During a recent Winter Solstice read the future exercise, Andrew had a deep download about the media in the U.S. and I echoed that people will become more distrustful of the media. Here’s a timely post on the new social media platform Post.News. Post.News is still in the beta stage, but I’ve been able to share some of the interesting posts with friends.
Here’s a great one about media ownership: https://post.news/article/2JbXWrjixzn776Cfr81IDGBIyZ i" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Who Owns the Media?
And you may have noticed a change in the way news is reported at CNN this year. That’s happening because the new owner of Warner Bros., John Malone, is a Trump supporter who wants to make CNN more appealing to Republicans.
Then there’s the recent purchase of Twitter by right-leaning Elon Musk. It remains to be seen if Twitter survives since the majority of highly skilled tech employees have already been fired by Musk.
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/12/elon-musk-twitter-far-right-activist/672436/
@bluebelle Thank you for starting this thread. In the first article you linked, it contained this image. It's disconcerting.
This has infographics of the 6 companies and sub-sectors. I could not find a date
https://www.webfx.com/blog/internet/the-6-companies-that-own-almost-all-media-infographic/
A second resource has extensive spreadsheets on media ownership. Again, I could not find a date.
@oscaroreo Welcome to our forum. So glad you jumped in. The first few posts don't allow links to show up, (spam control), but if you email them to me, I will slip them right in for you. Can't wait to read what you linked.
I missed your Jan. 12 post, thanks for that.
I just visited an old friend who I had not seen in many years. She warned me that her current husband is an arch conservative who has grown more committed since Trump's tenure. The large TV and the loud volume literally amplifies the lies that Hannity, Carlson, et al. spew; I had to retreat to my room and put on earphones and even then some of it penetrated.
Although spending several evenings with this man challenged both my social skills and my empathy, I ended up being much more upset with these media outlets. The profit-motivated charlatans have brainwashed this man and millions of others with completely false narratives. In turn, those narratives have robbed them and their families of their mental and emotional equanimity and stolen rational voters from society. By example, he asserted during dinner that a former president (moderate Republican) was a pedophile to which I responded in a skeptical voice, "Well, I don't know about that"... then changed the subject.
My friend admitted that were she not in her seventh decade, she would divorce him. Instead, she endures it in stoical silence since he flashes into intense anger if these narratives are challenged. They rub along amicably on a daily basis but not surprisingly, there is no longer any emotional depth in their marriage. His daughter, too, struggles with his conservative views. Because my friend is highly competent and has her own money, I won't pity her but it left me sad for them both, really, and angry with these avaricious liars.
The only positive note was that since Fox moved away from defending Trump, this husband was not angry about Trump's indictment for which she was grateful. Incrementalism, in this instance, even from the dark side, was helpful. I heard someone on YouTube opine that we may need de-programmers to shift people away from this cult, which I now agree is what the extreme version is. I hope de-programmers have started planning....
I’d like to add to this the so called tiktok ban. I truly believe that they have vilified the app because it allows people unfettered access to each other. I think the majority of the country wouldn’t have known about the train crash toxic spills if it weren’t for that app. Right now it’s pretty much the only place you can find up to date info on the government overreach in Alabama and other states where they are literally turning away democratically elected representatives and removing them from committees.
in the new bill it actually gives the government insane levels of power over the average citizens digital communications and allows the government to shut down any sites deemed inappropriate.
im curious who is actually behind this but even more concerned with the question of them being successful in passing the bill and banning this app. Can anyone share any insight they may have on this? Any intuition on this?
@bwitt Hi Bwitt, thanks for posting and welcome to our forum! I agree that it is important to be able to find ways to get to the truth when the mainstream is repressing it. The issue is complicated so I'd love to hear more of your research and keep this dialogue going so we can better understand it.
Please do post references to some unbiased media (if that is possible) to back up your helpful statements, so we can better guage the veracity other than doing the research ourselves.
I did a little research, way too cursory, but a start.
An independent fact-checking group researched various topics in 2020 on tik-tok and found 20% were misleading or false. https://www.newsguardtech.com/misinformation-monitor/september-2022/
--posts about the election was stolen
--posts about how climate change is a hoax
-- posts during early covid days about how you can make your own hydroxchloriquin
-- posts about making a mugwart drink to induce an abortion
"For example, when a user enters the term “climate change,” TikTok suggests searches for “climate change debunked” and “climate change doesn’t exist.” For a user who searches for “covid vaccine,” TikTok suggests a search for “covid vaccine injury,” “covid vaccine truths,” “covid vaccine exposed,” “covid vaccine hiv,” and “covid vaccine warning.” A search for “Jan 6” yields suggestions for videos proclaiming “Jan 6 footage being let in” and “Jan 6 antifa,” among others."
This reference is not a final word. I'm not even sure how much I would rely on newsguard. There are other fact-check groups I've used over the years, like fact-check.org and snopes. But this was the first one I found that did a study. It sounds like tik Tok is about as reliable as facebook. Which would mean that it could reveal news that the mainstream press has chosen not to write about. But it comes with a slippery slope.
@jeanne-mayell what I have found on tiktok is people sharing political opinions, fashion, social justice issues, etc. And yes there is misinformation but that’s found on any platform. Like all platforms there is a way to report harmful content.
What I find strange is the focus on just the one app. What about Facebook, parler? Lots of misinformation there but no mention of them in the hearing. It’s seems like a way to drum up anger for something to get America on the side of approving the bill, but the language of the bill seems to give pretty broad powers to the government with regard to shutting down anything of foreign ownership or INFLUENCE. Which to me seems like a slippery slope. How do you prove enough influence from an adversary to shut something down? What if the government decides that civil disobedience is not beneficial? Any foreign news source or commentary could be construed as “influence”, right? So the question is, could they shut down reporting of riots or protests to ensure they don’t spread? If I was an authoritarian government I would do that.
Because I can’t possibly have the answers to these questions I wonder if any focus or concentration could go into this. To see if the intent here is really protective or controlling. Even if protective, I could foresee a less scrupulous government using it in a nefarious way. our government is the same one that overthrew governments in South America simply to benefit American fruit companies. Started a whole coup over it. So would I trust that they wouldn’t use these powers poorly? I just don’t know.
This NYTimes story excerpt might be a helpful addition to this conversation. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/23/briefing/tiktok-hearing-ban.html
Dated 3/23/23 by Lauren Jackson. The Threat of Tik-Tok
The federal government and more than half of the states have banned TikTok from government devices and networks. Britain, Canada and Belgium have done the same. India banned the app entirely. Now the U.S. is threatening a nationwide ban, too....
"The platforms are so powerful, their names are verbs: Google, Uber, Instagram, Netflix.
For years, the dominance of American tech companies has brought economic benefits to the United States. It has also offered an advantage in a less obvious area — national security.
Tech companies gather incredible amounts of data about their users. They know where we travel, who our friends are and what we watch. Governments want to use this data for surveillance, law enforcement and espionage. So they hack, hoard, steal and buy it. For years, the U.S. has had an edge over other countries. With court approval, the government can demand that social media giants, based in the U.S. and subject to U.S. law, hand over data about users.
“We had this advantage that we thought would just go on forever,” Bruce Schneier, a security expert and Harvard fellow, said.
Then TikTok came along. The social media app, owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, has more than a billion users. TikTok says that includes about 150 million Americans. Under China’s authoritarian state, the government has sweeping control over tech companies and their data. U.S. officials are worried that China will use TikTok to promote its interests and gather Americans’ personal information. One Republican called it a spy balloon in your phone.
TikTok is the latest flashpoint in the two countries’ struggle for supremacy. Last week, TikTok said U.S. officials had given its Chinese ownership two options: Sell the app or risk a nationwide ban. This morning, lawmakers will question TikTok’s chief executive, Shou Chew, about the app’s ties to China.
Today, I will explain the fight over TikTok and how the U.S. is trying to use the app to its advantage.
The concerns
This fight is ostensibly about data: who controls it and determines how it appears on TikTok. The U.S. has two main reasons for concern.
First is the threat of Chinese espionage. BuzzFeed found that ByteDance engineers in China had accessed American users’ private data. ByteDance also admitted that employees, including two based in China, spied on journalists and obtained their IP addresses, but said that company leaders had not signed off and that the employees were fired. Despite ByteDance’s close ties to China, TikTok has denied that it has given data to the government.
Second, ByteDance could use TikTok’s algorithms to influence Americans. TikTok has been accused of censoring videos about politically sensitive subjects for China, like Tibetan independence and the Tiananmen Square massacre.
“A Chinese company owns what has become America’s number one culture maker right now,” Sapna Maheshwari, a Times reporter who covers TikTok, said. In the future, lawmakers say, it’s easy to imagine how China could use TikTok to shape American attitudes about Taiwan — or an American presidential campaign.
The U.S. is escalating efforts to limit TikTok’s power. The federal government and more than half of the states have banned TikTok from government devices and networks. Britain, Canada and Belgium have done the same. India banned the app entirely. Now the U.S. is threatening a nationwide ban, too....
The power of a threat
Even if a ban never happens, the threat of one still matters. The Biden administration is using the specter of further restrictions to communicate a hard line on China. Lawmakers in both parties will likely make that point clear in the hearing today.
“If you can control data, you can have influence,” Joseph Nye, a political scientist, said.
China has known this for years. The country has banned apps like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and operated a tightly controlled internet, isolating its citizens from the rest of the world. The U.S. is now threatening to use China’s playbook against it, effectively leveraging private companies as a national asset and limiting information access as a form of sanctioning...