Is this a function of reality or me getting better at spotting it?
I felt as though in the 90s CNN legitimately was a good news source. Early 21centuey VICE was legitimately good.
Today there is next to nothing given anything other than a heavily biased view.
I think the internet has made things worse, there's a new kind of bias. What do you set the headline to for the breaking alert? Because that's what people will see. Follow that up with a more subtle article and boom you've got a basically iron glad propaganda machine.
If all the news sources are rather centrist (i.e., they all "cooperate"), then no one gains or loses audiences because of bias. This is a good strategy when publishing is expensive. However, as the costs of publishing drop, it becomes profitable to shave off niche (smaller) audiences, with biased publication. This begins the defection phase of the PD game series. As defections accelerate, anyone who doesn't defect eventually suffers by continuing to not defect, leading to a new optimal state of all defections--i.e., publishers have to defect to maintain audience.
I dunno, I just came up with that as I was writing it.
There are also things to be said about the ability now to track engagement, which allowed humans to quantify (i.e., put a cost/value/ROI on) the extent to which bias/outrage drive engagement. But, this function would still play into the greater theoretical framework I proposed.
https://web.stanford.edu/~gentzkow/research/biasmeas.pdf
We estimate a model of newspaper demand that incorporates slant explicitly, estimate the slant that would be chosen if newspapers independently maximized their own profits, and compare these profit-maximizing points with firms’ actual choices. We find that readers have an economically significant preference for like-minded news. Firms respond strongly to consumer preferences, which account for roughly 20 percent of the variation in measured slant in our sample./s
Even the BBC which is state funded. Okay, that might be a bad example as they are a state broadcaster and so propaganda is really their remit.
We could just call them specialized audiences with particular interests, instead of equating the neoliberal centrism of a bunch of collaborating oligarchic publications to lack of bias.
edit: e.g. if all of the publications collaborate to not discuss issues concerning Mexican-Americans, a defector who peels off a large audience by being the only publication that attends to Mexican-American issues would not be an example of "bias" except under extremely normative definitions of "bias."
Nope. They were the original cheerleaders of modern militarism, from the first Persian Gulf War, which they turned into an infotainment spectacle devoid of any serious critical analysis, to their promotion of NAFTA and neo-liberalism. This idea that things were better in the past is a form of rosy retrospection and nostalgia. Things weren’t better, they just hid the bullshit under thicker layers of opaqueness. And I say this as a progressive liberal who has always hated CNN and despises Fox.
Could it instead be that the environment (or, to speak in your words: “the western mainstream hidden forces”) has altered your perception?
You can always exit the Matrix.
The sad thing is that we have real problems, and this nihilistic insistence that everything is fake means that those problems will only get worse.
Whenever I get into a discussion about vaccines I say something along the line of:
Of all the shitty things our governments do in our names, you’re choosing vaccines to fight against?!
No one wants what you think you want. The distopia [sic] is a feature, not a bug. YES, we as a society have decided that some forms of discourse are to be shunned. All societies have. All subcultures have forbidden subjects. Everyone does this. Everyone wants this.
So please, please stop with the stuff about "reality" and "truth" as if those are the concepts at hand. No one is confused about what kiwifarms stands for. We just don't want them in our feeds.
Man, I almost did. But people just get so irrationally angry about words on the internet nowadays that I decided against tempting fate. I don't need people trying to destroy my career because I don't irrationally hate the right people right now.
Yes, Kiwi Farms exists and has information and opinions you might not like. It certainly has ones that I don't like. But at the end of the day, it's just words on the internet; the stuff about "organized harassment campaigns" and all that is a media lie. I really wish people would just visit the place and realize that it's just a bunch of shitposters with a clear "look, laugh, but don't touch" mentality and not the demonic bogeyman the press has made it out be. But I realize that irrational hatred is faster and easier, so…
You don't "irrationally" hate them probably because you happen not to fit the target profile.
EDIT: And are you serious? You truly think that KiwiFarms is a quirky, harmless place that just collects info to do nothing with it, and at the same time believe that on HN you'd be targeted by people who'd try to ruin your life? What force keeps such nasty people off kiwifarms but allows their presence here, I wonder?
> Yes, Kiwi Farms exists and has information and opinions you might not like. It certainly has ones that I don't like. But at the end of the day, it's just words on the internet;
There's no such thing as "just words on the internet". Words express beliefs and intent. I take them seriously.
> the stuff about "organized harassment campaigns" and all that is a media lie.
Of course. The sort of people that compile elaborate profiles on people including personal information are some sort of enlightened beings that despite obsessively tracking down and compiling every embarrassing or weird thing about another person would never actually use that information for anything at all.
How do you decide which words people should be allowed to read, and which words they should not be allowed to read?
If you mean documenting its existence, then no, because we have to learn from history. So I wouldn't have an issue with an article on antisemitism or the like.
But if I found out that something I own actually helps Nazis, then yes, I'd do my best to stop that from happening. If I suddenly ended up owning Stormfront or Kiwifarms, I would absolutely pull the plug and burn it all to the ground with no warning.
But the internet helps nazis. Telephones help nazis. I would argue that censorship helps nazis. The real nazis were completely censored from Weimar radio and Goebbels touted Der Angriff as "the most censored newspaper" by the German government. What is our standard for "helps"?
Side note: the wikipedia article for stormfront retains the link to the site. Removal was discussed on the Talk page, but retained with rather pointed language.
I'm a consequentialist. I'll make the decision based on the overall consequences. So for instance the internet helps nazis, but it also does a lot of good for a lot more people. Now if the effect of the internet was 99% to help nazis, that would be a problem.
> Side note: the wikipedia article for stormfront retains the link to the site. Removal was discussed on the Talk page, but retained with rather pointed language.
Like I said, that's up to them to decide. If it was up to me, I would not allow that link.
That's how I lean too. I'm maybe just more leery of the long term consequences of censorship and proscribed ideas. I think they are ultimately poisonous.
> If it was up to me, I would not allow that link.
How would you write that policy for wikimedia, so your editors would know which articles could link to the website they describe, and which could not?
Over the years, I figured that in practice pretty much nobody is truly willing to commit absolutely to their ideals. Everyone has a breaking point where if they have bad enough consequences, ideals will be discarded.
Musk is showing this on Twitter right now.
And I think most any sane person would do the same, because unyielding commitment can trivially be taken advantage of. Eg, if you open up your house to absolutely everyone, and hold steadfast when people start punching holes in the walls, eventually you won't have a house to offer anymore.
> How would you write that policy for wikimedia, so your editors would know which articles could link to the website they describe, and which could not?
That highly depends on my position, the leadership structure, the state of the organization, and so on. As per the above I have some moral flexibility and will compromise somewhat for the greater good.
> There's no such thing as "just words on the internet". Words express beliefs and intent. I take them seriously.
Intent? Find me a post on KF stating intent to harm someone in real life which wasn't either downvoted or promptly deleted. Go ahead.
> Of course. The sort of people that compile elaborate profiles on people including personal information are some sort of enlightened beings that despite obsessively tracking down and compiling every embarrassing or weird thing about another person would never actually use that information for anything at all.
Create an alt account on KF and post in a lolcow's thread saying that you want to harm that person in real life. You'll be downvoted into oblivion, probably banned, possibly doxed if you used the same username as you use elsewhere, and possibly reported to law enforcement.
You can believe what you're told by people with motivation to lie, or you can discover the truth. Up to you.
Most online forums have rules against doxing. Then again, most online forums have problems with anonymous users making false claims.
Is wikipedia likewise complicit for publishing articles on nefarious topics? How about linking to macdonalds.com, who is surely complicit in more deaths than kiwifarms?
But so do a lot of organizations. It's legal for kiwifarms' users and it's legal for the phone company, the federal election commission and for my city government too.
> What value could KF provide that's worth that pain? I don't think there's any.
What pain, exactly though? People claim that there have been suicides, but the claims seem dubious at best. If you call someone out for misappropriating funds and they commit suicide, is that on you?
What value? Many reporters (and regular humans) use kiwifarms to get a sense of the history, backstories and relationships of online figures and groups.
Or, for a more up-to-date example, if someone uses a DNS provider to find a server's IP address and do a DDOS attack against it (as is constantly happening to KF), the DNS provider would be liable.
Are you new to online communities? I've been a core member of several for years.
There's always politics, admin only channels, and people contacting each other outside the main system. Sometimes multiple levels, like two admins talking in private, then adding a third, then bringing it into the admin channel, then breaking the news into the main community.
In communities where there's external attacks, or a concern with reputation, the people in charge typically take that seriously. It's very possible that something is publicly forbidden, but with the right contacts you can find the right people.
> Create an alt account on KF and post in a lolcow's thread saying that you want to harm that person in real life.
Which is unsurprising because formerly kiwifarms used traditional hosting, and had to at least keep some plausible deniability. But everyone knows what all that stuff they post is for.
> You'll be downvoted into oblivion, probably banned, possibly doxed if you used the same username as you use elsewhere, and possibly reported to law enforcement.
Sure, and if you know the right people on the right Discord, then you can avoid all that and discuss all the plans and share all the juicy news away from prying eyes.
Besides which, the info is public. Anyone can act on it without being a member, or having any agreement on anything with people posting there.
Okay, so KF is responsible for conversations that happen outside of KF now? What should KF's admins do about that?
> Sure, and if you know the right people on the right Discord, then you can avoid all that and discuss all the plans and share all the juicy news away from prying eyes.
Take that up with Discord, then.
No, I mean that any organization is more than what it presents publicly. The people that own KF, and the people that post on it are going to have more ways to talk to each other than to post on public threads.
> Take that up with Discord, then.
No, I take it up with the people who use Discord to this end first of all. And with Discord second, of course, if they know that's going on there and allow it.
Of course. Everyone does.
> Shall we go for the trifecta?
Shall we put your notion in a historical context or no?
It's not really something I'd be comfortable with either, so I get it, but everyone in this thread should at least understand that the average kiwi farms thread is roughly as offensive as the conversations at every job site that constructed all your houses, every field that grew your vegetables, and every rig that pumped the oil for your car. I'm not saying it's okay, but you have to accept it to some extent. Those people are out there offline, too.
While you're at it, check out their "Christmas Art" thread and think of the average Nazi spending most of their time being a perfectly polite and non-hateful person: https://archive.ph/TffRs
I'm trying to understand what you are saying with that. What are you implying? Please be more specific. Because it sounds like you are painting with a very broad brush and making a lot of assumptions about great swaths of society.
I do not sense any specific bias. As usual, "freedom of speech" does not imply a right to be listened to.
Also, I do not buy this dystopia claim. In 99.99% of all topics we know exactly what is true and what is not. The sky is blue, clouds are condensed water, the earth is a sphere, there is racism, there is poverty, wealth is unevenly distributed over the planet, hygiene helps prevent sickness, vaccinations have prevented a lot of suffering, social security is expensive, etc, etc.
The facts are easy. We used to argue about consequences stemming from these facts and what do to about it. These days we tend to confuse our disagreements with "alternate facts".
It's really not that hard to stay informed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polls_about_9/11_consp...
Now, you can ofcourse dismiss all these opinions as "alternate facts". Probably similarly to how devoted christians dismissed theories about a heliocentric solar system as "alternative facts" only aspoused by lunatics.
We'll follow the scientific method; and that is how we learn and continue to explore and learn more.
Do really not a see a difference between that and convenient political alternate facts?
And the grey sky? Seriously? You're looking at clouds, not the sky. Whatever, why am I even responding...
I understand, the truth is not comfortable. It is sometimes incredibly hurtful to know the other sides version of the truth. But even then truth is worth it.
"All I'm offering is the truth, nothing more."