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Controversial opinion incoming: perhaps the audience for sites like 4chan/8chan reflects a curiosity created to some extent by the ever narrowing range of permi

Controversial opinion incoming: perhaps the audience for sites like 4chan/8chan reflects a curiosity created to some extent by the ever narrowing range of permitted news topics allowed by the MSM.

mempko 8y ago
MSM has always had a narrow range of news topics allowed. Narrow range with vigorous debate arguments inside that range. This isn't new. So what is new? The internet is 30 years old now. So that's not new. My controversial opinion is this: Pro-military and nationalist propaganda campaigns by the military since 2001, including a major push into video games, has radicalized a disenfranchised youth, who are seeing their world worse off than their parents. In other words, a military recruitment campaign went awry.
RandomGuyDTB 8y ago
A range which has been narrowing recently, meanwhile the chans have been popular for decades now. I agree with you in part; 4 & 8 have been gaining popularity because people just don't trust the news, but it's not because of fake news that people are joining. It's because the news doesn't agree with them.
rwz 8y ago
I'm pretty sure it's broader than this. It's a narrowing range of opinions that are allowed in public discourse. It doesn't change people's minds, it changes what they can and cannot say without risking their careers and public standing. It causes people to internalize their opinions. That leads to resentment and the resentment fosters the intensity of the feelings and pushes people into extremist territory. The extremism will always find the outlet, no matter how hard you try to control it. Think of Gab for example. The site has been described as "extremist friendly" or a "safe haven" for neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and the alt-right. The only reason the site exists in the first place, is that those people were pushed out from Twitter, outside of the realm of "allowed" mainstream opinions. The problem is that by pushing them out, you don't make them disappear, you make them less visible and more radicalised and dangerous.

Controversial opinion incoming: perhaps the audience for sites like 4chan/8chan reflects a curiosity created to some extent by the ever narrowing range of permitted news topics allowed by the MSM.

mempko 8y ago

MSM has always had a narrow range of news topics allowed. Narrow range with vigorous debate arguments inside that range. This isn't new. So what is new? The internet is 30 years old now. So that's not new. My controversial opinion is this: Pro-military and nationalist propaganda campaigns by the military since 2001, including a major push into video games, has radicalized a disenfranchised youth, who are seeing their world worse off than their parents. In other words, a military recruitment campaign went awry.

RandomGuyDTB 8y ago

A range which has been narrowing recently, meanwhile the chans have been popular for decades now. I agree with you in part; 4 & 8 have been gaining popularity because people just don't trust the news, but it's not because of fake news that people are joining. It's because the news doesn't agree with them.

rwz 8y ago

I'm pretty sure it's broader than this. It's a narrowing range of opinions that are allowed in public discourse. It doesn't change people's minds, it changes what they can and cannot say without risking their careers and public standing. It causes people to internalize their opinions. That leads to resentment and the resentment fosters the intensity of the feelings and pushes people into extremist territory. The extremism will always find the outlet, no matter how hard you try to control it. Think of Gab for example. The site has been described as "extremist friendly" or a "safe haven" for neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and the alt-right. The only reason the site exists in the first place, is that those people were pushed out from Twitter, outside of the realm of "allowed" mainstream opinions. The problem is that by pushing them out, you don't make them disappear, you make them less visible and more radicalised and dangerous.