3 ms·

> Those places didn't weaponize their feelings and weaknesses against them to sell them ads. This can be said of every media company. Every newspaper, magazine

> Those places didn't weaponize their feelings and weaknesses against them to sell them ads. This can be said of every media company. Every newspaper, magazine (low-brow or high brow), radio, TV station, cable TV company. Every. Single. One. > I trust the State, more than Facebook. It doesn't matter who you trust more. It matters who you are able to disengage from. We as individuals and as groups can choose to keep Facebook of our lives. Can the Chinese say the same from the CCP? > segregation is gonna be the most obvious response (...) let's hope European Internet So, you are so afraid of Facebook's "control" of the internet that you would actively advocate to put in the hands of tyrants and kleptocrats? Either you don't understand the concept of "decentralized web" or you are just fucking with me.

notreallytrue 6y ago
> This can be said of every media company. Every newspaper, magazine (low-brow or high brow), radio, TV station, cable TV company No. It can't. How can you even believe something so ridiculous? > It matters who you are able to disengage from. It matters that the State is not profit based and is under public control. Chinese are more free than many Americans I would strongly prefer to be Chinese than black in USA But what baffles me more are people always bringing up CCCP without even knowing about the different positions in the communist space (that people like you often confuse with socialism) For example you even ignore the existence of the Sino-Soviet split of 1956 > o, you are so afraid of Facebook's "control" of the internet that you would actively advocate to put in the hands of tyrants and kleptocrats? It's definitely true that arguing with stupid people is a useless waste of energy.
- rglullis 6y ago
  Regarding media: "playing the insecurities of people to sell them ads" is actually something that every marketer does. No exceptions. Fabricate demand. From news channels that are considered infotainment to product placement spots on movies, from teen magazines that promote utterly wrong role models and lead girls to bulimia, anorexia and all sorts of psychosis to any property from Arianna Huffington that mastered the exploitation of outrage culture to sell to Millennials. Rest assured that every single media outlet that depends on ads to make money has no interest in elevated public discourse and thrives on public anxiety. And no matter how bad it is, it is still better than State-owned media, which bypasses the whole marketing mechanisms and just relies on the ruling power to keep the very same type of public control through fear and intimidation. Regarding China and freedom: tell me if you prefer to be Black in the US or a Uighur in a concentration camp. Afterwards tell me which people gets to more or less manipulated by their media.
  - notreallytrue 6y ago
    > Regarding media: "playing the insecurities of people to sell them ads" is actually something that every marketer does Nope. That's an American centric view, there are other markets outside of US and they don't operate in the same way at all. > Regarding China and freedom: tell me if you prefer to be Black in the US or a Uighur in a concentration camp Maybe you don't realise it, but your answer represent everything's wrong in US and why people don't believe in US BS anymore. Black people in US aren't even considered Americans, nobody ever answered to me "they are not black, they are Americans" Nobody ever challenged the idea that black people in US are lesser people in the first place nobody! In fact to find something worse you had to resort to bringing up concentration camps, while I simply said. "I would prefer to be Chinese that black in USA" I stand on my idea concentration camps < being black in USA < being Chinese in China
    - rglullis 6y ago
      I hope you realize that you so into getting into a shouting match that you are not making any sense whatsoever. I don't know where you are from, but as someone who grew up in Brazil, lived in the US for ~5 years and now has 7 years in both Northern and Southern Europe and close relationships in the Middle East: globalization is real. Someone autistic like you may not notice due to subtle differences to adapt to local cultures and local flavors, but the message everywhere is to get people to measure themselves by what they consume and to stimulate consumption by creating needs where there are none.
      - notreallytrue 6y ago
        It might surprise you but being in the spectrum doesn't mean being autistic as in the cliché. It's, as the same implies, a spectrum. I've lived in the US, New York, Los Angeles and Columbus Ohio for a brief period. (I also lived in Berlin and Barcelona, but that doesn't really count as a radically different experience for an European) I have strong northern African looks, but am still white and loved every moment in the US. But the devil is in the details, I could not ignore that when my friends there told me that some neighborhood was dangerous it really was dangerous, not dangerous as we usually mean it when we say it in Italy. I could not ignore the staggering amount of homicides reported in the news. This year LA will surpass 300 homicides in a year, Italy has 12 times the population of LA and there were "only" 270 homicides last year. I could not ignore that the police is scary there and you should not talk to them or engage in any way. I swear I notice a difference when I see one. Having said that. Globalization is real, but the media here are not trying to exploit my weaknesses to sell me ads, they are putting ads on their products, generic ads, not "I know who you are and I know you're gonna like this" ads. I'm ok with the first kind, not so much with the latter. The point of decentralised web is a misguiding one. The decentralised web is the web! Everyone can build their own website and host it at home on a raspberry PI on their connection. That's what made the web a novelty that could (hopefully) spread culture and knowledge. The dicotomy between centralised and decentralised web was born because the web has been taken away from people and transformed in a targeted ads delivery machine by the same companies that sell ads (FB, Twitter, Instagram and most of all Google, they sell ads as a primary business) They are fighting to get screen attention so that they can deliver even more ads to the people. And when we say ads we are not simply talking about product advertisement, we are talking about political ads used to radicalise the debate, that the same companies selling ads control, thanks to the network effect. And since the majority of companies doing it are American, I blame the USA that let them do it As paradoxical as it might sound China doesn't need to sell ads to people to convince the people to support this or that position, because there is no alternative position. They rely on good old State propaganda, which existed for centuries ans has been studied for decades and is a well understood topic.
- civilized 6y ago
  > Chinese are more free than many Americans Weird and revealing double standard you got there, comparing "Chinese" as a collective to "many" Americans. I can think of "many" Chinese who are much, much, much less free than nearly all Americans. Can you? Or do those folks not count. > It's definitely true that arguing with stupid people is a useless waste of energy. Indeed.
  - notreallytrue 6y ago
    > Weird and revealing double standard you got there, comparing "Chinese" as a collective to "many" Americans. Chinese are collectively more or less in the same situation, they are ethnically mostly the same people and live under the same rules, Americans are not. Few very reach Americans enjoy all the freedom power can buy, everyone else either comply or suffer the consequences You really did not know? > Chinese who are much, much, much less free than nearly all Americans Nope. I don't believe in the kind of freedom Americans believe to possess It's simply a different kind of tyranny Unless you mean the freedom to be shot in the streets. For example: there are 700 people in jail every 100k citizens in USA, they are only 115 in China. In 2008 USA had the 25% of the global World jail population And you know why? Because the private prison system in USA is highly profitable USA has the lowest life expectancy of the whole west and it's only one year longer than China, despite being the country with the highest spending per capita in healthcare in the entire globe. Is this the freedom you're talking about? So no, USA is not a benchmark for anything good, including the exercise of free speech, which is only a lame excuse to not take action against extremists propaganda > Indeed So sometimes you experience moments of lucidity when you see yourself for what you really are? That must hurt!
    - civilized 6y ago
      > Because the private prison system in USA is highly profitable LOL. You "know" just enough to remain comfortable in your ideology, and your self-imposed media echo chamber is more than happy to feed that "knowledge" to you. If you think you are credible outside your tribe... don't quit your day job. You're just as delusional as the people whose speech you wish to control, and hence provide an abject illustration of why we don't want state control of our speech. And don't feel bad that China is still behind the US in so many ways, there will be a Great Leap Forward very soon!

notreallytrue 6y ago

> This can be said of every media company. Every newspaper, magazine (low-brow or high brow), radio, TV station, cable TV company No. It can't. How can you even believe something so ridiculous? > It matters who you are able to disengage from. It matters that the State is not profit based and is under public control. Chinese are more free than many Americans I would strongly prefer to be Chinese than black in USA But what baffles me more are people always bringing up CCCP without even knowing about the different positions in the communist space (that people like you often confuse with socialism) For example you even ignore the existence of the Sino-Soviet split of 1956 > o, you are so afraid of Facebook's "control" of the internet that you would actively advocate to put in the hands of tyrants and kleptocrats? It's definitely true that arguing with stupid people is a useless waste of energy.

rglullis 6y ago
Regarding media: "playing the insecurities of people to sell them ads" is actually something that every marketer does. No exceptions. Fabricate demand. From news channels that are considered infotainment to product placement spots on movies, from teen magazines that promote utterly wrong role models and lead girls to bulimia, anorexia and all sorts of psychosis to any property from Arianna Huffington that mastered the exploitation of outrage culture to sell to Millennials. Rest assured that every single media outlet that depends on ads to make money has no interest in elevated public discourse and thrives on public anxiety. And no matter how bad it is, it is still better than State-owned media, which bypasses the whole marketing mechanisms and just relies on the ruling power to keep the very same type of public control through fear and intimidation. Regarding China and freedom: tell me if you prefer to be Black in the US or a Uighur in a concentration camp. Afterwards tell me which people gets to more or less manipulated by their media.
- notreallytrue 6y ago
  > Regarding media: "playing the insecurities of people to sell them ads" is actually something that every marketer does Nope. That's an American centric view, there are other markets outside of US and they don't operate in the same way at all. > Regarding China and freedom: tell me if you prefer to be Black in the US or a Uighur in a concentration camp Maybe you don't realise it, but your answer represent everything's wrong in US and why people don't believe in US BS anymore. Black people in US aren't even considered Americans, nobody ever answered to me "they are not black, they are Americans" Nobody ever challenged the idea that black people in US are lesser people in the first place nobody! In fact to find something worse you had to resort to bringing up concentration camps, while I simply said. "I would prefer to be Chinese that black in USA" I stand on my idea concentration camps < being black in USA < being Chinese in China
  - rglullis 6y ago
    I hope you realize that you so into getting into a shouting match that you are not making any sense whatsoever. I don't know where you are from, but as someone who grew up in Brazil, lived in the US for ~5 years and now has 7 years in both Northern and Southern Europe and close relationships in the Middle East: globalization is real. Someone autistic like you may not notice due to subtle differences to adapt to local cultures and local flavors, but the message everywhere is to get people to measure themselves by what they consume and to stimulate consumption by creating needs where there are none.
    - notreallytrue 6y ago
      It might surprise you but being in the spectrum doesn't mean being autistic as in the cliché. It's, as the same implies, a spectrum. I've lived in the US, New York, Los Angeles and Columbus Ohio for a brief period. (I also lived in Berlin and Barcelona, but that doesn't really count as a radically different experience for an European) I have strong northern African looks, but am still white and loved every moment in the US. But the devil is in the details, I could not ignore that when my friends there told me that some neighborhood was dangerous it really was dangerous, not dangerous as we usually mean it when we say it in Italy. I could not ignore the staggering amount of homicides reported in the news. This year LA will surpass 300 homicides in a year, Italy has 12 times the population of LA and there were "only" 270 homicides last year. I could not ignore that the police is scary there and you should not talk to them or engage in any way. I swear I notice a difference when I see one. Having said that. Globalization is real, but the media here are not trying to exploit my weaknesses to sell me ads, they are putting ads on their products, generic ads, not "I know who you are and I know you're gonna like this" ads. I'm ok with the first kind, not so much with the latter. The point of decentralised web is a misguiding one. The decentralised web is the web! Everyone can build their own website and host it at home on a raspberry PI on their connection. That's what made the web a novelty that could (hopefully) spread culture and knowledge. The dicotomy between centralised and decentralised web was born because the web has been taken away from people and transformed in a targeted ads delivery machine by the same companies that sell ads (FB, Twitter, Instagram and most of all Google, they sell ads as a primary business) They are fighting to get screen attention so that they can deliver even more ads to the people. And when we say ads we are not simply talking about product advertisement, we are talking about political ads used to radicalise the debate, that the same companies selling ads control, thanks to the network effect. And since the majority of companies doing it are American, I blame the USA that let them do it As paradoxical as it might sound China doesn't need to sell ads to people to convince the people to support this or that position, because there is no alternative position. They rely on good old State propaganda, which existed for centuries ans has been studied for decades and is a well understood topic.
civilized 6y ago
> Chinese are more free than many Americans Weird and revealing double standard you got there, comparing "Chinese" as a collective to "many" Americans. I can think of "many" Chinese who are much, much, much less free than nearly all Americans. Can you? Or do those folks not count. > It's definitely true that arguing with stupid people is a useless waste of energy. Indeed.
- notreallytrue 6y ago
  > Weird and revealing double standard you got there, comparing "Chinese" as a collective to "many" Americans. Chinese are collectively more or less in the same situation, they are ethnically mostly the same people and live under the same rules, Americans are not. Few very reach Americans enjoy all the freedom power can buy, everyone else either comply or suffer the consequences You really did not know? > Chinese who are much, much, much less free than nearly all Americans Nope. I don't believe in the kind of freedom Americans believe to possess It's simply a different kind of tyranny Unless you mean the freedom to be shot in the streets. For example: there are 700 people in jail every 100k citizens in USA, they are only 115 in China. In 2008 USA had the 25% of the global World jail population And you know why? Because the private prison system in USA is highly profitable USA has the lowest life expectancy of the whole west and it's only one year longer than China, despite being the country with the highest spending per capita in healthcare in the entire globe. Is this the freedom you're talking about? So no, USA is not a benchmark for anything good, including the exercise of free speech, which is only a lame excuse to not take action against extremists propaganda > Indeed So sometimes you experience moments of lucidity when you see yourself for what you really are? That must hurt!
  - civilized 6y ago
    > Because the private prison system in USA is highly profitable LOL. You "know" just enough to remain comfortable in your ideology, and your self-imposed media echo chamber is more than happy to feed that "knowledge" to you. If you think you are credible outside your tribe... don't quit your day job. You're just as delusional as the people whose speech you wish to control, and hence provide an abject illustration of why we don't want state control of our speech. And don't feel bad that China is still behind the US in so many ways, there will be a Great Leap Forward very soon!