4 ms·

The answer to me seems quite clear: 1. You want representation of both sides of the political spectrum, otherwise you'll be accused of bias. The number of righ

by bArray 7y ago

The answer to me seems quite clear: 1. You want representation of both sides of the political spectrum, otherwise you'll be accused of bias. The number of right leaning news sources is relatively few (from what I have observed), I don't imagine there were many for the pick. 2. If you actually read the front page, the majority of their news appears to be reasonably good [1] (at least compared to other popular new sites). It's hardly the Daily Stormer [2]. 3. There are more right-leaning people out there than the majority of people realize. In fact, they number roughly half the population in most Countries. As a left-leaning person you should also be aware of what the other side thinks, rather than being subjected to news source that reinforce your own bias. 4. I think the "negative" impact of Breitbart is largely reduced when depicted side-by-side with other sources of news. If anything it simply allows people to know that there is more than one opinion on the subject. [1] https://www.breitbart.com/ https://www.breitbart.com/ [2] https://dailystormer.name/ https://dailystormer.name/

deogeo 7y ago
> more than one opinion on the subject. In my experience, the difference between publications isn't so much in the opinions they express, but in which stories they choose to cover. Go to reason.com for stories of government abuse of power, and motherjones.com for corporate abuses. They can cover their stories accurately, but simply by choosing which they cover, they will paint a very different picture of reality.
- bArray 7y ago
  For sure - but this is precisely the reason we should all reach for a wide variety of sources. Your typical left-wing news source might choose not to publish a story critical of left-wing politics for example, whereas Breitbart would likely jump on the opportunity. Breitbart on the other hand might choose not to be critical of right-wing political stories. As my parents once told me as a child, the truth is often somewhere in the middle.
kibibu 7y ago
Breitbart courted a bunch of white nationalists, including Weev from the Daily Stormer. Buzzfeed has the emails to prove it. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/josephbernstein/heres-how-breitbart-and-milo-smuggled-white-nationalism https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/josephbernstein/heres-h...
- bArray 7y ago
  I scan read (it's quite long, sorry) - I didn't see much evidence for white nationalists. Sure, there was some "edgy" emails for sure, but nothing that seemed to indicate white nationalism. Maybe I missed it though, please feel free to point it out to me. To be clear, Wikipedia's definition is: > White nationalism is a type of nationalism or pan- > nationalism which espouses the belief that white people > are a race and seeks to develop and maintain a white > racial and national identity. Also the words "alt-right", "right-wing", "far-right" and "alt-lite" are used so interchangeably and often incorrectly, I've given up taking them seriously. They're often used as stand-ins for "not-left".
  - alphabettsy 7y ago
    Being “edgy” is just a way Of being a bully or bigot under the pretense of a joke. It’s not a new thing, just a new term for “dog whistles”.
    - bArray 7y ago
      I highly suspect you'll downvote my reply or simply ignore it - I hope you give me the time of day that I'm giving you. > Being “edgy” is just a way Of being a bully or bigot under > the pretense of a joke. The term "edgy" is to be on the edge of what could be generally called socially acceptable through some kind of content (such as a joke or opinion). The reason it is a joke and not just a statement of opinion is because there is some mutual understanding that the intention is to be funny and the setup subverts your expectations in some way. For example, the joke (chosen for being simple and controversial): "How do you make a postman cry? [Person thinks] Kill his family". The joke is funny not because you or I have some deep unsettled hatred for postman, it's funny because it subverted your expectations for how the joke should have ended. In information theory this would be "maximizing expected information gain" - or simply things are interesting. Postman might not find the joke funny, especially if they so happened to be on the receiving end of violence for example - but that not every joke is funny to everybody. The point is, if you find a comedian unfunny, stop paying for a ticket to go see their shows. If you dislike Breitbart's authors, don't read their content and bump up their ad revenue. This circles back to the benefits of capitalism - reward what you want to see more of, your money is your vote. > It’s not a new thing, just a new term for “dog whistles”. I'm not entirely sold on the term "dog whistle". Every joke is tailored for a specific audience and you may or may not be the target demographic. I wouldn't call jokes intended for children to be "dog whistles to children". If you mean that they are "secretly not meant to be jokes" - then why wouldn't they just outright say it? Why go to the effort of dressing it up as a joke? Especially in somewhere like America where their freedoms are protected up until the point of calls to violence. If anything, to me the term "dog whistle" exists only to write somebody off completely without having to think critically about the actual meaning behind what they have said. Saying something like "they are all nazis" allows somebody to write off a large group of people and their opinions in the same way a racist might against a race of people they don't want to debate with (which I can't give a good faith example of because this platform has it's own biases). The real political divide in many Countries is growing because people have become intellectually lazy. Platforms like Facebook are rewarded with return visits if they keep feeding you exactly the content you want to see, not the content you need to see. Perhaps Facebook and other social media platforms have realized that they do need to show you the other side of the argument, even if they risk driving user retention down.
hos234 7y ago
Well we already know, if you put the ideas of Galileo, Copernicus and Kepler next to those of the Church, and allow the people to figure things out for themselves, it takes a few hundred years. And most often those paths of learning, involve violence and domination by both sides. Learning takes a long time. People are incompetent at doing it by themselves even with health, wealth and intelligence. They need Skilled Teachers, Coaches and Counselors to do it well, which is why we don't leave kids at the Library for 18 years but at Schools. And even then they take time to learn. The News Industry never will play that role. But some of them pretend to do it and we can't let them. I think the left/right debate hides the fact there are a class of people these days who have discovered they can pay their mortgages by pretending to "inform and educate". They need to be filtered out irrespective of being on the left or right.
- bArray 7y ago
  > Well we already know, if you put the ideas of Galileo, > Copernicus and Kepler next to those of the Church, and > allow the people to figure things out for themselves, it > takes a few hundred years. I think that's a false equivalence. The Church actively tried to hide their work and were essentially state censors (over multiple states). Not only this, but the work of Galileo for example essentially threw doubt on people's core beliefs. I don't think Breitbart can be seen as powerful as the Church was. > And most often those paths of learning, involve violence > and domination by both sides. That's a miserable outlook on your fellow man, I choose to believe people are fundamentally rewarded for selecting good ideas over bad, which is why society seems to work. Ironically, it's groups that supposedly exist to fight violence and bad ideas who are the first to engage in it. > They need to be filtered out irrespective of being on the > left or right. How on earth do you create such a filter and manage it? Say you let the government control the filter, do you really trust any government whom gets into power to control such an important filter? How about a private company? Is there any group out there you really trust to control what news source/stories you get to see? If there was some 100% perfect way of achieving this - I would back it every day. The problem is, if there is a way to game/corrupt a system, there appears to always be people willing to do so. I believe that in the face of their not being a better solution, we should let the individual decide.

by bArray 7y ago

deogeo 7y ago

> more than one opinion on the subject. In my experience, the difference between publications isn't so much in the opinions they express, but in which stories they choose to cover. Go to reason.com for stories of government abuse of power, and motherjones.com for corporate abuses. They can cover their stories accurately, but simply by choosing which they cover, they will paint a very different picture of reality.

bArray 7y ago
For sure - but this is precisely the reason we should all reach for a wide variety of sources. Your typical left-wing news source might choose not to publish a story critical of left-wing politics for example, whereas Breitbart would likely jump on the opportunity. Breitbart on the other hand might choose not to be critical of right-wing political stories. As my parents once told me as a child, the truth is often somewhere in the middle.

kibibu 7y ago

Breitbart courted a bunch of white nationalists, including Weev from the Daily Stormer. Buzzfeed has the emails to prove it. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/josephbernstein/heres-how-breitbart-and-milo-smuggled-white-nationalism https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/josephbernstein/heres-h...

bArray 7y ago
I scan read (it's quite long, sorry) - I didn't see much evidence for white nationalists. Sure, there was some "edgy" emails for sure, but nothing that seemed to indicate white nationalism. Maybe I missed it though, please feel free to point it out to me. To be clear, Wikipedia's definition is: > White nationalism is a type of nationalism or pan- > nationalism which espouses the belief that white people > are a race and seeks to develop and maintain a white > racial and national identity. Also the words "alt-right", "right-wing", "far-right" and "alt-lite" are used so interchangeably and often incorrectly, I've given up taking them seriously. They're often used as stand-ins for "not-left".
- alphabettsy 7y ago
  Being “edgy” is just a way Of being a bully or bigot under the pretense of a joke. It’s not a new thing, just a new term for “dog whistles”.
  - bArray 7y ago
    I highly suspect you'll downvote my reply or simply ignore it - I hope you give me the time of day that I'm giving you. > Being “edgy” is just a way Of being a bully or bigot under > the pretense of a joke. The term "edgy" is to be on the edge of what could be generally called socially acceptable through some kind of content (such as a joke or opinion). The reason it is a joke and not just a statement of opinion is because there is some mutual understanding that the intention is to be funny and the setup subverts your expectations in some way. For example, the joke (chosen for being simple and controversial): "How do you make a postman cry? [Person thinks] Kill his family". The joke is funny not because you or I have some deep unsettled hatred for postman, it's funny because it subverted your expectations for how the joke should have ended. In information theory this would be "maximizing expected information gain" - or simply things are interesting. Postman might not find the joke funny, especially if they so happened to be on the receiving end of violence for example - but that not every joke is funny to everybody. The point is, if you find a comedian unfunny, stop paying for a ticket to go see their shows. If you dislike Breitbart's authors, don't read their content and bump up their ad revenue. This circles back to the benefits of capitalism - reward what you want to see more of, your money is your vote. > It’s not a new thing, just a new term for “dog whistles”. I'm not entirely sold on the term "dog whistle". Every joke is tailored for a specific audience and you may or may not be the target demographic. I wouldn't call jokes intended for children to be "dog whistles to children". If you mean that they are "secretly not meant to be jokes" - then why wouldn't they just outright say it? Why go to the effort of dressing it up as a joke? Especially in somewhere like America where their freedoms are protected up until the point of calls to violence. If anything, to me the term "dog whistle" exists only to write somebody off completely without having to think critically about the actual meaning behind what they have said. Saying something like "they are all nazis" allows somebody to write off a large group of people and their opinions in the same way a racist might against a race of people they don't want to debate with (which I can't give a good faith example of because this platform has it's own biases). The real political divide in many Countries is growing because people have become intellectually lazy. Platforms like Facebook are rewarded with return visits if they keep feeding you exactly the content you want to see, not the content you need to see. Perhaps Facebook and other social media platforms have realized that they do need to show you the other side of the argument, even if they risk driving user retention down.

hos234 7y ago

Well we already know, if you put the ideas of Galileo, Copernicus and Kepler next to those of the Church, and allow the people to figure things out for themselves, it takes a few hundred years. And most often those paths of learning, involve violence and domination by both sides. Learning takes a long time. People are incompetent at doing it by themselves even with health, wealth and intelligence. They need Skilled Teachers, Coaches and Counselors to do it well, which is why we don't leave kids at the Library for 18 years but at Schools. And even then they take time to learn. The News Industry never will play that role. But some of them pretend to do it and we can't let them. I think the left/right debate hides the fact there are a class of people these days who have discovered they can pay their mortgages by pretending to "inform and educate". They need to be filtered out irrespective of being on the left or right.

bArray 7y ago
> Well we already know, if you put the ideas of Galileo, > Copernicus and Kepler next to those of the Church, and > allow the people to figure things out for themselves, it > takes a few hundred years. I think that's a false equivalence. The Church actively tried to hide their work and were essentially state censors (over multiple states). Not only this, but the work of Galileo for example essentially threw doubt on people's core beliefs. I don't think Breitbart can be seen as powerful as the Church was. > And most often those paths of learning, involve violence > and domination by both sides. That's a miserable outlook on your fellow man, I choose to believe people are fundamentally rewarded for selecting good ideas over bad, which is why society seems to work. Ironically, it's groups that supposedly exist to fight violence and bad ideas who are the first to engage in it. > They need to be filtered out irrespective of being on the > left or right. How on earth do you create such a filter and manage it? Say you let the government control the filter, do you really trust any government whom gets into power to control such an important filter? How about a private company? Is there any group out there you really trust to control what news source/stories you get to see? If there was some 100% perfect way of achieving this - I would back it every day. The problem is, if there is a way to game/corrupt a system, there appears to always be people willing to do so. I believe that in the face of their not being a better solution, we should let the individual decide.