They are going to try and control what you can read!

originally posted by: introvert
a reply to: Riffrafter

The *fact* is that the "left wing's" MSM outlets like CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times and others - DWARF'S the reach and scope of what the "right wing" has even throwing Fox news into the mix.

CNN, MSNBC and such may be biased in how they present news, but they are not the equivalent of Right Wing radio and propaganda outlets like Breitbart. Honestly, any media outlet that does not push the extreme Right version of things are considered Left-leaning. That how far the Right Wing has gone.

So you do not get to throw CNN and MSNBC in may face when they do not spread disinformation and propaganda at any level remotely close to that of the Right Wing propaganda machine. A machine that works so well that it has become profitable to create hoax sites, spreading BS to a mass of ignorant boobs that will eat it up.

OK - let's forgot the large MSM outlets then.

My contention is that there are just as many left wing propaganda outlets as there are right. I know this because I'm a registered democrat and was active in politics for a while so I my email address is on a ton of mailing lists for their stuff.

But who knows, I may be wrong. Since you are the one trying to make the case that there are more right wing than left wing propaganda spewing machines, can you provide a reputable source (preferably unbiased) that has a tally of how many of these each side has?

If so - I'll acquiesce and grant your point. If not, or you simply don't want to research the things you are posting, I understand. But then it's once again just your opinion, coming through your lens and viewpoint.

originally posted by: tnhiker
Social media plays a huge part in modern society, and its hard to monitor. We have all seen how something goes "viral" (god I hate that word) in a matter of seconds. False and true information can gallup like wildfire. However, it should be on the people reading it, and reporting it to verify the accuracy before relaying the information. there is no personal accountability. Everybody wants big brother to hold their hand, filter their information, blah blah.

This is a very valid point. Personal responsibility, yes.

BUT, it should not be this difficult to get unbiased reliable information. If every piece of content had to be individually inspected for the veracity of it's claims, then the information superhighway would become the 405 parking lot into L.A. at rush hour.

Instead I propose that the personal responsibility is to not fall prey to the rampant state of ignorance. If one becomes well informed, then any claims made that are out of line with reality would immediately be dismissed and laughed at...likely never going viral. But let's face some introspection here...we, as a people prefer to see these moronic headlines and social media makes me correct in that assumption.

If you're relying on social media to get unbiased news, then you're already doing it wrong. These are private companies and thus should be free to control what information comes into, or comes out of their product. Their user base doesn't even pay for the product, what did you expect you were getting?

That being said, I have never understood how so many 'news' sources can just make stuff up and get away with it. Where are the libel law suits? Why isn't Trump, Clinton, whoever, suiting the crap out of every writer that writes something false about them? That, to me, seems to be the problem. No one's going after the bulls**t anymore.

a reply to: jadedANDcynical

I cant really argue with most of what you've said but I think the learning process from it has arrived too late.


Once the biased/filtered content has been accepted for so long, as it has due to complacency and disregard for real fact, well, now it's an indelibly etched construct that is as tough to remove as wasps in a wall.

We tend to always be too late to the game on almost every concept that initially had good intentions.


-We wanted a system that would desway corruption in Government. What do we do? Corrupt it.
-We wanted a peace force that would not delve into corruption, to serve and protect. What do we do? Corrupt it.
-We want valuable and reliable information that is free and open to all with hopes of it actually being valuable and incorruptible. What do we do? Corrupt it.


We can put all the monitors, filters, committee's to write a report to form a task force to designate a date to address a problem, into place for any of the social/governmental processes til the cows come home, but until we begin to realize that we are the problem, complaining about it serves no purpose.

a reply to: Riffrafter

Since you are the one trying to make the case that there are more right wing than left wing propaganda spewing machines, can you provide a reputable source (preferably unbiased) that has a tally of how many of these each side has?

I don't believe I have said anything about the quantity of propaganda outlets each side has. Considering the size of the internet, that would be a very tough number to pin-down.

What I am saying is that the Right Wing propaganda machine is much better at what they do. The Right Wing, in general, will believe almost anything that is thrown at them as long as it fits their confirmation bias. Then they disseminate those lies and hoaxes all across the internet to place like Reddit and ATS.

You do not see the Left doing that.

a reply to: alphabetaone

I cant really argue with most of what you've said but I think the learning process from it has arrived too late.

I don't necessarily know that the learning process has arrived too late so much that it is that the ones behind the curtains pulling the strings are playing a long game (think on the order of generations) whereas the attention span of most of the population is more akin to that of a gnat thus allowing for these long term plans to come to fruition and our seemingly infantile responses to issues of which we are only partially aware.

What do we do? Corrupt it.

Well, sort of. We allow it to be corrupted by placing those who are susceptible to corruption in places where they are able to take advantage of their positions.

But oh, the perils of leadership in a species so anxious to be told what to do. How little they knew of what they created by their demands. Leaders made mistakes. And those mistakes, amplified by the numbers who followed without questioning, moved inevitably toward great disasters.

Lemming behavior.

It was right that her Sisters watched her carefully. All governments needed to remain under suspicion during their time of power including that of the Sisterhood itself. Trust no government! Not even mine!

They are watching me this very instant. Very little escapes my Sisters. They will know my plan in time.

It required constant mental cleansing to face up to the fact of her great power over the Sisterhood. I did not seek this power. It was thrust upon me. And she thought: Power attracts the corruptible. Suspect all who seek it. She knew the chances were great that such people were susceptible to corruption or already lost.

Odrade made a mental note to scribe and transmit a Coda memo to Archives. (Let Bell sweat this one!) “We should grant power over our affairs only to those who are reluctant to hold it and then only under conditions that increase the reluctance.”

Chapterhouse: Dune - Frank Herbert (I know, people are going to start thinking I'm overusing this series)

"Suspect all who seek it."

This is a very good rule of thumb.

The problem is that we find ourselves being governed by a relatively small number of people who are where they are precisely because they did seek this power (over others) and that the one who might actually use that power responsibly are not the ones who would be putting themselves forward as candidates.

we are the problem

Not much issue with that from me. We are indeed by allowing this sort of thing to continue in our name and abdicating responsibility.

Hence my reasoning behind wanting a basic civics test in order to be eligible to vote; as from one of our prior conversations.

a reply to: introvert

Trump was able to step in and become the candidate that embodied everything the extreme Right has come to represent and while the propaganda was spread to keep the Right Wingers voting Republican, it backfired because the beliefs of the Right Wing are too extreme for the average Republican.

lol
Trump "stepped in" thats rich. NO ONE predicted Trump being the nominee.
fivethirtyeight.com...

In order of appearance — I may be missing a couple of instances — we put them at 2 percent (in August), 5 percent (in September), 6 percent (in November), around 7 percent (in early December), and 12 percent to 13 percent (in early January).

Yeah keep making it sound like trump "stepped in" and saved the day for the gop. Trump had to drag the nom from the dead hand of the establishment.
www.nationalreview.com...

But then comes the paradox. If insufficient resistance to Obama’s liberalism created this sense of betrayal, why in a field of 17 did Republican voters choose the least conservative candidate? A man who until yesterday was himself a liberal. Who donated money to those very same Democrats to whom the GOP establishment is said to have caved, including Chuck Schumer, Harry Reid, and Hillary Clinton.

Yep trump got the backing of all that right wing propaganda you have been going on about didnt he?
You are full of it!

Then when ACTUAL FACTS are brought up about NBC,MSNBC, and CNN colluding and aiding hillary you, of course, blow it off as if it were off topic. The msm MAKING UP the news or censoring the news is exactly what this topic is about.
The msm did everything they could possibly think of to get hillary elected.

Oh and as to hillary being charged....
www.fbi.gov... -a-personal-e-mail-system

Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.

intent is not needed to charge as you will be shown soon

Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.

a "reasonable" prosecutor is on the way and charges will be brought

Im always down to beat up on Obama....but this is a stretch.

There's "reading between the lines". Then there's "throwing chicken bones into the skillet". This is more of the latter, and none of the former.

2008: How Obama Tapped Into Social Networks’ Power
2008:Barack Obama and the Facebook Election
The Internet’s Role in Campaign 2008
10 Social Media lessons - Barack Obama election campaign
The Social Pulpit - Barack Obama's Social Media Toolkit
How Obama Won the Social Media Battle in the 2012 Presidential Campaign
The Digital Smackdown: Obama 2008 vs. Obama 2012
How Obama’s Internet Campaign Changed Politics

Etc, etc...

And this little gem from the last link above:

“Were it not for the Internet, Barack Obama would not be president. Were it not for the Internet, Barack Obama would not have been the nominee,” said Arianna Huffington, editor in chief of The Huffington Post.

Check out what she says @15:05

So the internet and social media was all wonderful in 2008 and 2012, as long as it worked to push the progressive movement. But in 2016, when it cut against them, it is a thing of evil and must be snuffed out, allowing only curated and approved messaging.

Brazen hypocrisy.

a reply to: shooterbrody

lol Trump "stepped in" thats rich. NO ONE predicted Trump being the nominee.

That is not what I said. There is no need to add your own interpretation to what I said. It's there in black and white.

Yeah keep making it sound like trump "stepped in" and saved the day for the gop.

Again, that's how you interpret what I said. But it's not what I did say.

Trump had to drag the nom from the dead hand of the establishment.

And my point is that he was able to do that because his campaign and candidacy tried to rally those extremes on the Right that was created by Right Wing propaganda.

Yep trump got the backing of all that right wing propaganda you have been going on about didnt he? You are full of it!

No, he got the backing from the people that fell for all that propaganda, as the other GOP candidates were not extreme enough for them. Are you beginning to follow yet?

Then when ACTUAL FACTS are brought up about NBC,MSNBC, and CNN colluding and aiding hillary you, of course, blow it off as if it were off topic.

It is not the topic. You are bringing it in to the discussion because it helps deflect from my point.

intent is not needed to charge as you will be shown soon

You do not understand the issue very well. So I can see why you think that.

a "reasonable" prosecutor is on the way and charges will be brought

Not going to happen. You can dream, but that's all it will be.

originally posted by: introvert
a reply to: Riffrafter

Since you are the one trying to make the case that there are more right wing than left wing propaganda spewing machines, can you provide a reputable source (preferably unbiased) that has a tally of how many of these each side has?

I don't believe I have said anything about the quantity of propaganda outlets each side has. Considering the size of the internet, that would be a very tough number to pin-down.

What I am saying is that the Right Wing propaganda machine is much better at what they do. The Right Wing, in general, will believe almost anything that is thrown at them as long as it fits their confirmation bias. Then they disseminate those lies and hoaxes all across the internet to place like Reddit and ATS.

You do not see the Left doing that.

OK - I understand what you're saying now.

In your opinion, the right is better at it than the left.

You may be right - I don't know. I guess it depends on how much you believe either of the propaganda machines impacted this election. Me? I don't know. I only know what things pointed me in the direction I voted.

But I *do* believe that certain individuals who are respected and/or admired by many for a variety of reasons, had a very large impact in places like Facebook and twitter. I'm just talking about regular citizens.

We all know people like this. Hell, we're probably friends with some of them on Facebook or follow them on twitter. Or we might be one of them ourselves. That "citizen to citizen" type of communicating is what put Trump in office and killed Hillary.

What do you think?

1984 it's closer than you think.

Sometimes I wonder how humanity got this far.

originally posted by: Subsonic
If you're relying on social media to get unbiased news, then you're already doing it wrong. These are private companies and thus should be free to control what information comes into, or comes out of their product. Their user base doesn't even pay for the product, what did you expect you were getting?

That being said, I have never understood how so many 'news' sources can just make stuff up and get away with it. Where are the libel law suits? Why isn't Trump, Clinton, whoever, suiting the crap out of every writer that writes something false about them? That, to me, seems to be the problem. No one's going after the bulls**t anymore.

The press has a wide degree of latitude in publishing BS. However, if one can prove the media acted negligently and caused harm, a case might have merit.

In my opinion, Hillary could sue the living hell out of Breitbart and other sites, although I think those fake stories did more to mobilize Trump's base than to dissuade hers.

She won't do that, of course. It would look petty. But in my opinion, it wouldn't be petty, whether she won or not. Those media outlets deserve to get the sh*t sued out of them for deliberately manufacturing completely bogus stories.

What do you believe, and why do you believe it? Has what you believe been verified as being believable? This is the responsibility we each place on ourselves when we think and when we act. From the moment we wake to the moment we sleep our day consists entirely on acting (as responses) on information we receive and process. No one is more responsible to how we act than ourselves. We are each responsible for the way in which we process information and integrate it into our daily experience.

It is becoming a very real issue where disagreeing with another's point of view requires an almost violent response, to at least cause a 'shut down' in the ability to disagree with another. Soon, it may come to a point where we will not have a 'right' to disagree with another's idea/s or agenda. Ignorance will not be bliss, but a requisite for a peaceful but a highly controlled and manipulated life of limitation and devolved individuality.

Ask the question: whose point of view is correct? Whose 'weltanschauung' is the right one that draws universal and consensual agreement? These questions, of course, have no definitive answer, as no one singular narrative fits all, as there are too many variables in the mix to pacify, too many diverse ideologies, cultures and mindsets, each wanting to bring comfort and success to its own narrative. We are in dangerous times as there are forces at work wanting to reduce the idea of freedom into some kind of homogeneous behaviour pattern that brings about a level of control of individuality unprecedented in human history.

As an illustration, Dave McClure's freak out in the OP's video is a prime example of someone wanting to impose his view on others. He says..."We should not sit up here as if nothing has happened. We were robbed, we were raped..." Robbed? Raped? By whom or by what? What he is really saying is my candidate lost, and I don't like it. He is saying it cannot be me who is wrong, so it must be you! You robbed me! You raped me! You did so because you didn't understand what you were doing.

What you are seeing as a response to Trump's presidential win is the same response we saw here in Britain with the referendum vote. People are non-accepting of the result and now want to bring changes to the democratic process, but change it how and to what? In democracy, the majority wins the vote, and the minority abides by the result. It is simple and fair. Trump was utterly castrated by the MSM yet still won the election by gaining the most electoral college votes. That's the American electoral system that has been in place for hundreds of years. Are we expected to believe that it suddenly no longer works, or are we to believe (rightly) that the losers are poor and impoverished in their acceptance of the result, and no longer want to play the game the same way as everyone else?

I don't doubt, based on the reactions to the Brexit result and America's election result that certain liberals will want to effect a change in the democratic process, and to do so by controlling the flow of information on the internet, because they obviously think you are all idiots and are unable to discern a lie from the truth. How else can they be expected to apportion blame for their loss?

Personally, I think we have reached a point where we are experiencing and consciously coming to understand a colliding between older and younger mindsets, between minds born before the nineties, and those born after. These collisions will continue to occur until the older generations die off, and once they do, common sense democratic individuality will die with them, and in its place to fill the vacuum, will be a façade of democratic freedom, where decisions will be determined by a homogenous mob culture. Fortunately, I will be long dead by then.

originally posted by: elysiumfire
As an illustration, Dave McClure's freak out in the OP's video is a prime example of someone wanting to impose his view on others. He says..."We should not sit up here as if nothing has happened. We were robbed, we were raped..." Robbed? Raped? By whom or by what? What he is really saying is my candidate lost, and I don't like it. He is saying it cannot be me who is wrong, so it must be you! You robbed me! You raped me! You did so because you didn't understand what you were doing.

Exactly. The scary thing is I find most anti-trump people agreeing with his view. But I'm not sure it's generational. I see plenty of over 50 liberals sharing the same perspective.

Regardless, these are spooky times. Still can't believe this is happening in the USA.

originally posted by: loam

originally posted by: elysiumfire
As an illustration, Dave McClure's freak out in the OP's video is a prime example of someone wanting to impose his view on others. He says..."We should not sit up here as if nothing has happened. We were robbed, we were raped..." Robbed? Raped? By whom or by what? What he is really saying is my candidate lost, and I don't like it. He is saying it cannot be me who is wrong, so it must be you! You robbed me! You raped me! You did so because you didn't understand what you were doing.

Exactly. The scary thing is I find most anti-trump people agreeing with his view. But I'm not sure it's generational. I see plenty of over 50 liberals sharing the same perspective.

Regardless, these are spooky times. Still can't believe this is happening in the USA.

Which is why I'm asking people to please, please be more discerning. Double and triple check sources. How many times do we have some knuckle-head drag a story on these forums which can be proven false within 10 seconds flat?

What this proves is how POWERFUL bogus information can be. Propaganda is a weapon -- just ask the U.S. government, who uses it on our enemies all the time.

In this election cycle, we had propaganda dumped on us, much of it with origins outside the united states.

I'd say at the very least, our society has a vested interest in keeping BS propaganda influenced by foreign governments from flooding our citizenry.

If people were smarter and more discerning, this would not be an issue.

But they are not.

Can they be?

I have my doubts.

And this isn't about whether people agree with me -- it's about whether people just blindly swallow what they're fed.

The fact that they don't appear to be capable of this is dangerous to our society.

originally posted by: introvert
What I am saying is that the Right Wing propaganda machine is much better at what they do. The Right Wing, in general, will believe almost anything that is thrown at them as long as it fits their confirmation bias. Then they disseminate those lies and hoaxes all across the internet to place like Reddit and ATS.

Spoken like a true mouthpiece of the state...

Most of us here on ATS like to question corruption..

Whereas you and yours seem to prefer denying that it exists..

a reply to: Riffrafter

That "citizen to citizen" type of communicating is what put Trump in office and killed Hillary.

That very well could be the case. Social media is a great way to spread information fast, whether it be factual or propaganda. I cannot say much more than that because I do not use FB or Twitter.

a reply to: Greggers

I'd say at the very least, our society has a vested interest in keeping BS propaganda influenced by foreign governments from flooding out citizenry.

And we should not be subject to the propaganda of our own government, there should NOT be intelligence agency operatives posing as journalists.

Major media outlets should NOT be colluding with either side of the political fence. And when such is shown to occur, severe and harsh penalties should apply.

a reply to: Tucket

My post had nothing to do with corruption.