Both right and left wing propaganda is strong and coordinated these days. I can't say anything that doesn't toe the line with either side and not have them look at me like I'm an asshole. I've been called both a socialist welfare state supporter and a reactionary corporate feudalist. Which is it folks. The division is worse than it ever was in my lifetime.

When you refuse to choose between stalin and hitler, you will have the unique opportunity to be called a nazi and communist at the same time...

strange times!

In Peter Drucker's memoir, Adventures of a Bystander he relates the story of a contemporary, and onetime colleague of his, who rose fairly high in the Nazi regime, who mentioned, when Drucker was preparing to leave Germany in the early '30s, that he had low-numbered membership cards in both the Nazi and Communist parties.

Welcome to identity politics and the over saturation of a politically correct ruling class run amok.

If people weren't so fucking reactionary to everything they read, see, hear and experience, we wouldn't be in this mess and rational discourse might have a chance. As it stands, people are so easily offended, there isn't any space for an actual discussion.

As someone who considers myself an Independent, I spend hours every day reading articles on both sides and then attempt to form a cohesive thought process on where I stand. Do you have any idea how exhausting that can be with the amount of misleading and straight up false reporting there is these days? Nobody cares about the facts anymore, "journalists" just want to frame their stories in a political meaningful way for people to reinforce their "filter bubbles" they live.

We're not encouraging dialect on topics by simply providing the facts, we're actively and purposefully dividing people.

I pretty much agree, I'm lucky not to be american, but that what it seems like to me. At least in the Bush area it seemed like the US was arguing about things, now one sides seems to have gone beyond logic and discovered trolling while the other is only mostly arguing with itself about how to argue.

> I spend hours every day reading articles on both sides

I have pretty much stopped reading any of these things. You can pretty much read the title and 99% of the time you pretty much know where the argument is gone go. Just stick to books and papers that are about a focused subject. That will isolate you and you will disagree with everyone because people don't actually know or care what happened in the economic crisis of 1893 or any other historical event and they also don't care.

This sort of false neutrality, tinged with the cynicism of putting scare quotes around "journalists", and the indecency of somehow mistaking their rather pedestrian fare of contrarianism with exceptional smartitude is exactly what I think of when faced with peoples' incredulity at the continuing existence of "independents".

Well given the fact that pretty much all major news organizations blatantly pick a political side, putting "journalists" in quotes and being skeptical of any single source isn't too crazy to me.

If news sites prioritize view counts over maintaining an unbiased viewpoint, Roy Moore is what results. Republicans did not trust liberal news organizations to tell the truth.

People who take sides like it's a game of football are everything that is wrong with America.

You being called names or whatever does not compare at all with a political message discipline executed over multiple mass-media channels.

it's an apparent symptom of the problem

The thing about symptoms is that they require a differential diagnosis.

Only seen the right wing go after Google. Not sure I really even know what is left wing? What would you consider left wing?

Here's a litmus test, how do you gauge your reactions to these statements:

African-Americans, in this time and place (America in this decade), commit more crime when compared to Europeans and Asians as a percentage breakdown by race.

Women and minorities have plenty of public resources (facilities, social programs, and information) to succeed academically and enter white collar professions.

Income taxes, which are currently near or above 50% at the higher/highest brackets is plenty and whose rates do not need to be raised. Governments need to cut or curb spending instead of raising the income tax higher.

Stand your ground law is needed to protect a citizen's civil rights and the political arguments made in the wake of Travon Martin's death have been insufficient in changing that status.

These are what I consider to be right wing statements or facts that conservatives don't ignore/insulate themselves from. This is all relative to American politics - in Europe the political climate is much different. Hacker news, from what I've seen, seems to be very left-wing. Also, left wing tends to be cruelly and irrationally/coldly dismissive/patronizing towards rural Christian conservatives - which is more than disturbing to me, but some of the arguments made from them (in my opinion) are not wholly incorrect. I have arguments/beliefs in both sides, but find that most media besides Fox push progressive agendas (i.e. even the 'impartial' reports will use rhetoric and facts which fit in well with progressive agendas).

Brilliant. Especially in the tech company Silicon Valley bubble things are all leftist shilling all the time.

This sounds glib, but it's revealing: if you're not sure what the left wing is, it's you. Just like for extreme conservatives, for whom they and others like them are "just regular people," "Real Americans", you're so immersed in your half of the divide that the left wing is just "reasonable people," "people who don't suck."

That is the problem we're facing.

This is an interesting idea. Is the propaganda so strong and coordinated that the Republicans can influence EU antitrust agency? https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-google-antitrust/eu-an...

I think it’s interesting that you think antitrust Google benefits right wing groups over left wing groups.

I think this thought is mainly due to the dichotomy of “google = good” and “republican = bad” having some transitive logic making “stuff against google = republican.”

I'm not saying the argument is right or wrong. I'm just amazed at the message discipline across many channels. Steve Bannon declared in july that they were going to start pushing for this [1] and since then the message keeps popping up everywhere. It's amazing power to shape the public discourse.

[1] https://theintercept.com/2017/07/27/steve-bannon-wants-faceb...

Yet Bannon's push against big websites wasn't done in a bubble. Public sentiment towards these sites is changing, with revelations about James Damore, Russian propaganda, Alexa being an overtly feminist Black Lives Matter supporter[1], and many other things like this.

Like it or not, culture matters. The fact that all of these powerful sites are blatantly picking sides while at the same time accruing massive amounts of power is inevitably going to gain attention from legislators.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/shortcuts/2017/dec/12...

"Letting a giant monopoly control the internet might be a bad idea." Right wing propaganda.

hm they’re fine if that monopoly is verizon

Nice straw man you got there.

Exactly. I seen it on Reddit like crazy. The right wing is after Google but would guess it will move at some point to someone else.

Funny that Apple would not allow GAB in their app store and Google did but since pulled it yet they are mad at Google. Plus you can use other app stores on Android and use GAB and not on the iPhone.

People do not realize GAB is some right wing social media site.

>Right wing propaganda is so strong and coordinated these days

In tech and the media, it's quite apparent that the large players are primarily socially left-leaning.

Turn on virtually any television station, cable channel, read a newspaper, search for political topics on Google and you're going to be absolutely flooded with left-wing messaging to the tune of 10 to 1 vs right-wing.

>Right wing propaganda is so strong and coordinated these days that they can develop a new goal and drive a single message repeatedly across multiple platforms for months or years.

If that is the case, why is it that we see mostly left wing propaganda on social media and most news sites?

Isn't the content they show you just a reflection of the data you have provided them?

What's the right-wing counterpart to Shareblue? I have never seen something equivalent to the effectiveness of modern "grassroots" messaging campaigns sponsored by certain democratic chessmasters. The fact that full-time protester is now a decently paid and socially acceptable job is incredible.

In Illinois, we have the Illinois Policy Institute, IPI, which is a "think-tank" by definition. In reality, it is a modern grassroots messaging campaign sponsored by Republican chessmasters. IPI, and it's sister organization Illinois News Network, is more local than Shareblue, but still very comparable.

> mostly left wing propaganda on social media

You don't go on Twitter, then

"Remember kids, any criticism of Google censorship is right wing nazi propaganda. This message brought to you by Google."

The internet culture shifted in 2007, with the release of the iPhone. Libertarian conversation died with the living room desktop.

I don't know what my comment has to do with libertarianism, or why it's being down voted. I was simply mocking the blatant corporate bootlicking, and the branding of all criticism as evil right wing attacks.

Sitting down to use the internet in 1995-2007 took a certain kind of personality. It was an act that required isolating yourself for long periods of time.

"Normies" are very unconcerned, easily distracted, and quickly trusting of Big Apps.

Agreed, it's just weird to think how much that mindset has infiltrated the HN. This place is supposed to be populated by engineers with critical thinking skills, yet any criticism of these large corporations is met with censorship via down votes.

Really makes you think..

Left wing propaganda is so strong and coordinated these days that they can develop a new goal and drive a single message repeatedly across multiple platforms for months or years. This defense of Google's monopoly is a new left wing message developed this year but they just keep hammering at it across all their channels tailoring their argument to the different audiences and continuously building mind share and momentum.