You can sue for defamation. We need similar laws for politicians (yellow cake WMD claims) and news media (Fox News blatant lies) where the people responsible are legally liable for what they say if they can't prove the veracity of their claims in court and/or if what they say turns out to be fabricated. Jail time is a must in this case. You can't have free speech without honest speech.
And you wonder why people hate you? Feminism is about equality. BLM is about equality. They are not the people. They are ideas and ideals. The people who do or don't support them should not influence your opinion of the idea itself. If you don't treat people how you want to be treated you are a hypocrite.
no, people here want to censor the right out of existence. I mean come on, Fox News? Really? The bar suddenly lowers to a point that is indefensible. It's really obvious these days that its one-sided, to the point where I throw up my hands and not expect any fairness.
“He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion... Nor is it enough that he should hear the opinions of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them...he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.”
Politics is the mind-killer. Even those of us who wish to be rational and practice rationalism, suck at applying the methods of rationality to politics by default.
I don’t have a magic-wand solution to this (and I’d be surprised if such a solution exists), but we’ve just witnessed what happens if you let people argue endlessly in bad faith without consequence, and what happened was not good.
Perhaps your way is the least-bad outcome overall? I wouldn’t know, but you do not appear to have made that argument.
I'm not in the US, and I haven't visited the country in a very long time. But I'm casually curious about all of this, and have looked at US media.
You are absolutely right that CNN is biased. They clearly are not trying to make it seem as though they aren't. The same with Fox, who are equally biased. However, only only of those outlets lets their reporters outright lie.
Now, it may be that I'm looking in the wrong places, but if I were to see lies on CNN in the same way as I see it on Fox, I'll be happy to change my mind, but right now I think it's pretty clear which one needs to be curbed.
Fox also allows comments on their stories. A lot of the real hateful stuff can be found there, and section 230 allows Fox to wash their hands of that. Perhaps Trump was on to something when he was campaigning to have it revoked? (the last part is sarcasm, of course).
Edit note: (this post has been downvoted into oblivion. I honestly have no idea which "side" have been doing the downvoting. I wonder if it's because the downvoters misunderstood what I was saying, or if they did understand and simply disagree)
It only didn't end in legal action against Trump because of the procedural issues related to bringing charges against a sitting president. Barr made that decision, and chose to protect Trump.
Your video (apparently) shows a CNN producer who apparently believed the story was "fake", but that's not consistent with the actual facts we know.
I didn't find anything. I did show that Trump is surprisingly clean. Maybe because of lacking ability, but unusually clean for a president. Cleaner than Biden in case of Ukraine for example, even if Trumps dealings are self-serving.
Furthermore Bidens dealings are relevant to the US geopolitical ambitions and the censorship of it was a disgrace for the press. It keeps people uninformed, even if presentation of these issues is difficult for any news network.
What's the standard here? Reagan arming Contra rebels by selling arms to Iran?
Or are you comparing to the presidential campaigns for President? Are you claiming that Obama and Romney and Clinton colluded way more with foreign powers?
Or are you comparing with Biden, who profited in no way from his dealings in Ukraine?
If there was a way to indict executive overreach on issues like surveillance and propaganda for example, things that are actually important compared to utterances of certain persons, the numbers would look quite different.
Trump is as guilty of executive overreach, no questions asked, but the criticism is very selective.
politfact is not really a good source. Trump has some financial involvements that should be questioned, but this isn't really enough. Indictment doesn't mean guilty as I believe.
If there had been something, we would have heard about it non-stop.
Well, Trump had 6 key people indicted, including his lawyer and his campaign manager, on 81 charges and several convictions / guilty pleas. Clinton had 2 indictments and 1 conviction, while Obama and Carter had 0. Which administration out of these would you say was the least "clean"?
If it was truly irrelevant, Twitter wouldn't censor it. They even locked out the New York Post out of their account for posting about it.
Biden is in the politics for decades, there is more then plenty of pretty damning evidence to show that, at the very best, he doesn't believe in anything he says.
Yea. I haven't followed the "election theft" narrative too closely, but the active, seemingly-coordinated censorship of this story is probably the best case for it.
That's ridiculous circular logic. The story is valid because it's not being covered? Millions of stories are not covered by the news every day. A functionally infinite number of non-stories are not covered by the news every day. The non-coverage of a story has no bearing on its validity.
Your claim is also invalid on its face—the election theft narrative is being spoken about endlessly. Trump's claims are headline news every single day. A significant fraction of the population believe it. So to claim that the story is being "censored" is simply wrong on the facts.
First of all, it was not "not covered", but censored. The Hunter story is valid, simply because it's valid. The same media that decided not to cover the story before the election, confirmed its validity since then and decided that it was in fact news-worthy. Also the FBI launched the investigation into this.
Hate to be the person to point that out, but let's be honest with ourselves, if it was Trump Jr. who was taking pictures of him putting his dick into a pizza while smoking crack with random hookers, it would be probably retweeted by @jack himself lol.
This is the fundamental problem in the US. There is a large group of people on the right that think that pointing out the objective issues with Trump is being "biased".
Sometimes, there just aren't two sides to a story, or more accurately one side is true and the other believes they had the biggest inauguration crowd ever.
The rest of the world clearly sees this. I'll openly admit to being a left-leaning liberal, but even my friends who vote right wing think that Trump is an embarrassment.
One of the most interesting things cable news networks do is compile clips of their competitors caught in acts of hypocrisy, self-contradiction, breathless hyperbole and blatant lying.
They can all do this to each other because they are all guilty of it. Cable news is a tower of partisan propaganda.
Social media has the exact same problem magnified 100 fold, because there is so much more content to cherrypick from. People only see the actions of extremists and attribute that behavior to everyone that doesn't agree with them.
Traditional media definitely has flaws, but rejecting them in favor of social media because of it is an absurd and incredibly destructive reaction.
This is not (as) true of most other traditional media, e.g. local newspapers to the extent that they still exist. But cable news really is propaganda. Fox used to be the worst offender, but now they're all that bad, though playing for different teams of course.
There seems to be some kind of law that the larger a media outlet is, the more partisan it gets. Which is why social media is like the Exxon Valdez crashed into Deepwater Horizon and caught on fire.
It’s because the masses are trying to partake in serious discourse in a non-serious way.
On any given day, two different perspectives agreeing to intellectually consider why the other side is objectively incorrect (as in, not just agreeing they are simply different) is a serious undertaking. If you casually take any topic, every single day, and allow people to do the thought experiment that one argument is more valid in a casual manner, you will 100% have to cut corners because you did not seriously approach the task. The most obvious way is you paint an enemy, or the notion of the other, an idea of a threat.
The average person in NYC really has no business having a dinner time objective discussion with someone from Missouri about gun ownership. Really the discussion should come down to ‘we have a lot space and gun culture in Missouri and it’s something we enjoy’, followed by ‘Interesting, it’s not the biggest thing here in NYC actually’. That’s about it.
But if there is an institution, I don’t know, let’s call it a fight club (the media), that says ‘you two at dinner, get ready to fight’, the two contestants will fight in an inexperienced way. Hair pulling, throwing rocks, no real jabs, conditioning, submissions, no fight experience.
It is not a casual ordeal to debate, and this is what the media is making people do.
We are not ready amongst ourselves to debate constitutional law and the rights of man, and the compromises needed to maintain society. It’s a serious thing to enter into that discussion.
The only take away I see in all of this is that there is a market for the un-serious, and there are some serious people (media) interested in that market.
Well put. This political battle is being fought at the lowest levels of discourse that's barely above animalistic screeching while trying to tangle some of the most complex and nuanced topics; and the results are predictably ridiculous.
Sorry, but no. CNN, MSNBC, etc are far from perfect, but let's not pretend that "both sides are as bad as each other".
Fox (to say nothing of the absolute swamp that is OANN or Newsmax) are an order of magnitude worse than the so called "left" channels (only in the US would CNN be considered a left wing news channel).
The reason that CNN, etc are "biased" against Trump is because reality is bisaed against Trump. He's just a terrible president, a lousy business man and an awful human.
Again, only in the US would that be considered a controversial statement.
people forget the dominionist gaslighting of Sarah Palin. Pretty much every republican is seen as mini hitler these days-the shit that was said about George Bush Jr for example.
> “Only in the US" is only what matters when discussing US politics.
And only in the US would someone be so insular as to make such a statement :)
The US is still the largest economy in the world. As much as the rest of us would love to turn a blind eye when they elect an incompetent sociopath, unfortunately, we have to deal with his bullshit.
We're not discussing foreign policy but domestic politics and media as they are within the US. How the rest of the world judges them isn't relevant, and would be the same as someone in the US talking about how things are going in Zimbabwe as they look to us here.
The rest of the world is not a single monolithic group either so I don't see the point of your sweeping generalizations.
> How the rest of the world judges them isn't relevant, and would be the same as someone in the US talking about how things are going in Zimbabwe as they look to us here.
Nonsense. Of course, people’s opinion of internal politics is relevant. If it wasn’t, we’d still have apartheid in South Africa, for example.
And no, the rest of the world is not a single monolithic group, but the vast majority of it (especially in comparable western democracies) thinks trump is a laughing stock.
Brilliant summary. Let's not pretend it isn't. Everybody would agree that it was cogent, persuasive and utterly compelling. Good to be know what world outside the US thinks and I like the cherry on top: 'reality is biased against Trump'.
The more cable news you watch the stupider you get. You can actually feel your IQ dropping minute by minute as you watch Fox or MSNBC. They aren't there to make you more informed, their sole purpose is to say whatever will keep you engaged long enough to sell you deodorant, prescription pharmaceuticals and pickup trucks. They are a Dunning-Kruger effect generator. Whenever someone mentions something they saw on CNN last night my opionion of them drops.
The good news is that your cognitive function is not permanently lost, it can be quickly recovered by just turning off the TV and reading a book, playing with the dog or going on a long walk.
I wish this wasn’t being downvoted. It’s so tempting to sit back and let the news networks do your thinking for you. In reality, just 10 minutes of news browsing a day will garner 80% of the news you need to know about.
Yes, keeping up with current events is an important part of being a good citizen but there are quickly diminishing returns on that and it’s never worth sacrificing parts of your life and livelihood for.
Ahh, the "both sides" argument. No, Fox News and CNN are not the same. The fact that you believe this... I'm not going to try to dissuade you. I don't have that much free time.
I think any media outlet that knowingly lies should be stopped. 3 strikes? 10 strikes? Some system, whereby they will lose the ability to continue if they do what Fox News does.
If lying was illegal the entire political system would implode. What if you punished Bush and Blair for their lies about "weapons of mass destruction"? How would that look? Of course you need to allow the good guys to lie, when they are working for good causes like bombing third world countries.
You can't very well let the fickle populace decide such important things without a little nudging.
Do you watch CNN? For about 2 years they had cnn playing on a tv near the break room, so as I refilled my water bottle, I got to see what cnn thought was the most important (Trump) news.
They spent a week on how much diet soda he drank. They had experts on saying why it could cause mental problems and that they should use the 25th on him.
They spent several days when he had 2 scoops of ice cream at a White House dinner, while his guests only got one scoop. I wish I was joking about this, but I am not. I sometimes wonder what Wolf Blitzer thinks as he’s commenting on some of these stories. Such a name, wasted.
Those are the two most comical, but the scary thing is all news is biased. Two sides of the same coin. If you don’t think so, I suggest you search out other sources. Why wouldn’t they be biased? News today is about making money, and cnn and others cashed in on the hate for trump.
I too remember the uproar of Obama wearing a tan suit. Or his mustard on a burger faux pas. And the weeklong intervention into the lack of an American flag on his lapel.
This is why I say both sides hide skeletons in their closet.
There's stupid reporting and there's malicious one. Yeah, nobody can stop them from doing commentary on icecream. But also that's not the issue here, is it?
This was during the first Trump is crazy, must remove him using the 25th phase. It wasn't just commentary, as this seemed to necessitate multiple days of coverage. I would say it falls closer to the malicious category because they have their agenda, like Fox news does too.
I'm sure millions still believe everything they let these outlets of their choice pump in their brain and get them revved up. For me it's all garbage (political drama) ... not to waste my time on.
> Do you believe Fox News should be banned/censored?
In Germany, we have the section §130 StGB in our criminal code: incitement to hatred. While it would be extremely hard if not impossible to get a TV station such as Fox News to be banned here, its hosts/mouthpieces/guests could certainly be sanctioned - up to actual jail time.
Also, our core media codex ("Medienstaatsvertrag") binds all broadcasting stations - radio, TV, streaming - to journalistic integrity and truthful reporting (§§6, 19, 51 MStV).
> What about CNN? They are as biased as Fox News.
I have yet to see a report that CNN broadcasts people that claim that the election was "stolen" or "manipulated". There is a massive difference between biased reporting and openly distributing lies.
I'm guessing here, but this likely doesn't remove bias. Could they simply refuse to air certain facts?
Oftentimes that's all it takes. Pick the facts you report. You aren't reporting anything "false", but the truth isn't being depicted.
From what I've heard Fox reports that millions believe there was fraud. Not that there was actual fraud. I haven't fact checked this, because it came from a left leaning source and I believed it.
> I'm guessing here, but this likely doesn't remove bias. Could they simply refuse to air certain facts?
Not without risking violating the part about "journalistic integrity". Of course there was and will always be some sort of bias (e.g. the tabloid BILD is famous for being on the right wing), but it's nowhere near the scale of Fox News.
>I have yet to see a report that CNN broadcasts people that claim that the election was "stolen" or "manipulated". There is a massive difference between biased reporting and openly distributing lies.
You may have missed it being in Germany, but for 3 years CNN, NYT, MSNBC, et al reported 24/7 that Trump colluded with the Russians to win the election. The Justice Dept spent millions thoroughly investigaing that claim and it turned out to be all lies.
The bipartisan senate intelligence report clearly lays out connections between Trump's campaign and Russian intelligence, see page 27, 178, 527, among many many others:
You are correct in that the justice department's investigation was flawed, it did not force Trump to answer questions under oath. However, we have Trump's own words: "Russia, if you're listening, I hope you find Hillary's emails."
> The Justice Dept spent millions thoroughly investigaing that claim and it turned out to be all lies.
The Mueller investigation paid for itself in civil forfeiture ($42-46m) after convicting Paul Manafort, Trump's campaign manager of tax fraud, wire fraud and other financial crimes and got convictions of ten defendants. The only reason they did not indict Trump was in deference to a memo that the Justice department cannot indict a sitting president.
What about CNN? They are as biased as Fox News.