NYT follows the narrative supportive of the corporate agenda writ large, not because of an active choice about what it does write about, but because of the glaringly newsworthy things it ignores: like ongoing imperialism and terrorism committed by the US all over the world. This is true for most all major news orgs in the US.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/09/world/americas/evo-morale...
His statements don’t line up with the ruckus after the Tom Cotton op-Ed or Bari Weiss’s departure.
I never realized how influential Bitchute QAnon believers are or One America News Network is either (mainly due to social media algorithms running haywire).
Tristan Harris of the Social Dilemma made some really great points to this effect on his podcast episode with Joe Rogan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaTKaHKCAFg.
Biden won because people have legitimate issues with Trump. Deride it as "the propaganda machine" and other nonsense all you like. But this administration has a mind-boggling amount of documented fact-checked lies, clear nepotism, a history of censoring government agencies and intimidating federal employees who disagree, and putting out some of the most absurd propaganda we've seen in this country in modern history. It's astounding that this administration's chief complaints about the other side are always exemplified by the administration themselves. And people mindlessly repeat it without a shred of irony.
That's simply not true. There are pro-Trump comments here that are not being flagged or downvoted into oblivion. But they're the substantive comments that aren't full of baseless claims about Trump being the victim of conspiracies and abuse.
We need reconciliation, but it will never happen until we're at least willing to look at the facts objectively and realize we just witnessed a type of coup.
I am concerned with the integrity of the process. I have never believe US elections were fair. I would prefer they were. The irregularities here are massive. PA literally violated an order from Justice Alito going into this election, and that cause will very likely go back to the Supreme Court.
I know you want your side to win, but do you want it at this cost? The integrity of the system is in jeopardy. The media doesn't decide elections. There is a process, starting with certifying the results, electors being selected, those electors voting in the capitol and the House voting based on those electors. None of that has happened yet, and we've never had the news media "call" an election with this much up in the air.
I hope you get better one day and rejoin humanity.
He tweeted a video of a man yelling "White Power." Now, you can say that was "an accident", but it was up for four hours!
Our president is always reachable, by definition, and he has people who watch media like a hawk, so if it was accidental, four hours for removal would make zero sense. So Trump's racism is not a fabricated media narrative, it's directly provable with verifiable evidence.
In other words, voting for Trump because "samy is my hero." :)
Could there be a class action lawsuit against the various companies whose recommendation engines hijacked people's attention to recommend and reinforce this garbage?
Edit: clarification
People like to hand-wring about "the algorithm", but then they seem to fall short[1] of understanding that exposure, impressions, and engagement are sold to the highest bidders on social media platforms. Not only that, the platforms allow fine-grained targeting of users based on tomes of data collected on them.
These recommender systems don't just hijack people's attentions as a side effect of increasing engagement, it is by design in pathologically manipulative and anti-user way.
It isn't a coincidence that those with money and an agenda[2] can inject money into social media platforms and have their content spread like wildfire.
[1] https://kelleycotter.com//wp-content/uploads/2020/02/IJoC_Al...
I think this thought is spot on. The usual defense is "but free speech!". Which would boil down to: "such is human nature". But I don't believe that's the problem. The problem may indeed be selection and amplification mechanisms like recommendation engines tuned to divert max. attention to the medium, masterfully exploiting the vulnerabilities of the human psyche as evolution formed it. The rest is collateral damage which nobody seems to feel responsible for. Not a sustainable situation.
If there were a dead simple filter where the user could pick friend groups, tags and sorting criteria to tune their feed this would not be an issue. Reddit, for instance seems relatively simple in that respect- the presentation is a function of the subreddit and the votes.
But once the algorithm is driven by sponsorships, monetization opportunities, and opaque surveillance data then the control of the presentation shifts from user to platform. One could argue that this should creates some liability on the part of the platform.
If the editor of a publication was monetarily compensated for publishing lucrative slander, in a manner designed to maximize its credibility with certain audiences, and it resulted in harm to people then they arguable could be held responsible. If the editor claimed that an algorithm decided to publish it and the publication developed the algorithm I don't think it would make them less responsible.
I read it in one of his books, but this is the only good version I can find online.
PDF: http://plaza.ufl.edu/trishak/Carl%20Sagan%20-%20Why%20We%20N...
>> From Parade Magazine, September 10, 1989 – As I got off the plane, he was waiting for me, holding up a sign with my name on it. I was on my way to a conference of scientists and TV broadcasters, and the organizers had kindly sent a driver.
>> "Do you mind if I ask you a question?" He said as we waited for my bag. "Isn't it confusing to have the same name as that science guy?"
>> It took me a moment to understand. Was he pulling my leg? "I am that science guy," I said. He smiled. "Sorry. That's my problem. I thought it was yours too." He put out his hand. "My name is William F. Buckley." (Well, his name wasn't exactly William F. Buckley, but he did have the name of a contentious TV interviewer, for which he doubtless took a lot of good-natured ribbing.)
>> As we settled into the car for the long drive, he told me he was glad I was "that science guy" -- he had so many questions to ask about science. Would I mind? And so we got to talking. But not about science. He wanted to discuss UFOs, "channeling" (a way to hear what's on the minds of dead people -- not much it turns out), crystals, astrology ... He introduced each subject with real enthusiasm, and each time I had to disappoint him: "The evidence is crummy," I kept saying. "There's a much simpler explanation." As we drove on through the rain, I could see him getting glummer. I was attacking not just pseudoscience but also a facet of his inner life.
>> And yet there is so much in real science that's equally exciting, more mysterious, a greater intellectual challenge--as well as being a lot closer to the truth. Did he know about the molecular building blocks of life sitting out there in the cold tenuous gas between the stars? Had he heard of the footprints of our ancestors found in 4-mil-lion-year-old volcanic ash? What about the raising of the Himalayas when India went crashing into Asia? Or how viruses subvert cells, or the radio search for extraterrestrial intelligence or the ancient civilization of Ebla? Mr. "Buckley" -- well-spoken, intelligent, curious -- had heard virtually nothing of modem science. He wanted to know about science. It's just that all the science got filtered out before it reached him. What the society permitted to trickle through was mainly pretense and confusion. And it had never taught him how to distinguish real science from the cheap imitation.
There is plenty of real hard evidence than Hunter was used to peddle influence and spread corruption, and the media completed censored all of that information, from one of the oldest newspapers in the country:
https://battlepenguin.com/tech/the-solution-to-big-tech-isnt...
This should trouble everyone.
Joe Biden's touchiness does bother me, as does the Hunter Biden story. But I don't think that's anywhere near what my driver was talking about, and I also don't think Trump is better when it comes to sexually inappropriate behaviour or corruption.
My driver also brought up Pizzagate and other such (nearly unequivocally) debunked conspiracy theories, which makes me suspicious of his reasoning capabilities.
And yet, he said he was voting for Trump. Why? Because Joe Biden was a pedophile whose son f~~ked underage Chinese children and took money from a Ukranian dictator to influence US policy.
He saw Biden as more amoral than Trump. I think this is a significant demographic block that's been ignored, because the media class doesn't really meet with people of these sort. He was extremely convinced, and I'm sure he really believed it. He really seemed upset about the moral quandary of voting for Trump vs. voting for a pedophile.