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One aspect is that NBC has a lock on the Olympics for the US. Their streaming service is utter trash - unreliable, bad quality video, confusing menus (couldn't

One aspect is that NBC has a lock on the Olympics for the US. Their streaming service is utter trash - unreliable, bad quality video, confusing menus (couldn't even figure out how to watch live events), rewind and fast forward don't have preview (at least on Roku), so you have no idea where to stop, no overlays describing any details of the stream, no editing of recorded events (i.e. 45 minutes of a zamboni cleaning the ice), etc. Also, NBC seems to be working for the State Department in trashing China at every turn. Yes, China commits human rights abused, but this is a gold standard case of the pot calling the kettle black. The US is one of the biggest human rights abusers out there. The Olympics is about setting that aside for a moment. The US should have either boycotted the olympics or shut up about the politics.

germinalphrase 5y ago
They are clearly behind in understanding how young people want to enjoy the games. The experience is trash when it even works (half the streams return an authorization error at random).
awillen 5y ago
The US has diplomatically boycotted the Olympics this year. That doesn't have anything to do with NBC - they have a first amendment right to cover the Olympics. You're assuming there's some sneaky stuff going on with the State Department pulling the strings, but in this case the simplest explanation seems more likely - NBC recognizes the strong anti-China sentiment around human rights abuses in the viewing public, so they know that catering to that sentiment will be best from a business perspective.
- colordrops 5y ago
  I'm confused, did I call for censorship? Are you saying that no one should be criticized because they have first amendment rights? Also, it's extremely naive to think the US government has no influence over US media. First, there is significant overlap and connectivity in the ruling class that runs the government and runs media companies. Second, there are many examples of the media and the government working together to craft a message. I can provide several references to examples if you were unaware of this.
Graffur 5y ago
> The Olympics is about setting that aside for a moment https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-55794071 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-55794071 Ah.. just set it aside for just a moment..
- colordrops 5y ago
  You are repeating state department propaganda about Uighur camps. Most of the information about Xinjiang has been coming from CIA contractors and vague satellite photos. They were claiming that 2 million (out of 10 million) people were in camps until it became untenable to maintain this lie. There's no doubt that China is an authoritarian state with major human rights issues there, but it's not at the scale being claimed, and it isn't some unique or new situation as it is being presented, and they aren't any worse than the human rights abuses the US commits. For instance, the US has the world's largest prison population, which jails millions, disproportionately minority. This is just as egregious as anything China is doing in Xinjiang. And you've got the US killing millions in the middle east over the last few decades. Guantanamo bay is still open. But yeah, China is the one who needs to be pointed out. How is it not obvious that this is an intentional campaign by the US government to attack China's image? They said nothing about Saudi Arabia or Israel when they marched out during the opening ceremony. And Israel is a rogue nuclear nation and apartheid state with millions in lockdown, which is not even hidden, and finally acknowledged by Amnesty International in the last few days. NBC's comments were to fawn over the first orthodox jewish woman in the Olympics. What's next? To fawn over the first evangelical christian doing whatever? The hypocrisy is frustrating in the extreme.
  - anm89 5y ago
    So your argument here is that their concentration camps aren't that bad because it's actually only a million people that are in them, instead of two million people? Yeah China has a record of harvesting organs and running concentration camps for the purposes of ethnic cleansing. People probably aren't going to stop repeating that fact any time soon.
    - 5y ago

germinalphrase 5y ago

They are clearly behind in understanding how young people want to enjoy the games. The experience is trash when it even works (half the streams return an authorization error at random).

awillen 5y ago

The US has diplomatically boycotted the Olympics this year. That doesn't have anything to do with NBC - they have a first amendment right to cover the Olympics. You're assuming there's some sneaky stuff going on with the State Department pulling the strings, but in this case the simplest explanation seems more likely - NBC recognizes the strong anti-China sentiment around human rights abuses in the viewing public, so they know that catering to that sentiment will be best from a business perspective.

colordrops 5y ago
I'm confused, did I call for censorship? Are you saying that no one should be criticized because they have first amendment rights? Also, it's extremely naive to think the US government has no influence over US media. First, there is significant overlap and connectivity in the ruling class that runs the government and runs media companies. Second, there are many examples of the media and the government working together to craft a message. I can provide several references to examples if you were unaware of this.

Graffur 5y ago

> The Olympics is about setting that aside for a moment https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-55794071 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-55794071 Ah.. just set it aside for just a moment..

colordrops 5y ago
You are repeating state department propaganda about Uighur camps. Most of the information about Xinjiang has been coming from CIA contractors and vague satellite photos. They were claiming that 2 million (out of 10 million) people were in camps until it became untenable to maintain this lie. There's no doubt that China is an authoritarian state with major human rights issues there, but it's not at the scale being claimed, and it isn't some unique or new situation as it is being presented, and they aren't any worse than the human rights abuses the US commits. For instance, the US has the world's largest prison population, which jails millions, disproportionately minority. This is just as egregious as anything China is doing in Xinjiang. And you've got the US killing millions in the middle east over the last few decades. Guantanamo bay is still open. But yeah, China is the one who needs to be pointed out. How is it not obvious that this is an intentional campaign by the US government to attack China's image? They said nothing about Saudi Arabia or Israel when they marched out during the opening ceremony. And Israel is a rogue nuclear nation and apartheid state with millions in lockdown, which is not even hidden, and finally acknowledged by Amnesty International in the last few days. NBC's comments were to fawn over the first orthodox jewish woman in the Olympics. What's next? To fawn over the first evangelical christian doing whatever? The hypocrisy is frustrating in the extreme.
- anm89 5y ago
  So your argument here is that their concentration camps aren't that bad because it's actually only a million people that are in them, instead of two million people? Yeah China has a record of harvesting organs and running concentration camps for the purposes of ethnic cleansing. People probably aren't going to stop repeating that fact any time soon.
  - 5y ago