8 ms·

Regarding media: "playing the insecurities of people to sell them ads" is actually something that every marketer does. No exceptions. Fabricate demand. From new

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.
dirtyid 6y ago
China gets more propaganda, but average Chinese knows they're being fed propaganda, whereas free citizens with their free 5th estate are rarely aware of when their consent is being manufactured. More highinfo/curious Chinese are informed about the world simply because there's a fuckload of bilingual Chinese with English fluency able to share news from across the wall. You can't say the same about anglosphere and Chinese information literacy. The amount of absolutely ignorant western commentary on China is staggering, where as Chinese net actually has western perspectives that somewhat comport with reality. At the end of the day, media that doesn't turn society into idiots that undermine national interests has its virtues and maybe preferrable. That was once the case with tame free media before much of it turned into divisive reality TV. Similarly you can have dangerous state media that whip up nationalist frenzy, cause sectarian violence etc, or you could have boring ass state media and manage civic engagement for political serenity. All media are manipulated, all narratives shaped, blatantly manipulating media for serenity to a knowing population self-fulfilling properties. People stop giving a shit about politics, and politicians end up government instead of campaigning. Prerequisite is having a good system for selecting competent leadership in the first place. This is not unambiguously endorsing state media as good, but decline of free media in many places is simply that bad. Some countries still have passable public broadcasting, but for how long, and whether commercial pivot for ads + anxiety is terminal transition. For Uyghurs: under the most delusional estimates, Chinese Uyghurs still have less lifetime chance of being in a indoctrination camp than US blacks in US prison industrial complex. For much shorter sentences. After they'll be coerced to work in vocational program for more pay, even adjusted for exchange rate. Not US prison labour moving covid bodies tier coerced labour, but actual useful jobs designed to transition into society instead of recidivate back into for profit prisons. China actually wants to integrate minorities instead of exclude, even at extreme costs. So I suppose the answer is, it's better to be a Chinese Uyghur in a few generations after they've been sinicized and integrated than a Black American in 20 years who will still be getting executed on the street and fighting equal treatment.
- rglullis 6y ago
  What good is it to be aware of the propaganda if no one gets to act and defend the values they seem worthy of protection? Take the Hong Kong situation. If "highinfo/curious" chinese people in mainland China look at it and just repeat the Party line of "they are just troublemakers" instead of supporting them as loudly and as effectively as they can, then all this awareness of being fed propaganda is as good as nothing. I mean, you are actually parroting the bullshit about concentration camps being about "integrating minorities". Minorities that are being tortured and brainwashed into submission are not "integrated", just destroyed while keeping a shell of the people to show around.

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.

dirtyid 6y ago

China gets more propaganda, but average Chinese knows they're being fed propaganda, whereas free citizens with their free 5th estate are rarely aware of when their consent is being manufactured. More highinfo/curious Chinese are informed about the world simply because there's a fuckload of bilingual Chinese with English fluency able to share news from across the wall. You can't say the same about anglosphere and Chinese information literacy. The amount of absolutely ignorant western commentary on China is staggering, where as Chinese net actually has western perspectives that somewhat comport with reality. At the end of the day, media that doesn't turn society into idiots that undermine national interests has its virtues and maybe preferrable. That was once the case with tame free media before much of it turned into divisive reality TV. Similarly you can have dangerous state media that whip up nationalist frenzy, cause sectarian violence etc, or you could have boring ass state media and manage civic engagement for political serenity. All media are manipulated, all narratives shaped, blatantly manipulating media for serenity to a knowing population self-fulfilling properties. People stop giving a shit about politics, and politicians end up government instead of campaigning. Prerequisite is having a good system for selecting competent leadership in the first place. This is not unambiguously endorsing state media as good, but decline of free media in many places is simply that bad. Some countries still have passable public broadcasting, but for how long, and whether commercial pivot for ads + anxiety is terminal transition. For Uyghurs: under the most delusional estimates, Chinese Uyghurs still have less lifetime chance of being in a indoctrination camp than US blacks in US prison industrial complex. For much shorter sentences. After they'll be coerced to work in vocational program for more pay, even adjusted for exchange rate. Not US prison labour moving covid bodies tier coerced labour, but actual useful jobs designed to transition into society instead of recidivate back into for profit prisons. China actually wants to integrate minorities instead of exclude, even at extreme costs. So I suppose the answer is, it's better to be a Chinese Uyghur in a few generations after they've been sinicized and integrated than a Black American in 20 years who will still be getting executed on the street and fighting equal treatment.

rglullis 6y ago
What good is it to be aware of the propaganda if no one gets to act and defend the values they seem worthy of protection? Take the Hong Kong situation. If "highinfo/curious" chinese people in mainland China look at it and just repeat the Party line of "they are just troublemakers" instead of supporting them as loudly and as effectively as they can, then all this awareness of being fed propaganda is as good as nothing. I mean, you are actually parroting the bullshit about concentration camps being about "integrating minorities". Minorities that are being tortured and brainwashed into submission are not "integrated", just destroyed while keeping a shell of the people to show around.