Special Edition: Survey and reader comment responses

Plus, a roundup of notable editions.

In lieu of our typical edition this week, I wanted to share a few words on the trajectory of Framechange and ask for your help in making it better. We’ve also been welcoming a lot of new subscribers recently, so I thought it would be a good time to respond to some recent reader feedback as a fun way to provide transparency into our process and editorial approach. And for anyone in need of your “viewpoints fix,” further down is a roundup of a few notable editions in case you missed them.

When we started last year, we set out to provide a new kind of information source for readers interested in developing a deeper understanding of the issues shaping our world, engaging with and appreciating arguments from the “other side,” and perhaps evolving their own thinking along the way. The mission: help reduce polarization by facilitating more informed discourse.

Our approach has been to tackle one major issue per week and summarize arguments from across the spectrum in a more detailed and comprehensive way than anything available in the mainstream media.

I’m excited to say that, so far, it’s working. Our readership growth has been accelerating and your engagement has been nothing short of inspiring – from the thoughtful email replies expressing your personal viewpoints to the feedback, the comments, and the sharing of Framechange with your friends and family. Your enthusiasm has been the difference maker. Thank you. What’s more, we’re starting to have exciting conversations with other organizations around ways to collaborate and scale our impact further.

With the goal of maximizing the value of Framechange in mind, I’m asking for 5 minutes of your time to complete this short survey. Your answers are more valuable than you can imagine and will help improve Framechange for our next phase of growth.

If you decide to read no further this week, please help us out before you go by taking the survey here.

Thank you so much for your readership and support.

Eric

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Notable reader comments

Pulling from a few recent comments and feedback emails, I’m addressing two notable points below. I thought this would be an interesting way to highlight and expand upon our approach to generating a typical Framechange edition. I’ll plan to do more of these and incorporate them into future editions, so please keep the feedback and comments coming.

Point #1: Pulled from Meta ends fact-checking (Jan 11 2025)

A common piece of feedback on our Meta ends fact-checking piece was in response to an argument cited under the “More supportive of Meta’s decision” viewpoint category. Here is the argument in question:

Fact-checking is inherently biased.

• Meta’s existing fact-checking approach labeled more claims by Republican officials as “false” than it did for those of Democratic officials. In a sample of posts labeled as “false” by fact-checking partner PolitiFact during 2024, 88 were on posts from Republicans and 31 were on posts from Democrats.

The common feedback was that such an argument is misleading because – according to those providing the feedback – Republicans, on average, share more misleading content than Democrats.

I’ll expand briefly on some of the research out there supporting that feedback further below. But first, and more importantly, I want to clarify what editorial decisions were made to include that argument above, and use this example to help emphasize the general editorial approach we take at Framechange.

Crucially, the data point, itself, that Politifact flagged more Republican posts than Democratic posts is not necessarily false or inaccurate. It is a real finding. Because it is not inaccurate and it is widely cited as supporting evidence by those arguing that fact-checking is biased to the left, we chose to include it.

Our decision to include it is not to say that it is “proof” that fact-checking is biased to the left, it is merely to say that this is a data point people cite when they are making the argument that it is. We made a judgement that using such a data point to back up that argument is reasonable enough and shared by enough people.

Now, a quick note on the research out there comparing the number of misleading posts shared by Republicans vs. Democrats: There are numerous studies and articles concluding that Republicans, on average, share more misleading posts than Democrats. But most of them reach that conclusion based on the number of posts flagged by fact-checking organizations. If you believe that more fact-checkers are biased to the left than to the right, as nonpartisan media bias rating agency AllSides has concluded, it’s harder to make a definitive case using that metric alone.

One notable 2024 study published in Nature used methods that controlled for the potential biases of fact checkers. It found that Republicans did share misleading posts more frequently than Democrats. Now, does that mean it’s a universally proven truth? Not necessarily. It’s just one study. But more importantly for our purposes, why didn’t we choose to include it?

Put simply, going too far down the cycle of argument-counterargument is not our goal with a typical Framechange edition. We make conscious decisions on where to “cut off” the detail at a point that balances depth with breadth, and leaves room for a variety of arguments around the issue.

The format is also intended to leave room for you, the reader, to judge which arguments resonate most with you and even fill in the blanks with additional arguments or evidence that we may have omitted or missed.

Point #2: Pulled from Trump’s DEI cuts (Jan 31 2025)

A thoughtful comment on our Trump’s DEI cuts edition argued that the piece didn’t focus enough on the extent to which DEI “effectively addresses the systemic inequities it was designed to combat.” I thought this was a fair point of feedback and one that provides an opportunity to illustrate another type of editorial decision we often make at Framechange.

First, I’ll highlight that the first notable viewpoint under the “More opposed to cutting back DEI programs” viewpoint category reads as follows:

DEI programs are needed to resolve inequities and prevent discrimination.

• DEI and affirmative action are critical to ensuring historically marginalized groups have a fairer shot at jobs and other opportunities from which historic, institutional, and systemic barriers have disadvantaged them.

That viewpoint is indeed intended to capture the argument that DEI is a valuable tool in correcting for systemic inequities that it was designed to address. Now, admittedly, the text above is a broad version of the argument, without adding links to supporting detail or figures that match the level of detail our commenter cites in their own argument.

It is a central part of the argument in favor of DEI initiatives, so we made sure to include it. But we did not expound upon it in further detail based on a judgement that quantifying either the extent to which systemic inequities exist or the extent to which DEI programs have successfully (or unsuccessfully) addressed those inequities would have been a much broader and widely-scoped piece.

Instead, on both sides of the DEI debate, we spent a little more space on the arguments and supporting evidence behind its effectiveness (or lack thereof) in the workplace and other institutions. This was a decision based in part on a judgement that many of our readers may not be as familiar with the supporting evidence in this area of the debate. It was also made out of a judgement that our readers may have more interest in this part of the debate given it has been the focus of recent public discourse. Our judgement here is an example of the tradeoffs we make in selecting a topic and our framing of it.

DEI is an extremely complex topic – the definition of DEI, itself, is wide-ranging. It is a perfect example of a topic that, despite Framechange’s format and long-form approach, is difficult to fully capture in one edition. Had we been able to do the DEI piece over, we probably would have adjusted the framing slightly and surfaced a few other points on either side of the debate to make it a longer piece.

Disagree with our choices or feel we omitted an important point on either side? That’s great – please continue to write in. We won’t totally nail it every time and we’ll often omit arguments that folks on either side of a debate think are important to include.

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Roundup of some notable editions

In case you missed or want to revisit them, below are links to a few notable Framechange editions. Under each link is a preview of one argument from either side of the debate.

Birthright citizenship (Jan 24 2025)

More supportive of universal birthright citizenship.

• The phrase “subject to the jurisdiction [of the United States]” within the 14th Amendment has been understood to equate to the ability to be prosecuted in the US, which would not apply to foreign diplomats and their children (the existing exceptions to birthright citizenship) but would apply to children of undocumented immigrants.

More opposed to universal birthright citizenship.

• The condition in the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause that says “subject to the jurisdiction [of the United States]” was meant to prevent individuals that had a weak relationship with the US or an allegiance to another country from being automatically granted citizenship. The courts interpreted the ruling that way for decades after its initial ratification during a time where illegal immigration was not a common concept.

Meta ends fact-checking (Jan 11 2025)

More opposed to Meta’s decision

• Fact-checking is not the same as censoring or removing content. The process focuses on adding context to controversial claims and debunking hoaxes or conspiracy theories with reputable information. Meta’s fact-checkers have followed the International Fact-Checking Network’s (IFCN) Code of Principles that require transparency and nonpartisanship.

More supportive of Meta’s decision

• Meta has too often flagged content that should have been welcomed in public discourse rather than filtered as potential misinformation, including articles by doctors about COVID information that was not misleading and a review of a book analyzing the extent of human-driven climate change.

The Electoral College (Oct 18 2024)

Supportive of keeping the Electoral College system.

• The Electoral College helps ensure rural and less-densely populated regions are fairly represented in the presidential election. Without it, candidates could focus on highly concentrated, more metropolitan areas and skew policies toward the interests of cities, marginalizing the views and needs of rural areas.

Opposed to keeping the Electoral College system.

• With many states decidedly in favor of the Democratic or Republican nominee each election cycle, the Electoral College encourages candidates to focus their campaigning on a small handful of “swing states,” giving the will of these states outsized power over the results. The 2016 election, for example, saw candidates Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump conduct 90% of their stops in just 11 states, two-thirds of which were in just the 4 largest states.

Trans women in college sports (Apr 12 2024)

More opposed to restrictions on trans athletes.

• A 2020 study on US Air Force service members found that trans women having gone through 2 years of hormone replacement therapy had push-up and sit-up strength that was not distinguishable from that of cis women. (Running times were 12% faster than cis women.)

More supportive of restrictions on trans athletes.

• A 2020 study by Sweden's Karolinska Institute found that trans women having undergone one year of gender-affirming hormone therapy generally maintained their strength levels from before.

House TikTok bill (Mar 14 2024)

Generally supportive of [banning TikTok].

• Leaked internal recordings indicating ByteDance employees had access to private US TikTok user data between Sep 2021-Jan 2022 suggest US TikTok data can be accessed in China.

Generally opposed to [banning TikTok].

• TikTok generates more benefit than harm and is a livelihood source for hundreds of thousands of creators and 7M+ American small businesses; according to a TikTok-sponsored report, it drove $14.7B in revenue for small businesses in 2023.

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Music on the bottom

Check out this pacey new single from up-and-coming indie rock band Arcy Drive, “Thrift Store.”

Listen on Spotify, Apple Music, or Amazon Music.