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I don't agree with the censorship decision, but I completely get why other countries don't like Oliver's show. He likes to denounce other countries' politics fr

I don't agree with the censorship decision, but I completely get why other countries don't like Oliver's show. He likes to denounce other countries' politics from the point of view of liberal, first world policy, which may not be in the best interest of other nations. Even though he is doing comedy for the first world market, it comes off clearly as another attempt of propaganda directed at these countries. The way China has decided to deal with this is banning, so I don't think this is a surprising development.

amerine 8y ago
If I squint and ignore the fact that personalities like Oliver have been doing their ideological-driven (rightly so IMO) comedy perspective bits for years I can see how how you could naively call that “propaganda”. However, the logical side of me can’t fathom how the reported events are anything remotely “propaganda”. They are legitimate things that free-press nations can discuss how they like, including laughing at them. You can’t call things that rustle your jimmies propaganda just like you can’t call news you don’t like fake.
- tajen 8y ago
  John Oliver is correct but the lack of publication of competing viewpoints is what defines US (Democrat) propaganda. For example I’ve seen him state that the wage gap was 25%, straight face! that’s where the alternative viewpoints are sorely lacking and, when you learn the history of achors who have only questioned the credibility of this statistic, you can clearly say: Censorship is enforced with violence in USA.
  - nemothekid 8y ago
    >For example I’ve seen him state that the wage gap was 25%, straight face! that’s where the alternative viewpoints are sorely lacking I can't believe this "alternate viewpoints" bull is really propagating into the ether. He's either wrong or he's right. He either telling the truth, lying or ignorant. A wage gap almost certainly exists, and can likely attributed to a number of factors backed up by factual research. "Alternate viewpoints" is a laughable reason to let anyone with a soapbox dump garbage into the ether.
    - EpicEng 8y ago
      The world is full of shades of gray. Saying there is a 25% wage gap may not be technically incorrect, but it also doesn't go into _why_ that gap exists. It doesn't say how that number was arrived at or if it is the best representation we can come up with. If you think the world is black and white you're going to lack understanding on almost any subject because, in the real world, nuance is a thing.
  - givinguflac 8y ago
    Are you trying to say that conservative media is a bastion of published opposing viewpoints? Serious question, do you have a reference for that? I’ve not found any in recent times. Not for nothing, it’s a comedy show that reports on the news. How that can be construed as propaganda is beyond me.
  - icebraining 8y ago
    For example I’ve seen him state that the wage gap was 25%, straight face Where? I've just seen his clip on the wage gap[1] and he says no such thing. Is there another clip? [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsB1e-1BB4Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsB1e-1BB4Y
- EpicEng 8y ago
  >You can’t call things that rustle your jimmies propaganda just like you can’t call news you don’t like fake. I don't think that's a great analogy. Oliver is biased and he has never pretended to be a journalist. He presents stories he cares about from a specific viewpoint. The definition of propaganda is: >information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view. Seems fitting. Just because you may agree does not make it any less propaganda. Essentially any narrative which is not 100% fact based and unbiased is technically propaganda.
  - dagw 8y ago
    Essentially any narrative which is not 100% fact based and unbiased is technically propaganda. So in your world is all news propaganda?
    - EpicEng 8y ago
      In my world, which is the same as yours, where the word "propoganda" has a definition, I consider all news which fits the definition to in fact be propaganda, yes. Let me ask you this? Do you consider Fox News propaganda? How about MSNBC? CNN? If not, which shows specifically? I'm fairly certain the _majority_ of what those networks air falls squarely in the propaganda bucket because what they air is primarily dictated by how much money they think it will make them. An example of news which I would not consider propaganda is PBS Newshour. In general they are pretty good. Not easy to tell though; you really have to do a lot of work on your own to be certain.
      - eeeuo 8y ago
        > "I'm fairly certain the _majority_ of what those networks air falls squarely in the propaganda bucket because what they air is primarily dictated by how much money they think it will make them." This explanation seems confused to me. Is the primary concern of these networks ideology or is it profit? If it's ideology, then profit does not dictate their content. If it's profit, then ideology does not dictate their content. There, of course, is overlap, but there must be one primary goal that ultimately decides content. Personally, I do not believe those news organizations are propaganda because I do not believe they would forego profit to push an ideological stance. In contrast, I believe that state media in China would forego profits to push an ideological stance. As a real world example, we can consider how the New York Times pushed the Clinton e-mail story ad nausem in the lead up to the 2016 election, despite this being in opposition to the ideology of the majority of its readers.
- nnash 8y ago
  > You can’t call things that rustle your jimmies propaganda Didn't China do exactly this?
  - ggggtez 8y ago
    Obviously the point is that the difference between the West and China, is that here we believe that censorship by the government should be illegal. Obviously if you want to live in China, go right the heck ahead.
    - nnash 8y ago
      >Obviously the point is that the difference between the West and China... Thanks for explaining my comment to the rest of the class.
- jrs95 8y ago
  I completely agree except for the part about what John Oliver does being comedy. It's just not funny. IMO this whole genre has devolved into being mostly not actually comedy anymore. Stewart and Colbert were both hilarious, but I feel like that was a primary goal of their content. Now it seems like it's gone from comedic and satirical opiniomated news/talk show to just a comedian doing an opinionated news/talk show.
  - jrs95 8y ago
    > opioniomated Welp. Wish I saw that one while edit was still an option.
- deleted 8y ago
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pvg 8y ago
It's a dude with a comedy show on HBO. How is it 'clearly another attempt of propaganda directed at these countries'? It's not like he's on VOA every week.
- adventured 8y ago
  In a given year, Oliver's content reaches dramatically more than 10x the number of people that VOA does. He has a platform and he's pushing an ideological view. He isn't just a dude with a comedy show on HBO. That same argument was used to try to undercut critics of Jon Stewart, who similarly had a massive reach and was aggressively pushing a specific ideological view, using comedy to do so. It doesn't matter if you're getting your point across with comedy or non-comedy as the means. Edit reply to pvg below (my replies are throttled): Reach isn't necessarily consumption. Oliver actually has massive consumption, VOA does not. VOA's political propaganda doesn't have the implied consumption that is claimed there. Not even remotely close. If you want to see just how weak VOA actually is, check out their YouTube channel. 187,000 subscribers, hardly anybody is watching their content. Where is the massive audience? Where is the epic demand implied by 236 million? There is blatantly minimal interest in VOA. They're lucky if they get 1,000 views on a video. That's after ten years on YouTube and publishing numerous videos per day (which, again, nobody is watching). https://www.youtube.com/user/VOAvideo https://www.youtube.com/user/VOAvideo Last Week Tonight has 6.2 million subscribers. 1.6 billion views in just four years. A typical video is getting three or four million views (3,000x+ of what VOA is seeing on their YouTube channel). https://www.youtube.com/user/LastWeekTonight https://www.youtube.com/user/LastWeekTonight Oliver actually has vast media consumption, VOA has reach with a small amount of consumption. I also never said that having a viewpoint is propaganda directed at other countries, nor did I say that propaganda is shorthand for what I disagree with, you're inventing all of that.
  - pvg 8y ago
    Oliver's content reaches dramatically more than 10x the number of people that VOA does. You think John Oliver reaches 'dramatically more than 10x' people than VOA? Take a look at: https://www.insidevoa.com/a/a-record-for-voice-of-americas-global-audience-growth/3598890.html https://www.insidevoa.com/a/a-record-for-voice-of-americas-g... You're saying John Oliver is reaching a couple of billion people weekly. This strikes me as somewhat unlikely. As to the other thing, having a viewpoint is not 'propaganda directed at other countries'. 'Propaganda' is not shorthand for 'a thing I disagree with'.
Reedx 8y ago
He's done a lot (most?) of his shows in the same fashion denouncing US-based companies, policies, etc. It's about issues, not countries.
- tehwebguy 8y ago
  This exactly. The top 1 or 2 post on HN right now is about civil forfeiture in the US, a policy I’d guess most people familiar with it today had never heard of before the Oliver segment on it a few years back.
deleted 8y ago
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erikpukinskis 8y ago
I can watch John Oliver a lot more easily than Stephen Colbert. Oliver at least does his homework, presents facts, and produces episodes on issues that actually matter to him. Colbert just seems like the democrat equivalent of Fox News... putting a leftish spin on whatever issue crosses his desk without any regard for journalism. Even when he speaks on lefty issues that I care about, he seems disingenuous. Like he’s just trying to get brownie points for being progressive. I think he’s so scared of being lumped in with other white men he just goes along ideologically with whatever the lefty zeitgeist tells him to do. His interviews with people of color are like pulling teeth for me to watch. He’s trying to pander to them, but you can tell he doesn’t actually understand racism or black experience with any depth. He is looking for the “right” thing to say without necessarily caring why it’s right or wrong. It’s awkward because someone like Jay-Z doesn’t care if you pander to him. He’s dealing with actual politics and actual discrimination and I think people like that are often insulted when someone like Colbert comes at them with the “look at this, aren’t I saying right things?” song and dance.
- jrs95 8y ago
  I loved him while he was in character on The Colbert Report. Now...not so much. FWIW I can't sit through Trevor Noah or John Oliver either though. And I'm a liberal. It reminds me of being forced to sit through church as a child.
decacorn1 8y ago
No, actually nothing he analyzes is from a liberal point of view. That is completely false.

amerine 8y ago

If I squint and ignore the fact that personalities like Oliver have been doing their ideological-driven (rightly so IMO) comedy perspective bits for years I can see how how you could naively call that “propaganda”. However, the logical side of me can’t fathom how the reported events are anything remotely “propaganda”. They are legitimate things that free-press nations can discuss how they like, including laughing at them. You can’t call things that rustle your jimmies propaganda just like you can’t call news you don’t like fake.

tajen 8y ago
John Oliver is correct but the lack of publication of competing viewpoints is what defines US (Democrat) propaganda. For example I’ve seen him state that the wage gap was 25%, straight face! that’s where the alternative viewpoints are sorely lacking and, when you learn the history of achors who have only questioned the credibility of this statistic, you can clearly say: Censorship is enforced with violence in USA.
- nemothekid 8y ago
  >For example I’ve seen him state that the wage gap was 25%, straight face! that’s where the alternative viewpoints are sorely lacking I can't believe this "alternate viewpoints" bull is really propagating into the ether. He's either wrong or he's right. He either telling the truth, lying or ignorant. A wage gap almost certainly exists, and can likely attributed to a number of factors backed up by factual research. "Alternate viewpoints" is a laughable reason to let anyone with a soapbox dump garbage into the ether.
  - EpicEng 8y ago
    The world is full of shades of gray. Saying there is a 25% wage gap may not be technically incorrect, but it also doesn't go into _why_ that gap exists. It doesn't say how that number was arrived at or if it is the best representation we can come up with. If you think the world is black and white you're going to lack understanding on almost any subject because, in the real world, nuance is a thing.
- givinguflac 8y ago
  Are you trying to say that conservative media is a bastion of published opposing viewpoints? Serious question, do you have a reference for that? I’ve not found any in recent times. Not for nothing, it’s a comedy show that reports on the news. How that can be construed as propaganda is beyond me.
- icebraining 8y ago
  For example I’ve seen him state that the wage gap was 25%, straight face Where? I've just seen his clip on the wage gap[1] and he says no such thing. Is there another clip? [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsB1e-1BB4Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsB1e-1BB4Y
EpicEng 8y ago
>You can’t call things that rustle your jimmies propaganda just like you can’t call news you don’t like fake. I don't think that's a great analogy. Oliver is biased and he has never pretended to be a journalist. He presents stories he cares about from a specific viewpoint. The definition of propaganda is: >information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view. Seems fitting. Just because you may agree does not make it any less propaganda. Essentially any narrative which is not 100% fact based and unbiased is technically propaganda.
- dagw 8y ago
  Essentially any narrative which is not 100% fact based and unbiased is technically propaganda. So in your world is all news propaganda?
  - EpicEng 8y ago
    In my world, which is the same as yours, where the word "propoganda" has a definition, I consider all news which fits the definition to in fact be propaganda, yes. Let me ask you this? Do you consider Fox News propaganda? How about MSNBC? CNN? If not, which shows specifically? I'm fairly certain the _majority_ of what those networks air falls squarely in the propaganda bucket because what they air is primarily dictated by how much money they think it will make them. An example of news which I would not consider propaganda is PBS Newshour. In general they are pretty good. Not easy to tell though; you really have to do a lot of work on your own to be certain.
    - eeeuo 8y ago
      > "I'm fairly certain the _majority_ of what those networks air falls squarely in the propaganda bucket because what they air is primarily dictated by how much money they think it will make them." This explanation seems confused to me. Is the primary concern of these networks ideology or is it profit? If it's ideology, then profit does not dictate their content. If it's profit, then ideology does not dictate their content. There, of course, is overlap, but there must be one primary goal that ultimately decides content. Personally, I do not believe those news organizations are propaganda because I do not believe they would forego profit to push an ideological stance. In contrast, I believe that state media in China would forego profits to push an ideological stance. As a real world example, we can consider how the New York Times pushed the Clinton e-mail story ad nausem in the lead up to the 2016 election, despite this being in opposition to the ideology of the majority of its readers.
nnash 8y ago
> You can’t call things that rustle your jimmies propaganda Didn't China do exactly this?
- ggggtez 8y ago
  Obviously the point is that the difference between the West and China, is that here we believe that censorship by the government should be illegal. Obviously if you want to live in China, go right the heck ahead.
  - nnash 8y ago
    >Obviously the point is that the difference between the West and China... Thanks for explaining my comment to the rest of the class.
jrs95 8y ago
I completely agree except for the part about what John Oliver does being comedy. It's just not funny. IMO this whole genre has devolved into being mostly not actually comedy anymore. Stewart and Colbert were both hilarious, but I feel like that was a primary goal of their content. Now it seems like it's gone from comedic and satirical opiniomated news/talk show to just a comedian doing an opinionated news/talk show.
- jrs95 8y ago
  > opioniomated Welp. Wish I saw that one while edit was still an option.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

pvg 8y ago

It's a dude with a comedy show on HBO. How is it 'clearly another attempt of propaganda directed at these countries'? It's not like he's on VOA every week.

adventured 8y ago
In a given year, Oliver's content reaches dramatically more than 10x the number of people that VOA does. He has a platform and he's pushing an ideological view. He isn't just a dude with a comedy show on HBO. That same argument was used to try to undercut critics of Jon Stewart, who similarly had a massive reach and was aggressively pushing a specific ideological view, using comedy to do so. It doesn't matter if you're getting your point across with comedy or non-comedy as the means. Edit reply to pvg below (my replies are throttled): Reach isn't necessarily consumption. Oliver actually has massive consumption, VOA does not. VOA's political propaganda doesn't have the implied consumption that is claimed there. Not even remotely close. If you want to see just how weak VOA actually is, check out their YouTube channel. 187,000 subscribers, hardly anybody is watching their content. Where is the massive audience? Where is the epic demand implied by 236 million? There is blatantly minimal interest in VOA. They're lucky if they get 1,000 views on a video. That's after ten years on YouTube and publishing numerous videos per day (which, again, nobody is watching). https://www.youtube.com/user/VOAvideo https://www.youtube.com/user/VOAvideo Last Week Tonight has 6.2 million subscribers. 1.6 billion views in just four years. A typical video is getting three or four million views (3,000x+ of what VOA is seeing on their YouTube channel). https://www.youtube.com/user/LastWeekTonight https://www.youtube.com/user/LastWeekTonight Oliver actually has vast media consumption, VOA has reach with a small amount of consumption. I also never said that having a viewpoint is propaganda directed at other countries, nor did I say that propaganda is shorthand for what I disagree with, you're inventing all of that.
- pvg 8y ago
  Oliver's content reaches dramatically more than 10x the number of people that VOA does. You think John Oliver reaches 'dramatically more than 10x' people than VOA? Take a look at: https://www.insidevoa.com/a/a-record-for-voice-of-americas-global-audience-growth/3598890.html https://www.insidevoa.com/a/a-record-for-voice-of-americas-g... You're saying John Oliver is reaching a couple of billion people weekly. This strikes me as somewhat unlikely. As to the other thing, having a viewpoint is not 'propaganda directed at other countries'. 'Propaganda' is not shorthand for 'a thing I disagree with'.

Reedx 8y ago

He's done a lot (most?) of his shows in the same fashion denouncing US-based companies, policies, etc. It's about issues, not countries.

tehwebguy 8y ago
This exactly. The top 1 or 2 post on HN right now is about civil forfeiture in the US, a policy I’d guess most people familiar with it today had never heard of before the Oliver segment on it a few years back.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

erikpukinskis 8y ago

I can watch John Oliver a lot more easily than Stephen Colbert. Oliver at least does his homework, presents facts, and produces episodes on issues that actually matter to him. Colbert just seems like the democrat equivalent of Fox News... putting a leftish spin on whatever issue crosses his desk without any regard for journalism. Even when he speaks on lefty issues that I care about, he seems disingenuous. Like he’s just trying to get brownie points for being progressive. I think he’s so scared of being lumped in with other white men he just goes along ideologically with whatever the lefty zeitgeist tells him to do. His interviews with people of color are like pulling teeth for me to watch. He’s trying to pander to them, but you can tell he doesn’t actually understand racism or black experience with any depth. He is looking for the “right” thing to say without necessarily caring why it’s right or wrong. It’s awkward because someone like Jay-Z doesn’t care if you pander to him. He’s dealing with actual politics and actual discrimination and I think people like that are often insulted when someone like Colbert comes at them with the “look at this, aren’t I saying right things?” song and dance.

jrs95 8y ago
I loved him while he was in character on The Colbert Report. Now...not so much. FWIW I can't sit through Trevor Noah or John Oliver either though. And I'm a liberal. It reminds me of being forced to sit through church as a child.

decacorn1 8y ago

No, actually nothing he analyzes is from a liberal point of view. That is completely false.