hypothetical centre ground voter. There are stories that can unite the country and break the left out of our Twitter bubbles. Next time I’m going to look into what these are.