First came the bots, then came the bosses - we’re entering Musk and Zuck’s new era of disinformation
Tech leaders’ politics are encoded into their platforms – and with Trump’s ascent, they have direct access to the Oval Office
You're viewing a single thread.
Seriously, all this crazyness with the US election has given me newfound sympathy for the people of Russia.
Americans literally have every respectable news source available to them, and they still get brainwashed by these buffoons because they only get their news from facebook, tiktok, fox news, and shit. They choose to be ignorant.
The Russian people at least have the excuse that they're literally living under a dictator and are fed bullshit everywhere they look. They have to actively and at the risk of their security seek out valid sources for what's actually happening.
Imagine if every news channel in the US was just Fox News. I guess we might not have to imagine it for much longer...
Americans literally have every respectable news source available to them, and they still get brainwashed by these buffoons
The "respectable news sources" have been fully co-opted by buffoons for decades.
The NYT lied us into Iraq while fearmomgering against Mexico. The WSJ gulled us into the Housing Crisis and Crypto scams. The WaPo praised Victor Orban and Ahmed Chalabi and Bong Bong Marcos long past their obvious expiration dates. The Economist cheered on everyone from Francisco Franco to Javier Milei.
And now that Trump is once again in the driver's seat, the mass media response is to simultaneously downplay the coming horror and denounce LGBT and Latinos for his win.
Imagine if every news channel in the US was just Fox News
Compare FOX News in 1996 to MSNBC in in 2024. Rachael Maddow of yesteryear would be fucking horrified at what she's saying today.
And the smaller press were bought out or folded, because apparently people don’t read their news on paper anymore, which is sad.
That’s ok though because people can directly tweet live happenings… oh wait
So anyway, the large social medias are crippled one way or another; and there are few paid journalists outside the influence of the top 10 news corps in the USA
It’s a bad time to have an information blackout, or one controlled by a very few
That's one of the reasons I'm here.
And the smaller press were bought out or folded, because apparently people don’t read their news on paper anymore
Bought out or folded because they lost ad support from major business groups whenever they failed to kowtow to the company line.
The remaining US media institutions are all either utterly subservient to or entirely owned by corporate boards and billionaires.
Yes, I am beginning to understand the takeover of media was more insidious. I knew about the market forces but I did not realize much how the different monopolies worked together, both in practice and accidentally, to squish the survivors, who were struggling but could have recovered.
The “respectable news sources” have been fully co-opted by buffoons for decades.
Yep. It's probably not as cartoonishly ridiculous as things might be under Putin, but given the capitalist framing all of them are in, they don't have to be that ridiculous.
It all goes back to Chomsky - set up an extremely narrow range of permitted opinions, and "allow" vigorous debate, only in that range and marginalize anything outside that range. Rinse, repeat.
It’s probably not as cartoonishly ridiculous as things might be under Putin
It's the same guys in both brackets. Steven Bannon made repeated trips to Eastern Europe to assist in shaping the media of Russia and its allies during Trump's first term. And he was hardly the only one. American aid to "friendly" Russian officials goes back to Yeltsin in the early 90s and the flood of Western press behind the Iron Curtain following its collapse.
"Russia would have done it worse" is just Western Whataboutism. It's literally the same slop coming from the same cartel of white nationalists collaborating across Continental Europe and the US. From Elon's Twitter to Murdoch's NewsCorp to RT guest hosting Tucker Carlson. The exact same guys.
It all goes back to Chomsky - set up an extremely narrow range of permitted opinions, and “allow” vigorous debate, only in that range and marginalize anything outside that range. Rinse, repeat.
I miss Young Chomsky. The man was clear eyed and sharp as a knife.
