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Re:PewDiePie’s Battle for the Soul of the Internet by Reedx on Saturday December 22, 2018 @06:54PM (#18743272)
This trend of outrage journalism is disturbing. Where the goal seems to be about finding the worst possible interpretation for clicks and prestige points. The headline is all that seems to matter, with few digging into the actual context. Which both fuels more uninformed outrage and erodes trust in journalism overall.

It seems like a new form of witch hunting?

Re:PewDiePie’s Battle for the Soul of the Internet by toufiqbarhamov on Saturday December 22, 2018 @07:06PM (#18743338)
The issue is not that journalism has developed a new trend of ginning up outrage, that’s a constant in the history of journalism. The issue is that it’s rapidly becoming all that’s left, all that most people consume, and it’s unleavened with anything like responsibility, or balance from respectable journalists and politicians with at least some limits.

It’s the degradation of all media rather than just a large portion of it, which is new and worrying.

Re:PewDiePie’s Battle for the Soul of the Internet by darkpuma on Saturday December 22, 2018 @07:16PM (#18743401)
Whether it's all media or some media doesn't really matter so much, I think what's really important is how much influence is actually wielded by the bad actors. Good media existing doesn't do us much good if that media isn't the influential media.

You're absolutely right about it being a constant in the history of journalism though. Recently I've heard a lot of talk about how the situation in this respect is getting worse, but I think it's important to remember that yellow journalism is nothing new, nor is the influence it wields. The Spanish American War was essentially started by yellow journalist media barons fabricating public consensus, and the ramifications of that war were fairly severe in both hemispheres. Maybe Vox picking on pewdiepie is unfair, or maybe they're justified. But viewed in the proper context it's inconsequential either way; neither Vox nor pewdiepie are provoking bullshit wars. Thank the gods for that.

Re:PewDiePie’s Battle for the Soul of the Internet by AnthonyMouse on Saturday December 22, 2018 @09:38PM (#18744057)
> Maybe Vox picking on pewdiepie is unfair, or maybe they're justified. But viewed in the proper context it's inconsequential either way; neither Vox nor pewdiepie are provoking bullshit wars.

But they are provoking bullshit wars.

Being an unreasonable extremist and drowning out the reasonable voices on your team gives the unreasonable extremists on the other team license to do the same.

People being able to express contrary opinions in public is a release valve that allows a moderate consensus to form.

Polarizing everything and then shutting down public debate is how you get into a war. Just because nobody is actively building munitions factories doesn't make this a benign development that it's reasonable to ignore just because the country is not yet literally on fire.

Re:PewDiePie’s Battle for the Soul of the Internet by darkpuma on Saturday December 22, 2018 @10:55PM (#18744313)
> "But they are provoking bullshit wars."

No not actually. Hyperbole is fine but don't confuse it for the real thing.

Re:PewDiePie’s Battle for the Soul of the Internet by AnthonyMouse on Sunday December 23, 2018 @01:54AM (#18744832)
How does the real thing happen?
Re:PewDiePie’s Battle for the Soul of the Internet by darkpuma on Sunday December 23, 2018 @01:37PM (#18747567)
Similar process is not similar outcomes. The stakes in pewdiepie vs vox are far less serious than an actual war. This really should not require explanation.
Re:PewDiePie’s Battle for the Soul of the Internet by AnthonyMouse on Sunday December 23, 2018 @02:51PM (#18747938)
The media doesn't provoke an actual war by bombing anyone themselves.
Re:PewDiePie’s Battle for the Soul of the Internet by darkpuma on Sunday December 23, 2018 @03:07PM (#18748018)
I'm not sure what your point is, I never claimed media organizations were doing the bombing.

To reiterate my point: Yellow journalism that successfully warmongers is a far cry from yellow journalism that gets into a heated argument with a youtube celebrity. The methods employed by yellow journalists may be identical (in fact I'd argue they probably are), but there is a serious disparity in the severity of the outcome. And considering that in one case we're talking about significant loss of human life, I don't think you should be abstracting that away so coldly.

You should be thankful that the Vox/pewdiepie spat is not getting thousands of people killed and territory annexed. Is that not clear?

Re:PewDiePie’s Battle for the Soul of the Internet by AnthonyMouse on Sunday December 23, 2018 @11:50PM (#18750405)
That it's all the same methods is the issue. Honing a censorship apparatus on random people is how it becomes sharp enough to do real damage.

When you find a tiger loose in a city, the response should be to do what it takes to get it off the streets, not that we should be thankful that everything is fine because so far it has only been hunting puppies.

Re:PewDiePie’s Battle for the Soul of the Internet by darkpuma on Monday December 24, 2018 @03:11PM (#18754028)
> "That it's all the same methods is the issue."

Only if you're abstracting away the value of real human lives. If a tiger breaks loose you should be concerned by that tiger but ALSO be thankful that nobody has been eaten by it. If you forget the later, you forget your humanity.

Re:PewDiePie’s Battle for the Soul of the Internet by bb88 on Saturday December 22, 2018 @07:36PM (#18743525)
I was thinking the same thing when I read this article.

Who the fuck cares about what pewdiepie does with his platform for his speech?

Trump, on the other hand, has far more power, but hasn't figured out how to anything other than being the center of everyone's attention.

And while Fox News is ginning up fervor against immigration in the US, it's not like we're going to go into a serious war with Mexico over it. Thank God.

Re:PewDiePie’s Battle for the Soul of the Internet by sverige on Saturday December 22, 2018 @07:48PM (#18743584)
> At major tech and media companies, promotion of progressive principles has become a matter of humourless, ironclad dogma.

It's the "humourless, ironclad dogma" aspect that provokes the response of people like Pewdiepie, and it's that aspect of the reaction to Pewdiepie's satire that makes it a self-completing feedback loop wherever it's discussed.

A generation ago, this description belonged to right-wing moralists like Focus on the Family and Tipper Gore. Now it belongs to the left-wing moralists who have largely taken over corporate messaging and university curricula.

To me, the political aspect is less interesting than the underlying desire to control thoughts and behavior. The most alarming aspect is that it has gone beyond redefining what constitutes crime to using social media to attempt to destroy the lives of those who run afoul of the agenda. And it only takes a handful of people to start up the outrage machine and direct all of its fury at a particular person. It's the source of the sense of dystopia that I feel many days.

It will be interesting to see what the generation coming up now ("Zoomers" I guess they're called) does in reaction to the full-throated adoption of the humourless, ironclad dogma of the Millennials. I see it played out almost daily between my millennial daughter and her Zoomer son. I think it's going to be uglier than the Boomers fighting with the Silent Generation in the 60s.

Re:PewDiePie’s Battle for the Soul of the Internet by akhilcacharya on Saturday December 22, 2018 @08:17PM (#18743703)
I watched the video (and PDP's apology) and I was outraged that either

a) A person with an incredibly impressionable, young, and naive viewerbase would shout out an obvious, virulent bigot because he shares their views or

b) A person with an incredible impressionable, young, and naive viewerbase would shout out someone that is an obvious, virulent bigot because he's so divorced from reality outside of video games that he didn't understand that they would be offensive.

Re:PewDiePie’s Battle for the Soul of the Internet by anon12345690 on Saturday December 22, 2018 @11:25PM (#18744422)
or c) he just linked to video that he liked which came from an account that is verified by youtube so he felt it was safe and didnt spend days checking all the content

his followers arent dumb and youre underestimating what young viewers are able to figure out. if they can see that its not a big deal then why are you so outraged for?

Re:PewDiePie’s Battle for the Soul of the Internet by akhilcacharya on Sunday December 23, 2018 @12:30AM (#18744606)
> he just linked to video that he liked which came from an account that is verified by youtube

The video INCLUDED neo-nazi rhetoric. Literally click on any others and they include n-slurs in the title. Again, either he's a moron or he's a racist. I'm not sure if the former is that much better a look for him.

Also, young kids can figure things out, yes, but the biggest YouTube star on the planet shouldn't be normalizing neo-nazi terrorism.

Re:PewDiePie’s Battle for the Soul of the Internet by anon12345690 on Sunday December 23, 2018 @04:28AM (#18745239)
i watched the video and it was fine and has lots of views and plenty of comments that understand the dark humor without going off the rails on outrage.

none of the videos have n-word in the title, are you making that up? did you read about how that channel is verified by youtube itself?

now youre calling it terrorism? slow down there. i think you should learn to take a joke like the rest of the world. if everyone else can figure it out then maybe its you that has an extreme problem with it?

Re:PewDiePie’s Battle for the Soul of the Internet by darkpuma on Sunday December 23, 2018 @01:47PM (#18747621)
>"none of the videos have n-word in the title, are you making that up? did you read about how that channel is verified by youtube itself?"

One of them did, it has since been deleted by youtube. It probably slipped by people, including youtube moderation for years, because it was a deliberate misspelling of the word "reneging".

I'm not going to link it for obvious reasons, but if you're skeptical you can find it by searching for the guy's mirror channel on one of the more infamous "free speech youtube alternatives" where he's uploaded it again with a note about youtube deleting it. In all honesty, I think it's likely this anime review guy is masking genuine nazi propaganda behind an edgy humor. I think he's doing it in a way that in each instance he usually has plausible deniability, but when viewed as a whole a clear picture emerges. I think this is why many people including yourself, youtube moderation, and supposedly pewdiepie did not notice it on first viewing. Furthermore I think that it's uncharitable and morally wrong to accuse people who missed it of having character defects, so please don't think that I'm impugning your character by disagreeing with you.

Re:PewDiePie’s Battle for the Soul of the Internet by akhilcacharya on Sunday December 23, 2018 @07:05PM (#18749295)
>One of them did, it has since been deleted by youtube. It probably slipped by people, including youtube moderation for years, because it was a deliberate misspelling of the word "reneging".

I can still see it. 2 of them posted 2 years ago with 400k views each. If he had more I wouldn't know, which is even more concerning.

I'm not going to see it as a character defect, but I will see it as incredibly irresponsible. It would be irresponsible even without Quilette editors tut-tutting about the people who are disturbed by it. The fact that people defend it even with the full scope of the evidence available is not acceptable however.

Re:PewDiePie’s Battle for the Soul of the Internet by akhilcacharya on Sunday December 23, 2018 @07:14PM (#18749333)
>now youre calling it terrorism? slow down there. i think you should learn to take a joke like the rest of the world. if everyone else can figure it out then maybe its you that has an extreme problem with it?

I'm pretty sure most people, including the FBI Director and Jeff Sessions, believe the Charlottesville attack was terrorism.

>In one example — a video Kjellberg publicly liked, leaving a comment underneath — E;R uses aerial footage of the moment when a car drove through a crowd of people during the white supremacist-led “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville last year. The incident left multiple people injured and one protester, Heather Heyer, dead. E;R turns a scene from Netflix’s live-action Death Note movie, describing how a death is carried out when a name is written inside the titular notebook, into a joke about Heyer’s death using actual footage from Charlottesville. [0]

[0]: https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/10/18134748/pewdiepie-er-pe...

Re:PewDiePie’s Battle for the Soul of the Internet by dgudkov on Saturday December 22, 2018 @08:34PM (#18743790)
It's not witch hunting. It's ad money hunting. Click-based advertisement has created incentives that are directly opposite to what drives good journalism.

Therefore, paywalls and online subscription is actually the best thing that could happen to online journalism.

[dead]
Re:PewDiePie’s Battle for the Soul of the Internet by Reedx on Saturday December 22, 2018 @07:19PM (#18743424)
He shouted out 28(!) smaller channels. 1 of the 28 he recommended for its essay about Death Note. That's why it was being promoted. He didn't realize the channel contained anything anti-semitic or otherwise. Once that was pointed out, he removed the shoutout from his video.

The journalists in question are not reporting the nuance and context in their rush to burn the witch.

Re:PewDiePie’s Battle for the Soul of the Internet by krainboltgreene on Saturday December 22, 2018 @07:28PM (#18743472)
> He didn't realize the channel contained anything anti-semitic or otherwise.

He's suggesting that, but it is extremely unlikely that he didn't know.

> nce that was pointed out, he removed the shoutout from his video.

Sounds like the journalists are doing their job.

Re:PewDiePie’s Battle for the Soul of the Internet by uvatbc on Saturday December 22, 2018 @10:28PM (#18744217)
> He's suggesting that, but it is extremely unlikely that he didn't know. Oh? Is there any evidence to back up that claim?

> Sounds like the journalists are doing their job. Sounds like the death of investigative journalism.

Re:PewDiePie’s Battle for the Soul of the Internet by manigandham on Saturday December 22, 2018 @07:02PM (#18743311)
> putting it into context

It seems like it's quite the opposite most of the time, which is the reason for the backlash against the articles.

Re:PewDiePie’s Battle for the Soul of the Internet by krainboltgreene on Saturday December 22, 2018 @07:29PM (#18743480)
Then I suggest you read up on the situation.
Re:PewDiePie’s Battle for the Soul of the Internet by manigandham on Saturday December 22, 2018 @07:35PM (#18743518)
I'm fully aware. Clearly people will believe what they want to believe so I'll stay out of that, but I do think there is a major issue with what "context" is and how it's presented.
Re:PewDiePie’s Battle for the Soul of the Internet by wyoh on Saturday December 22, 2018 @07:13PM (#18743378)
Outside of any context you mean. I don't see what making millions has to do with it.
Re:PewDiePie’s Battle for the Soul of the Internet by sascha_sl on Saturday December 22, 2018 @07:24PM (#18743452)
An ironic nazi is still a nazi. No matter how you turn this, this guy:

1. Commissioned someone for 5 dollars to hold up a sign stating "Death to all jews"

2. Published the footage upon seeing it to an impressionable young audience, without putting why it'd be wrong to do into context. And thought this was an okay thing to do.

That's all that was reported on. And rightfully so.

I find it very sad that I get warned for "ideological posting" and yet quillette is a source allowed on here; easy to spot what ideology they support by their mention of Ben Shapiro as some sort of idol: reactionary. (If you're not convinced, find their sidebar for feminism bashing)

You should really reconsider if your own bias is distorting your moderation policies, dang.

Re:PewDiePie’s Battle for the Soul of the Internet by drak0n1c on Saturday December 22, 2018 @08:05PM (#18743658)
Monty Python went on British national television in front of impressionable children dressed as Nazis, making their salutes, and quipping their slogans. Were they actually Nazis?

I'm Jewish and I'm open to criticizing decisions and behavior that make light of anti-Semitism, but classifying someone as a racist, Nazi, or white supremacist should have a higher standard.

Re:PewDiePie’s Battle for the Soul of the Internet by Tehnix on Sunday December 23, 2018 @02:11PM (#18747751)
You, stating 1. and 2. like that, quite clearly shows that you a) no nothing about the situation except the extremely biased news articles you’ve read, or b) have malicious intent, because if you did know the situation, you wouldn’t present it like that.

PewDiePie has commented quite a few times on this, but I’ll loop you in.

1. He was, in a satirical bit, showing what people were offering as services on Fiverr. As a result of this, he was surprised about what people were willing to do, and wanted to push it to the limit. He expected his request to get rejected, but it actually got approved and the guys did the sign—proving the point that people are basically willing to do anything for $5.

2. Have you even seen the video? You’ll honestly have to be the most clueless person on earth to not see that he is quite clearly not thinking this is okay, not is he condoning what they did, but it is still a very relevant thing to showcase what people are willing to do.

> An ironic nazi is still a nazi. No matter how you turn this...

Sure...if he was even remotely a nazi...Are you aware that what you are doing is actually doing a service to actual bro-nazis and a disservice to people trying to deal with actual problematic people? Desensitising people like this, means they won’t take the serious cases, well, seriously. Ever heard of the boy that cried wolf?

Re:PewDiePie’s Battle for the Soul of the Internet by sascha_sl on Monday December 24, 2018 @12:30AM (#18750555)
If you think having some guys write, let's say it again

"DEATH TO ALL JEWS"

on a banner for 5 bux is some sort of capitalism critique and not a spectacle to get views, I don't know what to tell you.

I guess I can leave you with this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjNILjFters

Re:PewDiePie’s Battle for the Soul of the Internet by anon12345690 on Saturday December 22, 2018 @08:00PM (#18743634)
that was satire to show what you can do for just 5 bucks but he apologized for it

whats wrong with the quillette and ben shapiro? arent you showing your bias here?

Re:PewDiePie’s Battle for the Soul of the Internet by gamer_throwaway on Saturday December 22, 2018 @08:31PM (#18743771)
Precisely what mode of thought was he satirizing?

"Satire" has a meaning - A Modest Proposal wasn't Swift going "haha what if we ate babies"

Re:PewDiePie’s Battle for the Soul of the Internet by anon12345690 on Sunday December 23, 2018 @04:29AM (#18745246)
that you can do crazy stuff for 5 bucks that didnt get stopped all by the services he tried and the people he hired
Re:PewDiePie’s Battle for the Soul of the Internet by sascha_sl on Saturday December 22, 2018 @08:09PM (#18743672)
>arent you showing your bias here?

You're saying that as if a post unopposed is neutral, and opposition is "taking a side" and therefore showing bias. It's not. There is no neutral here. The article poster has taken a side and the moderation team has too, even if it's just a slight pro.

I can say a lot about Shapiro, few things good. But I've been told to keep away from this sort of flame war and I'm convinced if you're willing to change your mind you can seek out the information I'd provide easily on your own.

Re:PewDiePie’s Battle for the Soul of the Internet by Chazprime on Saturday December 22, 2018 @07:14PM (#18743387)
No, they’re creating context... big difference.