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Could you flesh your comment out a bit more? How are they more insidious than Infowars? I am assuming the worst thing Infowars has done was claim that that on

Could you flesh your comment out a bit more? How are they more insidious than Infowars? I am assuming the worst thing Infowars has done was claim that that one school shooting was a fake shooting and the survivors crisis actors. By contrast my impression of Zero Hedge has been that they are constant economic contrarians. If mainstream media is touting the strong economy, Zero Hedge posters are writing about how fiat currency is unsustainable and how the long-term trend low interest rates is creating a bubble. I do agree the sources of their article range from "I think I heard somewhere" to "based on this Bloomberg data", it's all over the place. But I don't think I've ever seen anything that I would call insidious. Fair disclaimer that I follow Zero Hedge on Twitter, for much the same reason I follow CNBC: I need a perma-bear to balance out the perma-bull.

sleepysysadmin 8y ago
>Could you flesh your comment out a bit more? How are they more insidious than Infowars? I am assuming the worst thing Infowars has done was claim that that one school shooting was a fake shooting and the survivors crisis actors. Infowars is tabloid material at best; but even they say that this is a lie. They never asserted this. >But I don't think I've ever seen anything that I would call insidious. I've found myself on zerohedge a few times through investing reasons. I've looked through their content and I'm not really seeing anything offensive really. >Fair disclaimer that I follow Zero Hedge on Twitter, for much the same reason I follow CNBC: I need a perma-bear to balance out the perma-bull. Very wise move.
- joshuamorton 8y ago
  >Infowars is tabloid material at best; but even they say that this is a lie. They never asserted this. Yes they did. Alex Jones initially called Sandy Hook a hoax and the families crisis actors. He is being (so far successfully) sued for such acts[0]. He did walk back some of those claims, but here's his words: >"Yeah, so, Sandy Hook is a synthetic completely fake with actors, in my view, manufactured. I couldn’t believe it at first. I knew they had actors there, clearly, but I thought they killed some real kids. And it just shows how bold they are, that they clearly used actors. I mean they even ended up using photos of kids killed in mass shootings here in a fake mass shooting in Turkey -- so yeah, or Pakistan. The sky is now the limit. I appreciate your call."[1] They're tricky to find because they are not written but made live on a radio show, but yeah Infowars absolutely claimed that sandy hook parents and children were actors. [0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/31/us/politics/alex-jones-defamation-suit-sandy-hook.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/31/us/politics/alex-jones-de... [1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20170303201414/http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2016/sep/01/hillary-clinton/hillary-clinton-correct-austins-alex-jones-said-no/ https://web.archive.org/web/20170303201414/http://www.politi...
  - sleepysysadmin 8y ago
    >Yes they did. Alex Jones initially called Sandy Hook a hoax and the families crisis actors. He is being (so far successfully) sued for such acts[0]. He did walk back some of those claims, but here's his words: Could you provide a source for this? Both your links do not source anything from alex jones. >They're tricky to find because they are not written but made live on a radio show, but yeah Infowars absolutely claimed that sandy hook parents and children were actors. When we have a censorship and false accusation problem ongoing. You need to provide the source. Dont get me wrong, alex jones is tabloid quality at best... but when you have the left-wing calling the right-wing nazis without any evidence of these people being nazis is insane.
    - joshuamorton 8y ago
      Yes they do, from the second link >the second hour of Jones’ Jan. 13, 2015 show Given that he posted them on Youtube and is now banned, I'm not sure where to find them now. Nor do I have any interest in trying to figure it out. However, it looks like you can listen to hour 2 here[1] after entering the date. I haven't tried though. [1]: http://www.gcnlive.com/JW1D/index.php/archivespage?showCode=1 http://www.gcnlive.com/JW1D/index.php/archivespage?showCode=...
      - sleepysysadmin 8y ago
        A couple videos I cannot watch is not a valid source. Again, there is a repeat issue of the left-wing lying and making false accusations against right-wingers. Ben Shapiro for example is a practicing jew but is regularly called a nazi. I would love to hear your source but Alex Jones denies ever saying it and I'm not seeing any sources. Regardless, again the guy is a walking tabloid. He literally calls himself retarded.The guy rants on and on for hours everyday. He gets super drunk and high. The guy is going to say retarded things. Yet you're going back to a 2015 show to find something the dumbass said and you cant even prove it? That's some pretty weak arguments.
        joshuamorton 8y ago
cm2187 8y ago
I'd define them as an infowar for people with a college degree!
pjc50 8y ago
> I need a perma-bear to balance out the perma-bull. With two stopped clocks you can tell the right time!
tptacek 8y ago
You understand that pretty much anyone could relay random bits of technical news and produce banal op-eds about market conditions, calibrating the amount of jargon to sound just a level or two above Bloomberg, and then mix insane conspiracy theories into that feed, right? Like, it'd be a 9-5 job to keep it going, but not an especially difficult one. Back in the mid-late 1990s I ran technical operations for what was then Chicago's most popular ISP (it was eventually acquired, through multiple hops, by RCN). Our arch-competitor was a very strange guy named Karl Denninger, about whom I would relate stories here but I'm pretty sure he'll have a Google search set up on his name and I'd rather not pay to have bogus lawsuits against me dismissed. Anyways: he runs one of these sites, a sort of Zero-Hedge Jr, at Market-Ticker.org. Maybe switch to Market-Ticker. It's just as batshit as Zero Hedge, but I'm pretty sure Karl isn't trying to influence low-information American voters about Syria.
- camelite 8y ago
  The only thing approaching an answer to the question you were asked was zerohedges Syria spin. Care to expand on that? My belief is that mainstream us new sources, including the most august, have been guilty of Iraq-level pro-war journalistic mispractice, absolutly hysterical xenophobic jingoism in some cases, in their quest to advance the geopolitical aims of the saudi-israeli-turkey-quatar-us-british-etc coalition. It's not pretty at all. I welcome zh's anti-war activism in principle at least.
- a_tractor 8y ago
  >You understand that pretty much anyone could relay random bits of technical news and produce banal op-eds about market conditions, calibrating the amount of jargon to sound just a level or two above Bloomberg, and then mix insane conspiracy theories into that feed, right? Like, it'd be a 9-5 job to keep it going, but not an especially difficult one. And this is different from me doing the same thing with a status update.... how? Also, you understand that any other media outlet can do and often does the same exact thing? You think inserting pieces of an agenda/propaganda into news articles is something limited to ZH? How is this not just an argument against the Internet and free speech in general. I mean, "anyone" could just lie or say something false! How would we ever know the difference?! >but I'm pretty sure Karl isn't trying to influence low-information American voters about Syria Lets just go back to Monarchy, people are apparently too stupid and "low-information" for something as advanced as Democracy. Is that what you mean? Not saying you are wrong, btw, just asking. How is controlling what people are allowed to read or watch or know about any different than controlling what they think, how is that not the same thing as controlling what they do and how they behave, how are you not destroying their independent agency, and essentially corrupting democracy at its very premise? I agree that spreading misinformation and dishonest propaganda to manipulate ignorant and low-IQ people would lead to the very same end, that is obvious and was basically the status quo before the Information Age, but the difference between propaganda (noise) and censorship (silence) is like the difference between using a condom and full castration.

sleepysysadmin 8y ago

>Could you flesh your comment out a bit more? How are they more insidious than Infowars? I am assuming the worst thing Infowars has done was claim that that one school shooting was a fake shooting and the survivors crisis actors. Infowars is tabloid material at best; but even they say that this is a lie. They never asserted this. >But I don't think I've ever seen anything that I would call insidious. I've found myself on zerohedge a few times through investing reasons. I've looked through their content and I'm not really seeing anything offensive really. >Fair disclaimer that I follow Zero Hedge on Twitter, for much the same reason I follow CNBC: I need a perma-bear to balance out the perma-bull. Very wise move.

joshuamorton 8y ago
>Infowars is tabloid material at best; but even they say that this is a lie. They never asserted this. Yes they did. Alex Jones initially called Sandy Hook a hoax and the families crisis actors. He is being (so far successfully) sued for such acts[0]. He did walk back some of those claims, but here's his words: >"Yeah, so, Sandy Hook is a synthetic completely fake with actors, in my view, manufactured. I couldn’t believe it at first. I knew they had actors there, clearly, but I thought they killed some real kids. And it just shows how bold they are, that they clearly used actors. I mean they even ended up using photos of kids killed in mass shootings here in a fake mass shooting in Turkey -- so yeah, or Pakistan. The sky is now the limit. I appreciate your call."[1] They're tricky to find because they are not written but made live on a radio show, but yeah Infowars absolutely claimed that sandy hook parents and children were actors. [0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/31/us/politics/alex-jones-defamation-suit-sandy-hook.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/31/us/politics/alex-jones-de... [1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20170303201414/http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2016/sep/01/hillary-clinton/hillary-clinton-correct-austins-alex-jones-said-no/ https://web.archive.org/web/20170303201414/http://www.politi...
- sleepysysadmin 8y ago
  >Yes they did. Alex Jones initially called Sandy Hook a hoax and the families crisis actors. He is being (so far successfully) sued for such acts[0]. He did walk back some of those claims, but here's his words: Could you provide a source for this? Both your links do not source anything from alex jones. >They're tricky to find because they are not written but made live on a radio show, but yeah Infowars absolutely claimed that sandy hook parents and children were actors. When we have a censorship and false accusation problem ongoing. You need to provide the source. Dont get me wrong, alex jones is tabloid quality at best... but when you have the left-wing calling the right-wing nazis without any evidence of these people being nazis is insane.
  - joshuamorton 8y ago
    Yes they do, from the second link >the second hour of Jones’ Jan. 13, 2015 show Given that he posted them on Youtube and is now banned, I'm not sure where to find them now. Nor do I have any interest in trying to figure it out. However, it looks like you can listen to hour 2 here[1] after entering the date. I haven't tried though. [1]: http://www.gcnlive.com/JW1D/index.php/archivespage?showCode=1 http://www.gcnlive.com/JW1D/index.php/archivespage?showCode=...
    - sleepysysadmin 8y ago
      A couple videos I cannot watch is not a valid source. Again, there is a repeat issue of the left-wing lying and making false accusations against right-wingers. Ben Shapiro for example is a practicing jew but is regularly called a nazi. I would love to hear your source but Alex Jones denies ever saying it and I'm not seeing any sources. Regardless, again the guy is a walking tabloid. He literally calls himself retarded.The guy rants on and on for hours everyday. He gets super drunk and high. The guy is going to say retarded things. Yet you're going back to a 2015 show to find something the dumbass said and you cant even prove it? That's some pretty weak arguments.
      - joshuamorton 8y ago

cm2187 8y ago

I'd define them as an infowar for people with a college degree!

pjc50 8y ago

> I need a perma-bear to balance out the perma-bull. With two stopped clocks you can tell the right time!

tptacek 8y ago

You understand that pretty much anyone could relay random bits of technical news and produce banal op-eds about market conditions, calibrating the amount of jargon to sound just a level or two above Bloomberg, and then mix insane conspiracy theories into that feed, right? Like, it'd be a 9-5 job to keep it going, but not an especially difficult one. Back in the mid-late 1990s I ran technical operations for what was then Chicago's most popular ISP (it was eventually acquired, through multiple hops, by RCN). Our arch-competitor was a very strange guy named Karl Denninger, about whom I would relate stories here but I'm pretty sure he'll have a Google search set up on his name and I'd rather not pay to have bogus lawsuits against me dismissed. Anyways: he runs one of these sites, a sort of Zero-Hedge Jr, at Market-Ticker.org. Maybe switch to Market-Ticker. It's just as batshit as Zero Hedge, but I'm pretty sure Karl isn't trying to influence low-information American voters about Syria.

camelite 8y ago
The only thing approaching an answer to the question you were asked was zerohedges Syria spin. Care to expand on that? My belief is that mainstream us new sources, including the most august, have been guilty of Iraq-level pro-war journalistic mispractice, absolutly hysterical xenophobic jingoism in some cases, in their quest to advance the geopolitical aims of the saudi-israeli-turkey-quatar-us-british-etc coalition. It's not pretty at all. I welcome zh's anti-war activism in principle at least.
a_tractor 8y ago
>You understand that pretty much anyone could relay random bits of technical news and produce banal op-eds about market conditions, calibrating the amount of jargon to sound just a level or two above Bloomberg, and then mix insane conspiracy theories into that feed, right? Like, it'd be a 9-5 job to keep it going, but not an especially difficult one. And this is different from me doing the same thing with a status update.... how? Also, you understand that any other media outlet can do and often does the same exact thing? You think inserting pieces of an agenda/propaganda into news articles is something limited to ZH? How is this not just an argument against the Internet and free speech in general. I mean, "anyone" could just lie or say something false! How would we ever know the difference?! >but I'm pretty sure Karl isn't trying to influence low-information American voters about Syria Lets just go back to Monarchy, people are apparently too stupid and "low-information" for something as advanced as Democracy. Is that what you mean? Not saying you are wrong, btw, just asking. How is controlling what people are allowed to read or watch or know about any different than controlling what they think, how is that not the same thing as controlling what they do and how they behave, how are you not destroying their independent agency, and essentially corrupting democracy at its very premise? I agree that spreading misinformation and dishonest propaganda to manipulate ignorant and low-IQ people would lead to the very same end, that is obvious and was basically the status quo before the Information Age, but the difference between propaganda (noise) and censorship (silence) is like the difference between using a condom and full castration.