6 ms·

Adam Curtis is entertaining but his generalised sweeping statements are silly and unnecessary. Yes the world is complex, but it’s not impossible to understand.

Adam Curtis is entertaining but his generalised sweeping statements are silly and unnecessary. Yes the world is complex, but it’s not impossible to understand. For example, Brexit: there were many contributing factors but we can identify major ones: globalisation and those left behind feeling resentful; lack of an outlet for those voices due to a rigged electoral system; anti immigration feeling amidst unprecedented high immigration from the EU; propaganda made possible by unethical social media platforms like Facebook; and ruling class power games. Most of those problems have plausible corresponding solutions. Complicated, but not insurmountable.

Mauricebranagh 6y ago
It wasn't Facebook it was unelected media barons who hated the EU because they dint have the power they had locally.
- nvoid 6y ago
  Citation needed here. Iirc, the media were quite anti-brexit.
  - phreeza 6y ago
    "UK press coverage of the EU Referendum" https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/our-research/uk-press-coverage-eu-referendum https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/our-research/uk-p... The report is based on analysis of two days of press coverage each week for London editions of nine national newspapers over 4 months of the campaign. Of the 2,378 articles analysed which were focused on the referendum, 41% were pro leave as against 27% pro-remain.
  - pjc50 6y ago
    Brexit was the result of thirtyish years of the media printing misleading clickbait about Europe, followed by uncritically publishing the "all upside no downside" claims of the Brexit side. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/15/brexit-boris-johnson-euromyths-telegraph-brussels https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/15/brexit... Besides, there's no boundary between "media" and "politicians"; early on while he was PM Johnson was paid more to be a Telegraph columnist than his official PM salary.
    - randomsearch 6y ago
      I think "culmination" rather than "result", because whilst I think the right wing gutter press (and I include the Mail and Times) were a factor, I don't think they were the most important factor.
  - raverbashing 6y ago
    "Citation needed": every article mention the EU in "The Sun", "Daily Express", "Daily Mail" multiple times and also "The Telegraph" for the posh version of most of the same crap. "Media was quite anti-brexit" not really. Unless you really think the GDPR prevents kids from writing letters to Santa Claus
    - tim333 6y ago
      Some media was quite anti brexit - The Guardian, The Independent, the FT, the BBC a bit. People had a choice as to which to read.
  - tremon 6y ago
    https://web.archive.org/web/20190531154332/https://blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/euromyths-a-z-index/ https://web.archive.org/web/20190531154332/https://blogs.ec.... The original site is no longer maintained and redirects to the new wayback machine, but that site is down, sadly. So here's a snapshot from the old wayback url. Fake news about the EU was so prevalent that the EU started maintaining its own list. Note that one of the "journalists" that wrote these fake news stories was Boris Johnson himself.
- midasuni 6y ago
  The media planting the seeds ever since the attacks on major over Maastricht. Ironically probably didn’t have an enormous influence come 2016 given how few people were reading papers by then, but the brainwashing about bendy bananas and Iraqi refugees had been planted. All it took was a leaflet from the “man of the people” saying iraq and Syria were following Turkey into the EU and bobs your uncle
  - makomk 6y ago
    Maastricht only barely squeaked through to acceptance in France, in a referendum with an even narrower victory margin than the Brexit one. (The UK carefully avoided putting it to any kind of referendum because its government didn't have to.)

Mauricebranagh 6y ago

It wasn't Facebook it was unelected media barons who hated the EU because they dint have the power they had locally.

nvoid 6y ago
Citation needed here. Iirc, the media were quite anti-brexit.
- phreeza 6y ago
  "UK press coverage of the EU Referendum" https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/our-research/uk-press-coverage-eu-referendum https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/our-research/uk-p... The report is based on analysis of two days of press coverage each week for London editions of nine national newspapers over 4 months of the campaign. Of the 2,378 articles analysed which were focused on the referendum, 41% were pro leave as against 27% pro-remain.
- pjc50 6y ago
  Brexit was the result of thirtyish years of the media printing misleading clickbait about Europe, followed by uncritically publishing the "all upside no downside" claims of the Brexit side. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/15/brexit-boris-johnson-euromyths-telegraph-brussels https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/15/brexit... Besides, there's no boundary between "media" and "politicians"; early on while he was PM Johnson was paid more to be a Telegraph columnist than his official PM salary.
  - randomsearch 6y ago
    I think "culmination" rather than "result", because whilst I think the right wing gutter press (and I include the Mail and Times) were a factor, I don't think they were the most important factor.
- raverbashing 6y ago
  "Citation needed": every article mention the EU in "The Sun", "Daily Express", "Daily Mail" multiple times and also "The Telegraph" for the posh version of most of the same crap. "Media was quite anti-brexit" not really. Unless you really think the GDPR prevents kids from writing letters to Santa Claus
  - tim333 6y ago
    Some media was quite anti brexit - The Guardian, The Independent, the FT, the BBC a bit. People had a choice as to which to read.
- tremon 6y ago
  https://web.archive.org/web/20190531154332/https://blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/euromyths-a-z-index/ https://web.archive.org/web/20190531154332/https://blogs.ec.... The original site is no longer maintained and redirects to the new wayback machine, but that site is down, sadly. So here's a snapshot from the old wayback url. Fake news about the EU was so prevalent that the EU started maintaining its own list. Note that one of the "journalists" that wrote these fake news stories was Boris Johnson himself.
midasuni 6y ago
The media planting the seeds ever since the attacks on major over Maastricht. Ironically probably didn’t have an enormous influence come 2016 given how few people were reading papers by then, but the brainwashing about bendy bananas and Iraqi refugees had been planted. All it took was a leaflet from the “man of the people” saying iraq and Syria were following Turkey into the EU and bobs your uncle
- makomk 6y ago
  Maastricht only barely squeaked through to acceptance in France, in a referendum with an even narrower victory margin than the Brexit one. (The UK carefully avoided putting it to any kind of referendum because its government didn't have to.)