First, this was published in the Guardian US, not the Guardian.
The Guardian US does not have half the traffic of the NYTimes. It has about 15% the traffic, far as I can tell (source). The GuardianUS has 200k Twitter followers; The Guardian has 10M Twitter followers (so 2% of the following).
Second, I scrolled through all the tweets in the link you sent showing “praise”. I see the following:
So I think this just clearly proves my point: the majorty of engagement of this article on Twitter is just commenting on it being a terrible hit piece.
The tiny wave of praise came mostly from folks well known for bad faith attacks on EA, a strange trickle of no-to-low engagement retweets, 1-2 genuine professors, and, well, Shakeel.
My mistake on the guardian US distinction but to call it a “small newspaper” is wildly off base, and for anyone interacting with the piece on social media, the distinction is not legible.
Candidly, I think you’re taking this topic too personally to reason clearly. I think any reasonable person evaluating the online discussion surrounding manifest would see it as “controversial.” Even if you completely excluded the guardian article, this post, Austin’s, and the deluge of comments would be enough to show that.
It’s also no longer feeling like a productive conversation and distracts from the object level questions.
No, I think this is again importantly wrong.
First, this was published in the Guardian US, not the Guardian.
The Guardian US does not have half the traffic of the NYTimes. It has about 15% the traffic, far as I can tell (source). The GuardianUS has 200k Twitter followers; The Guardian has 10M Twitter followers (so 2% of the following).
Second, I scrolled through all the tweets in the link you sent showing “praise”. I see the following:
Emile Torres with 250 likes.
Timnit Gebru’s new research org retweeting, 27 likes
A professor I don’t know supporting it, 117 likes
Shakeel being “glad to see the press picking it up”, 14 likes
A confusing amount of posts, maybe 10+, which retweet and get 0 likes and no engagement, and 10 that get 1-10 likes
Original tweet by the author of the article, 500 likes
Another journalist praising, 60 likes
You can of course compare this to:
Tweet from a usually EA-critical account with 161 likes, “This is just bad assignment work for whoever wrote this beat.”
Theo Jaffe critical tweet, 144 likes
Robin Hanson with 400 likes, complaining about defamation.
Byrne Hobart critical tweet, 500 likes
Multiple Kelsey tweets, with 300 likes
Habryka’s refutation, 450 likes
Quilette editor critical tweet, 100 likes
So I think this just clearly proves my point: the majorty of engagement of this article on Twitter is just commenting on it being a terrible hit piece.
The tiny wave of praise came mostly from folks well known for bad faith attacks on EA, a strange trickle of no-to-low engagement retweets, 1-2 genuine professors, and, well, Shakeel.
My mistake on the guardian US distinction but to call it a “small newspaper” is wildly off base, and for anyone interacting with the piece on social media, the distinction is not legible.
Candidly, I think you’re taking this topic too personally to reason clearly. I think any reasonable person evaluating the online discussion surrounding manifest would see it as “controversial.” Even if you completely excluded the guardian article, this post, Austin’s, and the deluge of comments would be enough to show that.
It’s also no longer feeling like a productive conversation and distracts from the object level questions.