Disney erased FiveThirtyEight

Media bias and Overton window

• Disagreement over whether mainstream US media has moved left or right.
• Some argue outlets like NYT/WaPo/CBS have shifted right, citing framing differences and more sympathetic treatment of conservative politicians.
• Others say coverage is “steady” but looks rightward only because activist politics moved left; still others note ownership by billionaires and corporate interests as the real driver.
• Overton window movement itself is contested: some say it’s shifted right (basic pro‑science or net neutrality now framed as “leftist”), others see the opposite.

FiveThirtyEight’s models, polling, and public expectations

• Large subthread revisits 2016: 538’s ~30% probability for Trump is defended as statistically reasonable but widely misinterpreted as “won’t happen.”
• Many note broad statistical illiteracy: people read probabilities as certainties or confuse “chance of winning” with “share of vote.”
• Some criticize early primary calls (e.g., very low Trump nomination odds) and say that once 538 “missed” in 2016, it lost value as a unique predictor.
• Others stress limits of polling in US voluntary voting: turnout uncertainty, sampling issues, correlated state errors, and fast‑changing coalitions (e.g., 2024 turnout shifts, demographics).
• There’s debate over whether public horse‑race forecasting is useful or mostly demoralizing / misleading to voters.

Disney/ABC handling of FiveThirtyEight

• Many see the deletion/redirecting of archives as petty, culturally destructive, and emblematic of big‑company disregard for history.
• Some argue it likely saved trivial server costs, so looks more like a signaling or control move than economics.
• Comparison to other Disney acquisitions (ESPN, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars): debate over whether reputations declined under Disney or simply peaked and normalized.

Corporate incentives, leadership churn, and acquisitions

• Multiple comments generalize this to big‑company behavior: leadership changes kill predecessors’ “pet projects” regardless of success.
• Successful firms with strong moats are seen as especially prone to “executive whimsy,” because they can afford mismanagement.
• Discussion links this to broader consolidation (Telecommunications Act, media ownership), oligarchic tendencies, and an “executive class” insulated from consequences.

Archiving and digital memory

• Strong support for the Internet Archive as de facto long‑term memory.
• Several urge uploading private archives and explicitly archiving blogs, noting high rates of link rot and paywalling.
• Some point out that Wayback is incomplete and hard to search without exact URLs, so primary sites removing content is still a real loss.