[jl6]

Not sure about proof, but the left/right dichotomy also “emerged” in the real world in most countries. It’s not the only axis of variation that we see, but it’s a dominant one. Since Twitter is part of the real world, the users may have arrived with a pre-existing propensity to group themselves into left/right tribes, and then the mechanics of social media bubble formation accelerated the polarization process.

[phatfish]

Once a "tribe" gets big enough it starts to force others to pick a side. Inevitably the system reduces down to two.

In politics voting methods can defuse this somewhat by allowing the smaller tribes stick to their own values and not loose out too heavily in the power grab. First-past-the-post amplifies the larger tribes, proportional representation (or similar systems) can partially reduce their effect.

[gostsamo]

left/right appears only where nothing else is allowed. in the countries where the rule is not "winner takes it all" there is a spectrum.

[pjc50]

But the spectrum still ends up being "left/right", with some subdivisions over "red vs green" lefties.

[gostsamo]

No, not really. There are different types of centrists, religious vs liberterian right, and even some socialist religionists. The world is a tat bit more complex than the loud minorities want to make you believe.

[BlueTemplar]

It's also one that is insufficient, you just have to look how often fascist-like parties are classified "right wing" (while they are centrists), or the likes of Gandhi and Stalin get put in the same "left" box, while they are polar opposites.

Unless I have misunderstood it, this algorithm sounds particularly bad, because it's either only able to see the world through a single dimension, or worse, it's even forcing it into the same dimension (criticizing from competent mathematicians/staticians would be welcome).

But in the end, I guess it doesn't change much : it's worse than useless, just like Twitter and the people that use it, for the last decade and counting.