5 ms·

Bypassing the traditional media. That's the real reason they hated it. They were no longer gatekeepers of the narrative.

by throwaway201103 6y ago

mschuster91 6y ago
Of course, but haven't Trump and especially the more rabid of his followers like Alex Jones and Steve Bannon proven why there is a need for at least some form of gatekeeping? Someone needs to filter out demagogues from public discourse. Otherwise you'll end up with a population where large parts believe that the election was "stolen" or "fraudulent", with all the consequences (like the potential for open, massive violence) that entails.
- _jal 6y ago
  > proven why there is a need for at least some form of gatekeeping And that's the motivation. Without gatekeepers, they believe they can more successfully push their misinformation. Using normal peoples' dislike of various aspects of social media as a lever to achieve that is what this is all about.
- skinkestek 6y ago
  I'd like to agree with you since I dislike the current president, problem is the gatekeepers have used 4 years to prove they are almost as bad: from blatant misquoting of Trump via the whole Russian collusion on one side to mindless glorification of Trump and misquoting of Biden on the other side they've (almost?) all managed to make fools of themselves.
  - pjc50 6y ago
    Quite a lot of Trump associates were jailed for Russia-related activities. The only thing that was never proven was collusion between Trump himself and Russian agents. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/us/politics/trump-russia-senate.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/us/politics/trump-russia-... "While the Senate report established broad bipartisan agreement about what happened in 2016, Democrats and Republicans could not agree whether those facts added up to collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government." ... Obviously the republican side were never going to conclude there was collusion, but the alleged go between Manafort did indeed go to jail.

Bypassing the traditional media. That's the real reason they hated it. They were no longer gatekeepers of the narrative.

mschuster91 6y ago

Of course, but haven't Trump and especially the more rabid of his followers like Alex Jones and Steve Bannon proven why there is a need for at least some form of gatekeeping? Someone needs to filter out demagogues from public discourse. Otherwise you'll end up with a population where large parts believe that the election was "stolen" or "fraudulent", with all the consequences (like the potential for open, massive violence) that entails.

_jal 6y ago
> proven why there is a need for at least some form of gatekeeping And that's the motivation. Without gatekeepers, they believe they can more successfully push their misinformation. Using normal peoples' dislike of various aspects of social media as a lever to achieve that is what this is all about.
skinkestek 6y ago
I'd like to agree with you since I dislike the current president, problem is the gatekeepers have used 4 years to prove they are almost as bad: from blatant misquoting of Trump via the whole Russian collusion on one side to mindless glorification of Trump and misquoting of Biden on the other side they've (almost?) all managed to make fools of themselves.
- pjc50 6y ago
  Quite a lot of Trump associates were jailed for Russia-related activities. The only thing that was never proven was collusion between Trump himself and Russian agents. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/us/politics/trump-russia-senate.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/us/politics/trump-russia-... "While the Senate report established broad bipartisan agreement about what happened in 2016, Democrats and Republicans could not agree whether those facts added up to collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government." ... Obviously the republican side were never going to conclude there was collusion, but the alleged go between Manafort did indeed go to jail.