"For years, technologists and other utopians have argued that online news would be a boon to democracy. That has not been the case."
It clearly has. Had it not been for Wikileaks, and various online news organizations we would never have known the sheer amount of corruption afoot in this election, as well as the extent of the death grip political elites have on the entire system. I suppose old media has just become too entrenched and cozy with those in power to speak truth to power.
"a recent BuzzFeed analysis of top political pages on Facebook showed that right-wing sites published false or misleading information 38 percent of the time, and lefty sites did so 20 percent of the time."
In a recent analysis by the ultra-leftist junk news site Buzzfeed, they've found that right wing sites are worst than left wing sites. Wow, that's some great journalism right there. That kind of reporting is why we should ignore new media and stick with the old.
"Stick with the old?" Would you really cite CNN, Fox, NBC and pals as unbiased reporting? From where I'm standing the playing field and the game is almost unchanged, the players are just often different.
(You even seem to somewhat contradict yourself, acknowledging that the old news is very establishment-cozy, which to me would beg the sort of skewing you cite for new-news)
In a recent analysis by the ultra-leftist junk news site Buzzfeed, they've found that right wing sites are worst than left wing sites. Wow, that's some great journalism right there. That kind of reporting is why we should ignore new media and stick with the old.
Definitely agreed. People just need to learn to only visit news sites that carefully align with their own personal biases. That's what makes the Internet nowadays so great. It's much easier to ignore people ignorant enough to disagree with you.
>It clearly has. Had it not been for Wikileaks, and various online news organizations we would never have known the sheer amount of corruption afoot in this election, as well as the extent of the death grip political elites have on the entire system. I suppose old media has just become too entrenched and cozy with those in power to speak truth to power.
Also, ownership has become ultra-concentrated among the "old media". There'd be more of a case in its favor if old media actually competed with each-other in a diverse marketplace anymore.
"the internet is distorting our collective grasp on the truth. "
And corporate owned newspapers never did any distorting right NYT? Perhaps if the media had a shred of integrity, people wouldn't be going off to the onion to get their news.
that is a lazy false equivalence that shows that you probably didnt read the article. the central thesis seems to be that given the wider array of news sources, our biases towards reinforcing what we already believed are further enabled. maybe you could address that instead of saying that "corporate owned newspapers" are distorting. of course every news source has a bias. the point is that there are more now, so its easier to build a more complete echo chamber.
Yeah, this article sounds like a poorly written plug for the authors book (he provides a link about halfway through the article). He is using the controversy around the election as an excuse to write an ad for his book disguised as an article.
Pretty poor article, the whole thing is filled with far-fetched anecdotes and I don't feel I learnt anything by reading what he wrote.
His whole premise is built on the amount of conspiracy theories we know of, rather than actual conspiracies, to show the internet is distorting the truth!
But maybe, ironically, he's proving that traditional media is what's broken, if trash like this is given a mouthpiece.
Truth has stopped beeing the tamed animal that the news-manufacturer knew it to be. You told it what to be, and it jumped through the hoop and became half-reality by the masses believing.
What your hear is the whining for power decentralized away. And those calling for censorship, demand to reinstate it, so they can have it.
Those not debunking fake news, but declaring unproofable conspirarcys at work, want to shirk the work or have something to win, when the truth is not found out.
I do believe that Metal Gear Solid 2 predicted this back in, what, 2001?
"At this point, Raiden is contacted by AIs of the Colonel and Rosemary, introducing themselves as representatives of the Patriots, who reveal that the true purpose of the simulation was to see how they could simulate and control human behavior in order to prevent society from dumbing down due to trivial information drowning valuable knowledge and inconvenient truths."
[+] [-] boona|9 years ago|reply
It clearly has. Had it not been for Wikileaks, and various online news organizations we would never have known the sheer amount of corruption afoot in this election, as well as the extent of the death grip political elites have on the entire system. I suppose old media has just become too entrenched and cozy with those in power to speak truth to power.
"a recent BuzzFeed analysis of top political pages on Facebook showed that right-wing sites published false or misleading information 38 percent of the time, and lefty sites did so 20 percent of the time."
In a recent analysis by the ultra-leftist junk news site Buzzfeed, they've found that right wing sites are worst than left wing sites. Wow, that's some great journalism right there. That kind of reporting is why we should ignore new media and stick with the old.
[+] [-] existencebox|9 years ago|reply
"Stick with the old?" Would you really cite CNN, Fox, NBC and pals as unbiased reporting? From where I'm standing the playing field and the game is almost unchanged, the players are just often different.
(You even seem to somewhat contradict yourself, acknowledging that the old news is very establishment-cozy, which to me would beg the sort of skewing you cite for new-news)
[+] [-] Goronmon|9 years ago|reply
Definitely agreed. People just need to learn to only visit news sites that carefully align with their own personal biases. That's what makes the Internet nowadays so great. It's much easier to ignore people ignorant enough to disagree with you.
[+] [-] eli_gottlieb|9 years ago|reply
Also, ownership has become ultra-concentrated among the "old media". There'd be more of a case in its favor if old media actually competed with each-other in a diverse marketplace anymore.
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] wamsachel|9 years ago|reply
And corporate owned newspapers never did any distorting right NYT? Perhaps if the media had a shred of integrity, people wouldn't be going off to the onion to get their news.
[+] [-] the_cat_kittles|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ryanx435|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jamez1|9 years ago|reply
His whole premise is built on the amount of conspiracy theories we know of, rather than actual conspiracies, to show the internet is distorting the truth!
But maybe, ironically, he's proving that traditional media is what's broken, if trash like this is given a mouthpiece.
[+] [-] SticksAndBreaks|9 years ago|reply
What your hear is the whining for power decentralized away. And those calling for censorship, demand to reinstate it, so they can have it. Those not debunking fake news, but declaring unproofable conspirarcys at work, want to shirk the work or have something to win, when the truth is not found out.
[+] [-] orly_bookz|9 years ago|reply
"At this point, Raiden is contacted by AIs of the Colonel and Rosemary, introducing themselves as representatives of the Patriots, who reveal that the true purpose of the simulation was to see how they could simulate and control human behavior in order to prevent society from dumbing down due to trivial information drowning valuable knowledge and inconvenient truths."
[+] [-] jakeogh|9 years ago|reply
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CIMxvS-WEAER49I.png
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CINJUoqUwAEkSip.jpg
[+] [-] clydethefrog|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kahrkunne|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cafard|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] farright|9 years ago|reply
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