Tech, monopolies, censorship
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@jc said in Tech, monopolies, censorship:
@tim said in Tech, monopolies, censorship:
Oh no. They’ve cancelled @Tim
I genuinely thought for a bit it was just another oblique reference or joke I'd totally missed... Glad the mystery is solved
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It’s like Alcoholics Anonymous, where your first step is looking in the mirror being honest with yourself and admitting you’ve got a sickness.
This thing is massive — it’s behind a paywall, and I’ve only quoted below maybe a 1/4 of it. Look for the whole thing if you can.
Funnily, that “look in the mirror” I mentioned above, it appears the Grey Old Lady only really WOKE up to the urgency and “dangerous” reality when they saw social conservatives employing speech laws invented and imposed by liberals against those same very liberals. The laws the do-gooder witchhunters invented were being used against them.
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THE EDITORIAL BOARD
America Has a Free Speech Problem
March 18, 2022For all the tolerance and enlightenment that modern society claims, Americans are losing hold of a fundamental right as citizens of a free country: the right to speak their minds and voice their opinions in public without fear of being shamed or shunned.
This social silencing, this depluralizing of America, has been evident for years, but dealing with it stirs yet more fear. It feels like a third rail, dangerous. For a strong nation and open society, that is dangerous.
How has this happened? In large part, it’s because the political left and the right are caught in a destructive loop of condemnation and recrimination around “cancel culture.” Many on the left refuse to acknowledge that cancel culture exists at all, believing that those who complain about it are offering cover for bigots to peddle hate speech. Many on the right, for all their braying about cancel culture, have embraced an even more extreme version of censoriousness as a bulwark against a rapidly changing society, with laws that would ban books, stifle teachers and discourage open discussion in classrooms.
Many Americans are understandably confused, then, about what they can say and where they can say it. People should be able to put forward viewpoints, ask questions and make mistakes, and take unpopular but good-faith positions on issues that society is still working through — all without fearing cancellation.
However you define cancel culture, Americans know it exists, and feel its burden. In a new national poll commissioned by Times Opinion and Siena College, only 34 percent of Americans said they believed that all Americans enjoyed freedom of speech completely. The poll found that 84 percent of adults said it is a “very serious” or “somewhat serious” problem that some Americans do not speak freely in everyday situations because of fear of retaliation or harsh criticism.
This poll, and other recent surveys from the Pew Research Center and the Knight Foundation, reveals a crisis of confidence around one of America’s most basic values. Freedom of speech and expression is vital to human beings’ search for truth and knowledge about our world. A society that values freedom of speech can benefit from the full diversity of its people and their ideas. At the individual level, human beings cannot flourish without the confidence to take risks, to pursue ideas and express thoughts that others might reject.
Most important, freedom of speech is the bedrock of democratic self government. If people feel free to express their views in their communities, the democratic process can respond to and resolve competing ideas. Ideas that go unchallenged by opposing views risk becoming weak and brittle rather than being strengthened by tough scrutiny. When speech is stifled or when dissenters are shut out of public discourse, a society also loses its ability to resolve conflict, and it faces the risk of political violence.
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[Concluding para.]:
Free speech is predicated on mutual respect, that of people for each other, and of a government for the people they serve. Every day, in communities across the country, Americans must speak to one another freely to refine and improve the elements of our social contract: What do we owe the most vulnerable in our neighborhoods? What conduct should we expect from public servants? What ideas are so essential to understanding American democracy that they should be taught in schools? When public discourse in America is narrowed, it becomes harder to answer these and the many other urgent questions we face as a society.
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Full article
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This has to be one of the worst miscalculations in recent media-corp memory. They can’t draw flies to watch their programming for free and somehow believed more people would subscribe if they had to pay for it. Sayonara CFO.
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@antipodean Netflix is a different beast. They have shitloads of programming, but not a lot of it stimulating me, and worse just another reminder of the awful culture war. However I think their audience reduction right now is largely a result of inflation and people having a gutsful of masks ‘n lockdowns. People are mentally and physically wanting to go outside now that the pandemic has (fingers crossed) subsided; and losing a month salary per year to inflation makes a working person weigh their immediate options: gasoline or netflix? groceries or cable tv? And they’re cutting the cord.
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@Kid-Chocolate said in Tech, monopolies, censorship:
This has to be one of the worst miscalculations in recent media-corp memory. They can’t draw flies to watch their programming for free and somehow believed more people would subscribe if they had to pay for it. Sayonara CFO.
Update:
TERMINATED
Didn’t last a month. They pulled the plug. Heads gotsta roll…
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Good question.
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I am pleasantly surprised to see this published in this-current-era issue of The Nation. If all you did was read the text you could be forgiven thinking it was in The American Conservative.
“Painting neo-Nazi paramilitaries with an extensive record of war crimes as patriots helping refugees, all while working with a “disinformation” group that turned out to run interference for violent neo-Nazi formations—that’s the experience Biden’s new disinformation czar brings to the table.”
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Pendilum is swinging back. How do you say Dave Chapelle without saying Dave Chapelle?
“The updated Netflix Culture memo also includes a new section called “Artistic Expression,” explaining that the streamer will not “censor specific artists or voices” even if employees consider the content “harmful,” and bluntly states, “If you’d find it hard to support our content breadth, Netflix may not be the best place for you.”
Amen.
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This could have gone in any number of threads, I’ve posted related memes elsewhere, but i’ll post it here. This is now into it’s 7th day, no signs of ending, and one of the most revealing look-behind-the-curtain media embarrassments in living memory. People are starting to realize the so-called prestige Washington Post is a lot less like All The Presidents Men and instead closer to Carrie and Mean Girls.
Here’s a backgrounder:
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“The public appearance is that the inmates are running the Jeffrey Preston Bezos Asylum and that the Post has a completely upside-down idea of what constitutes an ethical lapse. A single retweet, swiftly retracted, is worth a month-long suspension. However calling out colleagues on a public timeline, siccing online mobs on them, leaking internal emails and refusing to comply with workplace directives are allowed to continue. Something stinks at the Washington Post and for once it’s not Dave Weigel.”
Update: (I think this and her lawsuit was her meltdown motivation the whole time.)