Fake News!

[Eacaraxe]

Just popping in here to remind you guys over 90% of US media is collectively owned and operated by four media conglomerates, and of those four, two are telecoms and tier-1 IP's which means they own and operate not only the outlets providing the news, but the infrastructure on which their news is disseminated. Globally it's five or six if I recall correctly, but I haven't been up to speed on the state of global media ownership in the past year.

And those are private corporations that, in today's legal landscape, are regulated in name only, and accountable only to shareholders (they all have the same shareholders, by the way). These companies' first and only priority is to generate and maximize profit, not to inform or educate the public.

In other words, we of the liberal democracies of the world do not have in substance a free press. We have a corporate press. This "fake news" shit, like so much else in the world, is pure fucking kayfabe and a complete distraction from how mass media is a tool of, by, and for oligarchs to manufacture consent for oligarchic ends.

 

[CaitSeith]

Just popping in here to remind you guys over 90% of US media is collectively owned and operated by four media conglomerates, and of those four, two are telecoms and tier-1 IP's which means they own and operate not only the outlets providing the news, but the infrastructure on which their news is disseminated. Globally it's five or six if I recall correctly, but I haven't been up to speed on the state of global media ownership in the past year.

And those are private corporations that, in today's legal landscape, are regulated in name only, and accountable only to shareholders (they all have the same shareholders, by the way). These companies' first and only priority is to generate and maximize profit, not to inform or educate the public.

In other words, we of the liberal democracies of the world do not have in substance a free press. We have a corporate press. This "fake news" shit, like so much else in the world, is pure fucking kayfabe and a complete distraction from how mass media is a tool of, by, and for oligarchs to manufacture consent for oligarchic ends.

And this is the kind of attitude that the OP was warning about.

 

[Eacaraxe]

And this is the kind of attitude that the OP was warning about.

If you would care to show me what part of my post is factually incorrect, I'll be happy to amend my statement...

 

[Avnger]

If you would care to show me what part of my post is factually incorrect, I'll be happy to amend my statement...

This part, specifically the first half:

"This "fake news" shit, like so much else in the world, is pure fucking kayfabe and a complete distraction from how mass media is a tool of, by, and for oligarchs to manufacture consent for oligarchic ends."

You want the world to fall neatly into your binary beliefs, so you remove all nuance and claim everything that doesn't fit is "pure fucking kayfabe." While you may not personally care about 'fake news,' that doesn't mean it's not an actual problem. All one needs to do is turn on an episode of Tucker Carlson, watch a PragerU video, or listen to the words coming out of Ted Cruz/Donald Trump's mouth and then see the same talking points uncritically repeated by millions to see the effect 'fake news' has.

This is the same type of rhetorical nonsense where some white leftists claim that racism isn't really an issue and should be completely ignored in favor of their pet economic crusades. Maybe, just maybe, both are issues.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

 

[Seanchaidh]

You want the world to fall neatly into your binary beliefs, so you remove all nuance and claim everything that doesn't fit is "pure fucking kayfabe." While you may not personally care about 'fake news,' that doesn't mean it's not an actual problem.

Sure. Like the Russia Rachel Maddow show. Wait, no, that's not what people mean by 'fake news', usually. Like CIA and State Department disinfo campaigns that lead to war or hostility and justify sanctions-- wait, no, that's not what people are complaining about either, for the most part; not the people with any power to change anything, anyway.

 

[Eacaraxe]

That's Sinclair Broadcast Group, a corporation with total assets just shy of $6 billion last I checked. They focus on acquiring local stations and broadcasting pre-written segments in cable news-styled infotainment format, and have a reach of something like half of US households. And despite all of this, they're barely even on the map in terms of US media consolidation. Sinclair has just over half the assets of #5 and 6 on the list of biggest US media conglomerates -- Fox and Hearst, if I remember right, with $11 billion and some change.

That's the scale of the problem with media ownership in the US, and hell, liberal democracies at large. And as an extension,

Study links U.S. polarization to TV news deregulation | WSU Insider | Washington State University

news.wsu.edu

That's the problem with "fake news". It isn't a "fake news" problem. It's a confirmation bias problem, brought to us by a cartel of large media companies that build their own captive audiences through pervasive and highly-partisan media techniques that generate fear and distrust. Or, for as much as I despise Aaron Sorkin, this is about the best breakdown of it I've ever seen:


At the end of the day, if you're serious about "fake news", you're following the fucking money. If you're not following the fucking money, you're not serious about "fake news" and are just a wannabe partisan hack. End of story.

Sure. Like the Russia Rachel Maddow show. Wait, no, that's not what people mean by 'fake news', usually. Like CIA and State Department disinfo campaigns that lead to war or hostility and justify sanctions-- wait, no, that's not what people are complaining about either, for the most part; not the people with any power to change anything, anyway.

Yeah it's pretty fucking interesting how all these US-funded media outlets like VoA that had been expressly prohibited from broadcasting inside the US, at least until the partial repeal of Smith-Mundt, are now suddenly everywhere and simultaneously exempt from social media "advisories" on state-funded and -affiliated media (you know, to "protect" people from "fake news"). Yet, nobody wailing about "fake news" gives a toss about that.

It's almost as interesting as how BBC, Al Jazeera, and similar outlets manage to avoid that scary "state-affiliated" media tag...somehow, some way, despite being state-funded and state-affiliated. It's almost as if "fake news" has been appropriated as a scare tactic to serve the economic and political interests of the ruling class!