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This is demonstrably untrue, I have read many articles showing collaboration between major news outlets and the US government. I think wikileaks mentioned it to

This is demonstrably untrue, I have read many articles showing collaboration between major news outlets and the US government. I think wikileaks mentioned it too. Specifically John Podesta saying something along the lines of "lets ask one of our friendlies at AP to plant a story". Even if all the wikileaks and other reports were untrue, this isnt a conspiracy theory, the US media needs collaboration from the US government if it wants to get invited to white house press conferences, be called upon in them etc. Revoking media access to the US government is very much in the power of the US government. You are being very naive to think that the US government has zero control over the media. The US government regularly talks with silicon valley companies, I'm sure Mark Zuckerberg had a few meetings discussing how to combat fake news aka suppress articles from rt.com and breitbart. Not just that, it is public knowledge that facebook and google are part of the prism program that gives direct access to their data to the US government. So in light of all that, your tone is quite inappropiate because it is in fact you who speaks out of ignorance.

tptacek 10y ago
Your theory here being that the US government will use its friendly relationship with the AP to censor stories favorable to Russia, and that it's a newly passed law that's going to enable them to do that? This isn't coherent. Either the government is constantly acting sub rosa to manipulate media narratives, in which case this bill doesn't matter because they're already doing it, or they aren't, in which case this bill doesn't matter because the US government has no formal control over the media. It is surprising how many HN discussions about newly proposed (or, here, signed) legislation take this form.
- bendbro 10y ago
  I believe the fallacy you've created here is called a false dichotomy. There are obvious shades of gray here. In the category of the government already doing it, there is a difference in outcomes between doing it with x funds and n*x funds.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    It's not a dichotomy at all. It's an argument that doesn't hold together. As in virtually every HN argument about legislation, someone has supposed that the government needs a new law to do something the arguer claims the government routinely accomplishes lawlessly.

tptacek 10y ago

Your theory here being that the US government will use its friendly relationship with the AP to censor stories favorable to Russia, and that it's a newly passed law that's going to enable them to do that? This isn't coherent. Either the government is constantly acting sub rosa to manipulate media narratives, in which case this bill doesn't matter because they're already doing it, or they aren't, in which case this bill doesn't matter because the US government has no formal control over the media. It is surprising how many HN discussions about newly proposed (or, here, signed) legislation take this form.

bendbro 10y ago
I believe the fallacy you've created here is called a false dichotomy. There are obvious shades of gray here. In the category of the government already doing it, there is a difference in outcomes between doing it with x funds and n*x funds.
- tptacek 10y ago
  It's not a dichotomy at all. It's an argument that doesn't hold together. As in virtually every HN argument about legislation, someone has supposed that the government needs a new law to do something the arguer claims the government routinely accomplishes lawlessly.