Jernalism!

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Thad
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Re: Jernalism!

Postby Thad » Fri Feb 26, 2021 6:23 pm

Friday wrote:It's a complicated subject, for sure.

The problem is in our culture, people don't believe that The Libs are child-devouring demons because the media TOLD them to, they believe it because they WANT to and the media ALLOWED them to.


See this? I agree with this, but I also don't agree with this.

The Media absolutely feeds into people's worst fears, and in that sense it "follows" culture. But it also CREATES fears. And in that sense it "leads" culture. You posit that if all news was Absolute Objective Unbiased Truth, that the problems would continue unabated, but I don't believe that.

The news DOES have an effect on people. Cleaning it up WOULD affect how people view reality. And no, you don't have to get to Absolute Objective Unbiased Truth to see that effect.

But you're also not wrong that even in a world where the media instantly explodes if it tells a lie that misinformation would continue to spread through illicit channels. Or that it can't be fixed in isolation. So many fucking problems are like that. But management of the symptoms isn't a waste of time, even in isolation.

It's a feedback loop.

Fox News, for example, feeds grievances that already exist.

But it's also radicalized people in a way the media of 40 years ago didn't. All you have to do is look at the difference between the Nixon impeachment process and the Trump impeachment process to see that.

It's not that bigotry would go away if there weren't huge moneyed interests intentionally stoking it. But I don't think we'd be at the same kind of crisis point that we are if it weren't for Fox News and other cogs in the propaganda machine.

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Re: Jernalism!

Postby Brantly B. » Fri Feb 26, 2021 6:41 pm

And you both seem to not want that because you're afraid that allowing the government to determine what is and isn't true will lead to, you know, 1984.


No, I'm afraid it will lead to 2021, in China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Myanmar, Poland, Belarus, Egypt, Sri Lanka, Ethiopia, Algeria, Turkey, Honduras, and countless other cultures throughout the width and breadth of the history of the human race. It's a lovely idea, but in practice, the odds of that sort of oversight being abused are about 1 in 1.

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Re: Jernalism!

Postby Friday » Fri Feb 26, 2021 7:56 pm

I'm honestly not sure where either of you stand on this issue, so I can't continue the good faith debate on a serious issue.

Are you both against libel and slander laws, then? Or are they the one exception where you allow oversight of the news? So, legal (civil) penalties for lying about specific people, but not anything else? I'm not trying to gotcha. I just want to figure where two people I respect a lot stand on this issue that actually matters a lot.

Is that it, then? You're fine with civil oversight, but not criminal oversight? Should then people be allowed to sue the news for lying about events and not just people? Should civil law be expanded so that, say, a city could sue Fox if Fox made up shit about that city?
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Re: Jernalism!

Postby KingRoyal » Fri Feb 26, 2021 8:51 pm

It's really not as simple as trying to outlaw lying, legislation that would be impossible to serve justly no matter who is in charge.

The fundamental problem of all media is that it reflects a viewpoint, that of the owner, who are almost always owners of large amounts of capital and thus have a material interest in maintaining the status quo. And editors and journalist tend to pull from the class of people who can attend college without financial risk and who may already have contacts within the industries. This has only become more self-selecting as the cost of school skyrockets and the number of well-paying media jobs dwindle.

Legislation to try and curb media behavior is also a cudgel that can and would be wielded by its owner to punish political enemies. And would do nothing about the increasing crowds of people who feel threatened by the perceived rise in wealth and political fortunes of Black and LGBTQ+ people. As time has endlessly shown, it would probably be used to continue to silence their voices.
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Re: Jernalism!

Postby Thad » Mon Mar 01, 2021 1:03 pm

Friday wrote:I'm honestly not sure where either of you stand on this issue, so I can't continue the good faith debate on a serious issue.

Are you both against libel and slander laws, then? Or are they the one exception where you allow oversight of the news? So, legal (civil) penalties for lying about specific people, but not anything else? I'm not trying to gotcha. I just want to figure where two people I respect a lot stand on this issue that actually matters a lot.

Is that it, then? You're fine with civil oversight, but not criminal oversight? Should then people be allowed to sue the news for lying about events and not just people? Should civil law be expanded so that, say, a city could sue Fox if Fox made up shit about that city?

I don't object to defamation law on principle, no. (There are some issues with how it's used -- we really need a federal anti-SLAPP law -- but in general I think defamation law as it stands is good.)

We're seeing a bit of the type of thing you're describing right now with the defamation suits by the voting machine companies. You start talking billion-dollar lawsuits, and finally Lou Dobbs gets fired.

But there are a lot of problems with relying on defamation law as a check against lies by the news media. It's hard to get a guilty verdict in a defamation case against a public figure, and it should be. The Dominion and Smartmatic cases are pretty extreme outliers in that they're defamation suits by public figures that are a slam dunk.

In most cases, it's a lot harder to successfully sue somebody for defamation. But that's not a bug, it's a feature, because frivolous defamation suits happen all the time; think Devin Nunes suing a Twitter cow for making fun of him, or Shiva Ayyadurai suing Techdirt for saying he didn't invent e-mail.

Basically, Fox, Newsmax, OANN, et al had to engage in really egregious defamation to land themselves in the kind of legal hot water they're currently in. Their usual lies are perfectly legal.

And that's infuriating, but I'm wary of attempting to fix it through any new legislation (even if such legislation would survive a Supreme Court challenge, which it most likely wouldn't). There are laws against certain types of lies -- defamation is one example, false advertising is another -- and those are mechanisms for limiting the sorts of things people can say on the news, but they're fairly limited in scope.

The SPLC brought down the Klan through litigation, but that was a long time ago.

There *are* people putting the squeeze on Fox and similar media through advertiser boycotts and the like. Those strategies have been somewhat successful, but the problem is that the network is still profitable just through cable license fees, and it's backed by a billionaire with an agenda. Now, what happens as cable subscriptions continue to plummet, and an aging viewing demographic (not to mention an aging owner) start to die off...well, white supremacy is alive and well in the younger generations, but that doesn't mean they're as profitable an audience for Fox News as their grandparents are.

There are certainly other, and much worse, places younger people might get their news than Fox News. But as awful as 8chan is, its influence isn't a patch on Fox's. Yes, it's where Qanon got its start -- but Qanon didn't really get major national attention until Fox got ahold of it.

I guess the roundabout answer to your question, what should we do about it, is that I really don't know. It's an extremely complicated system; I don't think the problem is intractable but I also don't think there's any simple fix. And I don't think we can fight authoritarianism by granting more power to law enforcement; I think that's like the proverbial "fucking for virginity".

I still think that teaching people to do a better job of spotting bullshit is the best shot we've got, but that's much easier said than done.

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Re: Jernalism!

Postby Friday » Mon Mar 01, 2021 6:07 pm

It's just that more and more and more, I've come to realize that the La-li-lu-le-lo were right. War is about information and the control of information. I actually do think that America is, in a very real sense, already in the midst of a Civil War and has been for some time. And yes it has resulted in violence and death, too.

So I look at Fox News and OAN and Breitbart and I don't see a funny haha doofus let's all make fun of them. I see an entity killing innocent people.
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Re: Jernalism!

Postby Thad » Fri Mar 05, 2021 10:13 am

The New York Times really likes jamming references to repealing section 230 into articles that have absolutely fucking nothing to do with it. Techdirt recently had an article titled No Section 230 Has Nothing To Do With Horrific NY Times Story Of Online Stalker Getting Revenge For Decades' Old Slight.

And then this morning there's an article titled A Leading Critic of Big Tech Will Join the White House. The critic in question is Tim Wu, and the article's misleading in focusing on his merely being a critic of "big tech". He's a critic of the Chicago School approach to antitrust in general; he's advocated for breaking up Facebook, but he's not just focused on companies like Facebook. (Importantly, broadband providers have been playing a game these past few years where they try to focus public ire against Facebook, Google, et al instead of themselves. Wu hasn't fallen for it; he's been a major advocate of net neutrality and a critic of the big ISPs' monopolistic behavior in general.)

And then out of fucking nowhere there's this paragraph:

Mr. Biden has also expressed skepticism toward social media companies and the legal shield known as Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. He told The New York Times editorial board in January 2020 that Section 230 “should be revoked, immediately.”


Which has fucking nothing to do with fucking anything.

But hey, maybe it's relevant. Maybe Tim Wu wants to repeal section 230. Let's see what he has to say about it.

Liberals and Conservatives Are Both Totally Wrong about Platform Immunity
Repealing “Section 230” won’t do what anyone wants

Tim Wu wrote:But I have never really been on board with the idea that abolishing the private immunity of platforms is a good idea, or even very important for the goals that either the left or the right holds dear. It is, it seems to me, the wrong tree to bark at, a red herring, you choose the metaphor.

[...]

The intuitive case for abolishing that 230 immunity goes like this. “Newspapers and TV stations are fully responsible for what they publish or broadcast. Why should Facebook / Twitter / Reddit / 4chan get be getting some kind of special treatment?” After that the left and right make different arguments, which I’ll simplify. Left: “We have a huge problem with fascist disinformation and propaganda, and the platforms are a big part of it, because they bear no responsibility for what appears on their platforms.” Right: “The platforms are grossly biased against conservative speech, and they should only have immunity if they don’t censor anyone.”

With great power comes great responsibility, right? Who could be against that? The only problem is that abolishing Section 230 would address exactly none of these complaints.

First, no one can deny that Facebook and Twitter, not to mention 4chan, have been the breeding ground group for lots of crazy disinformation and propaganda over recent years. But, for that matter, so have Newsmax, Breitbart, ONI, the Gateway Pundit, and dozens of other sites and / broadcasters that don’t have 230 immunity.

Stated differently, some liberals seem to have the fantasy that potential civil liability would finally force platforms to do more about disinformation on their sites — “to take responsibility.” But what does that mean? Because whatever the moral responsibility may be, there isn’t actually any legal repercussions for republishing, or publishing, crazy propaganda and conspiracy theories. If so, Newsmax and Gateway Pundit and even Fox News would not exist. The First Amendment protects your right to claim that space reptiles, partnered with the derros and Elon Musk, used orbital mind control lasers to quantum-shift fluoride to vibrate at 440hz and thereby force people to vote for Biden against their will.

What is (narrowly) illegal is defamation. So a major effect of abolishing Section 230 would be to create potential liability for posts in which you complain about people — complain that your boss is a sexual harasser, that your doctor is an incompetent fool, or that your coach is a racist. Repeal would lead to the preemptive takedown of malicious facts stated in public about private individuals. Is that really the promised land?


Huh. Well, that kind of seems like Tim Wu doesn't want to do the thing that you just implied he was appointed to do, New York Times.

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Re: Jernalism!

Postby Friday » Fri Mar 05, 2021 5:53 pm

yeah stick to publishing fascist disinformation and propaganda about how the united states military should attack civilians NYT, that's what you excel at
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Re: Jernalism!

Postby Mongrel » Tue Mar 09, 2021 3:20 pm

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Re: Jernalism!

Postby mharr » Sat Mar 13, 2021 10:33 pm

In terms of tortured car analogies you seem to be discussing traffic laws, signals and highway maintenance. Is there any prospect of being able to fit airbag and seatbelt analogues to our families' laptops, phones and tvs? We need Asimov's three laws for media devices.

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Re: Jernalism!

Postby Mongrel » Tue Mar 30, 2021 2:17 pm

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Re: Jernalism!

Postby Friday » Tue Apr 06, 2021 11:23 am

7:58 AM <Upthorn> holy shit, I think that really is silver
7:58 AM <Upthorn> https://twitter.com/hankgreen/status/13 ... 2365413384
7:58 AM <Upthorn> The actual article doesn't censor the first name, which is Erin
8:03 AM <Friday> wow yeah uh
8:03 AM <Lady> I don't think that's her last initial, but I might be wrong, upth
8:03 AM <Friday> nyt at it again with their incredible standards and ethics
8:03 AM <Upthorn> Oh right, I just remembered Silver's last name
8:04 AM <Upthorn> so if it is her, they at least changed the initial
8:04 AM <Friday> i mean i don't care if it's Silver or not (I mean I do) it's still fucking awful goddamn journalism and that reporter should be punched in the fucking nose
8:06 AM <Upthorn> Yeah, but if it's silver then I wanted to give her a heads up because fuck
8:06 AM <Friday> I am so fucking tired of shit journalism
8:06 AM <Friday> and yeah sure
8:06 AM <Friday> but i don't think it is based on that last initial
8:06 AM <Friday> when she gets back we can ask her if she's talked to any incredible bad reporters lately
8:06 AM <Upthorn> yeah
8:07 AM <Friday> "did you speak to anyone who wanted a quote and also to get you fired lately?"
8:07 AM <Friday> "was he from the nyt? remember the policy: as soon as anyone from the nyt shows up, tar and feather them out of town"
8:08 AM <@Silversong> in a meeting but hah
8:09 AM <@Silversong> it does sound like me, but haven't done any interviews.
8:09 AM <Friday> okay good
8:09 AM — Friday hugs Silver
8:10 AM <Upthorn> long sigh of relief
8:10 AM <Friday> for the record, in all seriousness:
8:10 AM <Friday> DO NOT TALK TO THE NYT.
8:10 AM <Lady> not you, but still, you
8:10 AM <@Silversong> kk
8:12 AM <Friday> if possible, kick them in the dick and then shout "THIS IS FOR WHEN YOUR SHIT MEDIA COMPANY PUBLISHED AN OP ED THAT THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD KILL AMERICANS" and then spray them with a skunk.
8:12 AM <MetalSlime> What if it is to troll the NYT?
8:12 AM <Lady> when was that?
8:12 AM <Friday> i mean if by troll you mean "release 1000 skunks into the offices of" then sure
8:13 AM <Friday> Let me find it Lady
8:13 AM <Friday> it was a while back
8:13 AM <MetalSlime> Though I can't imagine any timeline where any newspaper would talk to me
8:16 AM <Friday> https://boingboing.net/2020/06/03/new-y ... ls-fo.html
8:16 AM <Friday> here.
8:17 AM <Friday> they also published this:
8:17 AM <Lady> had a feeling it was gonna be tommy c
8:17 AM <Friday> https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20201 ... kong.shtml
8:17 AM <Friday> The NYT is utter trash.
8:17 AM <Friday> Fascist trash.
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Thad
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Re: Jernalism!

Postby Thad » Tue Apr 06, 2021 12:26 pm

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Re: Jernalism!

Postby Mongrel » Tue Apr 06, 2021 2:39 pm

Okay, so there's actually more than one Erin working as a social media and events coordinator at a midwestern university?

...is this a requirement for the position, one of those wacky midwestern things like food-based arms-races at county fairs?

I'd actually still be worried if I was Silver, because there's a good chance she's got to be all "It wasn't me, I swear!" to her bosses anyway. :/
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Re: Jernalism!

Postby Thad » Tue Apr 06, 2021 10:00 pm


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Re: Jernalism!

Postby pacobird » Thu Apr 08, 2021 2:04 pm

Mongrel wrote:Okay, so there's actually more than one Erin working as a social media and events coordinator at a midwestern university?


Cultural creep from The Office
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Re: Jernalism!

Postby nosimpleway » Thu Apr 08, 2021 2:56 pm

Nobody expects the Pammish Jimquisition

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Re: Jernalism!

Postby Mongrel » Thu Apr 08, 2021 4:35 pm

nosimpleway wrote:Nobody expects the Jimquisition


Isn't it every Monday? :V
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Re: Jernalism!

Postby Mongrel » Tue Apr 20, 2021 11:14 pm


Also, what the fuck is that bizarre right-justified cutline in the third column. Get the fuck outta here with that shit.
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Re: Jernalism!

Postby Mongrel » Tue Apr 27, 2021 12:31 am

Tucker Carlson is a vile, slithering, piece of semi-ambulatory shit, but this is definitely one of the lowest of his lows.


Like.

Just fucking shoot him. Somebody just shoot this man in the fucking face.

I don't care anymore about propriety or due process for these murdering fucks anymore (Starr even less so than me!). Just fucking hang the son of a bitch with a filthy a/v cable so at least we can slow down their killing A LITTLE BIT.
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