4 ms·

> If you haven't noticed the chorus of coastal media types asking for people they disagree with to be prevented from speaking in any public forum, then you are

> If you haven't noticed the chorus of coastal media types asking for people they disagree with to be prevented from speaking in any public forum, then you are truly oblivious. This doesn’t seem like a low-signal comment: it’s factually true and relevant to the context. Rather, people are falsely marking it as low signal because they don’t like it and want to manipulate the discussion by hiding things they don’t like. Which is classic censorship — and I think highlights a deeply anti-intellectual trend in this community.

toofy 4y ago
> …it’s factually true and relevant to the context. this is factually true? what exactly is a “coastal media type”?
- zmgsabst 4y ago
  Large US news companies have their staff largely in areas like California, New York, etc. because US media conglomerates are concentrated in those areas. Eg, WarnerMedia who is the parent company of CNN — a news agency that’s undergone substantial cuts under a new CEO due to its bias.
  - toofy 4y ago
    could you expand on this a bit?
    - zmgsabst 4y ago
      In what way? My experience of WarnerMedia is that they have politics among their staff reflective of the cities they’re in, but which may not reflect the overall demographics of the US. Eg, their Seattle office had politics at place in Seattle — but those are far left of most US politics. That bias impacts the choices made about content. This matches other peoples experience and apparent business decisions — eg, the other poster referring to this same bias and CNN experiencing a sharp drop in ratings followed by corporate restructuring under a new CEO.
      - toofy 4y ago
        > in what way expand on how this in any way shows that a "...chorus of coastal media types..." (again, still waiting for a definition of this) are somehow factually "...asking for people they disagree with to be prevented from speaking in any public forum"
        zmgsabst 4y ago
        Sorry — I didn’t realize you were being disingenuous. I don’t believe you’re sincerely unaware of the calls to censor misinformation in media; and we literally just explained which media companies based in politically biased bubbles we were discussing. Have a great evening!
        toofy 4y ago
        im trying to understand what is being argued here. the person i responded to said it was a fact that "a chorus of coastal media types" are "asking for people they disagree with to be prevented from speaking in any public forum" the comment said this was a fact. and i still don't think thats a fact. now in this comment you say they're sending "calls to censor misinformation in media"--then sure. are you implying that journalists should be forced to report misinformation? and if they choose _not_ to report misinformation, they're censoring?
        cxr 4y ago
        From the last comment by the other person, it sounds like they're not going to answer. I'll answer for them (at my peril): > "calls to censor misinformation in media"[...] are you implying that journalists should be forced to report misinformation? No, they weren't saying that. > and if they choose _not_ to report misinformation, they're censoring? Also no.
        toofy 4y ago
        when considering the context from above, what do you think they were implying?
  - adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
    if you expand that etc a little bit you'll see the problem. cities in coastal states are pretty close to a majority of the population.
- rsj_hn 4y ago
  I would say someone living in a specific media bubble. Politico has an article about this with some data: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/04/25/media-bubble-real-journalism-jobs-east-coast-215048/ https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/04/25/media-bub... Pew has done a study recently on this as well: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/07/13/u-s-journalists-differ-from-the-public-in-their-views-of-bothsidesism-in-journalism/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/07/13/u-s-journal...
  - toofy 4y ago
    neither of these at all show that a "...chorus of coastal media types..." (still waiting for an honest definition of this) are "...asking for people they disagree with to be prevented from speaking in any public forum."
    - rsj_hn 4y ago
      You asked for the definition of "coastal media" type and got one. You need your own definition of "chorus" or whether it applies in a given context. I'm sorry you don't think the definition is "honest" -- whatever can that possibly mean? It's the definition. You may not like the word, but even words you don't like have definitions. Even dishonest slurs have a meaning, they are not random sounds, even if you don't like the meaning. I suspect you are feigning ignorance.
shadowgovt 4y ago
People sometimes down-signal a comment because it's not the type of comment they want to see on HN for reasons other than factual content. Prognosticating the zeitgeist is a fraught enterprise, but in this case, I'd guess tone twanged a lot of nerves. The first two sentences of comment guidance [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html] are "Be kind. Don't be snarky." There's a vast Internet that lacks a rule like that and HN tries to do something other than be that.
- zmgsabst 4y ago
  - shadowgovt 4y ago
    I think whether "be kind" is at odds with, or a criteria of, an intellectual discourse is left as an exercise for (possibly literally, in this case) the reader. One could imagine a smart person can figure out how to phrase a thought in a way palatable to an audience, or at least respectful of the notion that different individuals have different life experience. If failure to do so gets one's comment "censored" out of an intellectual discourse, perhaps that is a feature not a bug. When I was younger, I used to believe "The pursuit of truth is so important that even truth coarsely spoken should not be quieted." As I've gotten older, I've come to observe that more often than not, people conflate coarse speaking with truth when the two are more likely to be divorced from each other than walking hand-in-hand. And the ability to smooth a harsh truth is a virtue... If for no other reason than most people read for entertainment, not truth-seeking, so the important facts are likelier to land in their minds and germinate if they aren't coated in a protein shell of personal attack language. But again, prognosticating downvotes is a fraught enterprise (and also recommended against by the guidelines, so I shall say no more on the topic).
    - zmgsabst 4y ago
      I understand that the reason people use the veneer of propriety to justify censorship is so they can do as you’ve done here: give a long self-righteous screed about how they’re upholding the good of the community when engaging in anti-intellectual censorship. > One could imagine a smart person can figure out how to phrase a thought in a way palatable to an audience, or at least respectful of the notion that different individuals have different life experience This is just an imagining — people say this when they’re upset that facts challenge dearly held delusions, eg the media is unbiased and informs you about the world, and then engage in ex post facto attacks on the form of your message to silence you and remove that cognitive annoyance. The anger is not at the phrasing, but in having their world view challenged at all. I think you brought up that imagining because you need to reassure yourself that you’re calmly rational as a reader — and not lashing out with censorship due to emotions. That you’re not actually anti-intellectual, you just happen to be copying their mannerism — for good! We’ve heard these arguments for millennia: can you name a historic (prior to 1900) example where those censoring in the name of decorum led to positive outcomes?

toofy 4y ago

> …it’s factually true and relevant to the context. this is factually true? what exactly is a “coastal media type”?

zmgsabst 4y ago
Large US news companies have their staff largely in areas like California, New York, etc. because US media conglomerates are concentrated in those areas. Eg, WarnerMedia who is the parent company of CNN — a news agency that’s undergone substantial cuts under a new CEO due to its bias.
- toofy 4y ago
  could you expand on this a bit?
  - zmgsabst 4y ago
    In what way? My experience of WarnerMedia is that they have politics among their staff reflective of the cities they’re in, but which may not reflect the overall demographics of the US. Eg, their Seattle office had politics at place in Seattle — but those are far left of most US politics. That bias impacts the choices made about content. This matches other peoples experience and apparent business decisions — eg, the other poster referring to this same bias and CNN experiencing a sharp drop in ratings followed by corporate restructuring under a new CEO.
    - toofy 4y ago
      > in what way expand on how this in any way shows that a "...chorus of coastal media types..." (again, still waiting for a definition of this) are somehow factually "...asking for people they disagree with to be prevented from speaking in any public forum"
      - zmgsabst 4y ago
        Sorry — I didn’t realize you were being disingenuous. I don’t believe you’re sincerely unaware of the calls to censor misinformation in media; and we literally just explained which media companies based in politically biased bubbles we were discussing. Have a great evening!
        toofy 4y ago
        im trying to understand what is being argued here. the person i responded to said it was a fact that "a chorus of coastal media types" are "asking for people they disagree with to be prevented from speaking in any public forum" the comment said this was a fact. and i still don't think thats a fact. now in this comment you say they're sending "calls to censor misinformation in media"--then sure. are you implying that journalists should be forced to report misinformation? and if they choose _not_ to report misinformation, they're censoring?
        cxr 4y ago
        From the last comment by the other person, it sounds like they're not going to answer. I'll answer for them (at my peril): > "calls to censor misinformation in media"[...] are you implying that journalists should be forced to report misinformation? No, they weren't saying that. > and if they choose _not_ to report misinformation, they're censoring? Also no.
        toofy 4y ago
        when considering the context from above, what do you think they were implying?
- adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
  if you expand that etc a little bit you'll see the problem. cities in coastal states are pretty close to a majority of the population.
rsj_hn 4y ago
I would say someone living in a specific media bubble. Politico has an article about this with some data: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/04/25/media-bubble-real-journalism-jobs-east-coast-215048/ https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/04/25/media-bub... Pew has done a study recently on this as well: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/07/13/u-s-journalists-differ-from-the-public-in-their-views-of-bothsidesism-in-journalism/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/07/13/u-s-journal...
- toofy 4y ago
  neither of these at all show that a "...chorus of coastal media types..." (still waiting for an honest definition of this) are "...asking for people they disagree with to be prevented from speaking in any public forum."
  - rsj_hn 4y ago
    You asked for the definition of "coastal media" type and got one. You need your own definition of "chorus" or whether it applies in a given context. I'm sorry you don't think the definition is "honest" -- whatever can that possibly mean? It's the definition. You may not like the word, but even words you don't like have definitions. Even dishonest slurs have a meaning, they are not random sounds, even if you don't like the meaning. I suspect you are feigning ignorance.

shadowgovt 4y ago

People sometimes down-signal a comment because it's not the type of comment they want to see on HN for reasons other than factual content. Prognosticating the zeitgeist is a fraught enterprise, but in this case, I'd guess tone twanged a lot of nerves. The first two sentences of comment guidance [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html] are "Be kind. Don't be snarky." There's a vast Internet that lacks a rule like that and HN tries to do something other than be that.

zmgsabst 4y ago
- shadowgovt 4y ago
  I think whether "be kind" is at odds with, or a criteria of, an intellectual discourse is left as an exercise for (possibly literally, in this case) the reader. One could imagine a smart person can figure out how to phrase a thought in a way palatable to an audience, or at least respectful of the notion that different individuals have different life experience. If failure to do so gets one's comment "censored" out of an intellectual discourse, perhaps that is a feature not a bug. When I was younger, I used to believe "The pursuit of truth is so important that even truth coarsely spoken should not be quieted." As I've gotten older, I've come to observe that more often than not, people conflate coarse speaking with truth when the two are more likely to be divorced from each other than walking hand-in-hand. And the ability to smooth a harsh truth is a virtue... If for no other reason than most people read for entertainment, not truth-seeking, so the important facts are likelier to land in their minds and germinate if they aren't coated in a protein shell of personal attack language. But again, prognosticating downvotes is a fraught enterprise (and also recommended against by the guidelines, so I shall say no more on the topic).
  - zmgsabst 4y ago
    I understand that the reason people use the veneer of propriety to justify censorship is so they can do as you’ve done here: give a long self-righteous screed about how they’re upholding the good of the community when engaging in anti-intellectual censorship. > One could imagine a smart person can figure out how to phrase a thought in a way palatable to an audience, or at least respectful of the notion that different individuals have different life experience This is just an imagining — people say this when they’re upset that facts challenge dearly held delusions, eg the media is unbiased and informs you about the world, and then engage in ex post facto attacks on the form of your message to silence you and remove that cognitive annoyance. The anger is not at the phrasing, but in having their world view challenged at all. I think you brought up that imagining because you need to reassure yourself that you’re calmly rational as a reader — and not lashing out with censorship due to emotions. That you’re not actually anti-intellectual, you just happen to be copying their mannerism — for good! We’ve heard these arguments for millennia: can you name a historic (prior to 1900) example where those censoring in the name of decorum led to positive outcomes?