I recently created a Twitter account, mostly as an experiment. I just followed some programmers, stuck to programming content. Immediately and every day after, I was constantly being displayed Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Justin Trudeau, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, etc. Not a single politician or voice not on the left. Considering how powerful Twitter has become, this is troubling. I know this is just one anecdote, wondering what the rest of HN sees...
I used to be annoyed about how a lot of the programmers I followed on Twitter would tweet about politics and feminism.
Then I talked to some people who were on the receiving end of the kind of programmers that don't care about those things, groan when they hear words like "feminism", "intersectionality" or "diversity" and instead believe in "meritocracy" and "rationality".
Now I'm one of those programmers who tweet about politics and feminism.
Sometimes you need to be confronted with the pain you've been complicit to in order to figure out why the people around you all seem to disagree with you and make such a fuss about stuff you don't care about.
This is what you see even if you follow nothing or if you only follow stuff clearly associated with the right.
When you follow stuff associated with the right, it often gets unfollowed. This was very noticeable with the movie Unplanned. Basically you couldn't follow it.
If you start off a new account by following only politicians on the right, you are highly likely to get your account banned.
I think video game players are probably actually left-leaning on average. GamerGate seems to have created massive misunderstandings on all sides of the issues. (And no, I'm not defending it or denying things that occurred.)
Game players yes. Prominent gaming channels are a mixed bag though. "Bro culture" is very much a thing and casual homophobia and racism is still very widespread.
I'd say "liberal" is a more accurate descriptor than "left-leaning". I'd call PewDiePie liberal but not a leftist by any stretch of the imagination, for example.
Programmers are usually very vocal leftists. I've always assumed that those who don't speak openly about politics don't care or are right wingers, but who knows.
Right-wingers are plenty vocal. It's just that Twitter is not necessarily what they use to vocalize their views, for reasons that are probably obvious.
