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Except it is not the right, it is the billionaires, filthy rich shareholders, etc. Big company CEOs and politicians (left and right) are just their pawns. They heavily lean on right/conservatives because they are easier to manipulate. Remember, billionaires are food, not friends.
There’s no “Big company left CEOs”. The megacorp model is inherently rightwing - democratizing workplaces makes it difficult for a single person to run a large company.
I still think that they’d make for a terrible meal.
Maybe they’d make for good fertilizer instead?
Compost the rich
You are describing the right. It is moot point; it must be stopped.
They are not the right, they have no ideals besides money, power and privilege. It is just easier to bend the right into obedience and their world view, hence why. Same shareholders you would call “right” also will have shares in green energy and sustainability because to them everything is an investment.
Yup. These fucks will happily send our troops into harms way murdering foreign civilians for a buck. Sure they’ve already attained wealth so massive that none of their heirs will ever have to do anything besides ask the butler for a refill, but why not blow up some brown kids so they can take a little more?
The right doesn’t actually want this, it’s their kids going too. But then the heads on Fox start talking in big words, so they must be smart and they’re saying it’s a good thing, so it must be. Sure, the other taking heads say it’s awful, but they are paid actors by the liberal pizza pedo ring and Obama. Trump said so! Sure he lies, but he lies to the liberals, not me!
The left does ignore this problem or get wrapped up in their useless “big picture” rhetoric that leads nowhere when this is a very practical, tangible problem. Dominating over the right-wing propaganda machine is the obvious answer. When I suggest the left needs their own propaganda bots & troll farms flooding social media, their own podcasters & influencers to propagate their propaganda, better engagement through local organizations to answer & counteract right-wing bullshit & push some of their own to keep the right-wing occupied, I get responses like
This is such a boomer take. This is like trying to claim Clinton lost in 2016 because she didn’t tweet enough or use the right young-person slang, skibidi
or digressions like the comments here that dismiss everything as another problem to pin on capitalism without offering constructive ideas that could seriously lead anywhere. A left-wing propaganda machine to outdo the right-wing is doable, I doubt propaganda bots would cost a fortune to set up. The loser mentality of just venting about impractical shit instead of organize & reach for practical solutions is a major part of the problem.
It doesn’t quite work like that. Nobody needs a “leftist alex jones” or an "ai swarm of leftist bots’ and in terms of tech and money you just can’t compete with right wing power. Lies are easier to fabricate than truths. Trust is easier to destroy than build.
We do need information networks that work and the left has a lot of people willing to volunteer, etc.
I honestly think just going door to door and asking people if there’s anything local people should know about and then compiling frequent concerns, or notable local stories into newsletters would be far more effective than anything else.
Local journalism. There’s no money in it at the moment but the work is not incredibly complicated.
the problem with bot farms specifically is that the mainstream online platforms themselves are not neutral. i’m open to ideas.
mainstream online platforms themselves are not neutral
Unless you mean they’re not neutral about whatever yields income, I’m not sure that’s conclusive. Their “algorithm” optimizes for keeping users online regardless of what does that. A particular political orientation isn’t necessary to do that. That current ragebait predominantly leans right-wing may just reflect who’s putting the resources to sustain a ragebaiting campaign & evade bans. While I’ve seen signs & reports of the right gaining influence through viral propaganda & attempts to dominate mainstream platforms, I see little sign of the left seriously doing that.
When foreign adversaries weaponize social media, instead of putting out one-sided propaganda, they target friction points by trying to manipulate people on both sides. They’d not only push supportive propaganda, but also radicalizing propaganda to discredit the “supported” side to itself & inflame divisions.
Maybe some propaganda is needed to inflame right-wing divisions & exploit their contradictions. Left-wing propaganda could be put out in guises that appear right-wing and probably catch on: the right isn’t exceptionally bright.
i mean in the literal sense.
they are constantly deleting accounts of left wing politicians in my country, and went as far as blocking all left wing profiles for a while when they knew they would go viral because of recent happenings.
google and meta lobbied (and succeeded) for blocking a law that would make fascists accountable for their lies on the internet, and it’s common knowledge here youtube will push fascist, christofascist and generally conspiratorial right wing slop aggressively.
google took millions from actual fascists to push extremist propaganda in their search results. shit i could go on a bit.
in this case the one-sided foreign right wing propaganda is pushed by themselves. i don’t know how exactly they conceal this in the US, but i hear leftist content creators constantly complaining about similar shit online. mainstream social media platforms are very explicitly fascist, and run by fascists.
they would never allow such botting for left wing ideas like they do fascists.
You’ve pointed out problems with (shadow)bans of organic, real person profiles & the uncontrolled spread of right-wing misinformation & propaganda. I’m not talking about accounts of politicians. Politicians are not everyone’s peers. People more strongly engage with messages spread through their network of peers.
That’s why I’m suggesting adopting the same propaganda machine tactics. That includes bots feigning right-wing accounts to gain clout with right-wing communities, then when they have enough credibility, deftly inject left-wing ideas into “right-wing propaganda”, spread misinformation damaging the right, denounce right-wing figures as not “right-wing” enough. Fight lies with lies, inflame tensions, cut rifts into the right.
Since you’re referring to Brazil, another article on the topic mentions
To Brazilian sociologist Sérgio Amadeu, “online social networks and platforms controlled by big tech companies are geopolitical structures increasingly aligned with the far right.” In June, at seminars held by Bolsonaro’s right-wing Liberal party (PL), executives from Meta gave workshops teaching how to use AI and achieve greater reach on the platform.
The left could very well do likewise to “use AI and achieve greater reach on the platform”. Instead of resist and try to restrict the lies & propaganda, they could embrace & turn the same tactics against them.
they would never allow such botting for left wing ideas like they do fascists.
I’ve yet to see that. Social media like reddit is overrun with bots & fake content that they seem unable or uninterested to prevent. It’s an arms race between platform operators & bot operators working new ways to raise & defeat moderator controls. Shit gets through anyway. It’s a matter of competing & doing in kind.
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I’m not sure I understand what he’s complaining about, don’t we constantly talk about how these people are fascists? Like isn’t that the lens through which we view this?
Who do you mean when you say “these people”? Are you saying the 40% of the population that voted for Trump have always been fascist? If not you need to explain how conservative voters voted in fascism.
Conservatism has always been fascism adjacent. It’s just a cover for selfishness it’s not actually a political belief. Especially in the US especially in the last decade or so. Trump didn’t come out of a vacuum, the conditions had to be right for someone like him to be able to be appealing.
That is downstream of corporate takeover of media, is what he’s trying to say. Something that is indeed rarely discussed, but I wouldn’t say never
I’d agree more if his second example wasn’t something that was blatantly true, regardless of whether the right-wing infosphere happens to push it.
Everyone involved is corrupt. The leadership of both parties forsook red and blue years ago, the only color they recognize is green.
They don’t want to talk about how it’s capitalism that’s the problem, about how capitalist control of media will inevitably subvert democracy, making capitalism and democracy incompatible.
Ding, ding!
Capitalism is the hellspawn of feudalism which is inherently authoritarian so we shouldn’t be surprised but thank you for saying the quiet part out loud.
He’s put the cart before the horse.
It’s not “the right”, it’s the super wealthy billionaires who have taken over the political media & infosphere. Earnest liberals and conservatives should open their eyes and see, they are both being used against the other right out in the open.
The political media and infosphere is FOR SALE, why does he ignore that? Anybody can buy them and control the narrative. Oh, correction, anybody who’s filthy rich can buy them. Not you.
Earnest liberals and conservatives
Both those groups support the existence of capitalism. Wealth inequality and capitalists owning media are natural results of this.
If they stopped supporting the system that caused this, they wouldn’t be liberals/conservatives, they’d be leftists.
So, that’s every country since the reformation? Uh-oh we’re in big trouble
People are the problem.
You can point all this out yet they will still go oh well, they will agree you…then go and hoover it up.
There may be a tipping point but honestly it ain’t close.
By “the right” did he mean the pedo elite and the epstein class? Or is that synonymous now?
Cause by my eyes, having ghislane with supermod status on reddit and jeff having been in close enough contact with the 4chan guy to make /pol exist, not to mention zuck playing every side on fb and now long rat owning twitter; all these mean that the majority of left/right discourse can be boiled down to “manipulated opinions astroturfed by billionaires who have the ability to bot farm absolutely any opinion into the general populace.”
I think the American ruling class has always controlled the media.
What changed is the American ruling class is now dominated by nationalist fascists rather than internationalist neo liberals.
What media is going to report on a media takeover? They are preparing for the midterms to try and force voters to choose the option that leads to a fascist dictatorship run by the corporate oligarchs. It’s very clear but I’ve long given up on the average person’s capacity to see the realities they live in and let it motive them to group up and attempt the end boss raid that needs to happen.
If your ideology requires the censorship of competing ideology its a shit ideology.
The problem is, what are you supposed to do about it without violating the First Amendment?
No need to make the trials about the speech when you have plenty of financial crime to go after
Or prosecute for treason, material support to traitors, etc
One thing that would at least help is applying antitrust laws and breaking up said companies. Their size and consolidation alone is a decent chunk of the issue, though that still leaves more to be desired
Isn’t there a 2nd one about dealing with issues like this
Stop using sources that push propaganda? Support independent journalists like 404 media & use fediverse social media?
no I think I’ll just stay on tiktok and twitter. thats where my friends are after all. (this is not an attack on you specifically but your argument is used like this all the time, there are reputable alternatives to mainstream media.)
Actually, I don’t think you understood my argument.
I’m not asking about what individual members of the public are supposed to do, I’m asking what lawmakers are supposed to do. I’m talking about beyond a mere boycott, which (as you yourself just pointed out) is a losing strategy.
If i ran the administration with a majority, the first stop would be the FCC to create legislation towards free and fair reporting that actually gets enforced, with punishment based on percentage of profit instead of flat rate fines. Monopoly of information laws should also be created via the FCC.
I do not though so. here we are :P
free and fair reporting
Thats not possible. Everything is propaganda; the effect of choosing which aspects if a story to emphasize and what context to include is a zero-sum game as far as shaping public perception.
percentage of profit
Most media are loss makers. By funding it, oligarchs are able reinforce a system that keeps the money flowing into their bank accounts.
“A perfect world is not possible so we should do nothing”
Your comment is propaganda thats trying to show the negative aspect of regulating a medium when the only thing to be gained from giving this viewpoint without a solution is defeatism.
and if you think Fox News is losing money I have a bridge to sell you.
Who said we should do nothing? We should recognize all reporting is biased, and democratize media so its biased towards us, the working class.
Bringing back the fairness doctrine just means for every hour of “we need to invade Iraq/n because they’re evil brown muslims” we get an hour of “We need to invade Iraq/n because the people yearn for freedom”
So youre saying the same thing I said, except you think its different because instead of saying the FCC you said the working class.
Do you have an actual working implementation of how media can be democratized by the working class? Are we voting on if news is true? How would this work in practice? I am not going to completely dismiss your argument but I am failing to see the vision.
who do you expect is the person deciding what reporting is free and fair? is there a governmental regulatory body, created with the purpose of determining if the reporting was factual? shouldn’t the efficiency of this process be improved via pre-approving any media by this regulator to avoid fines?
governmental regulatory body, created with the purpose of determining if the reporting was factual
Yes, thats the FCC, they did that historically, and required equal time/space for both democratic candidates and republican candidates. Naturally that meant channels would count up every 3 second clip and replay, and surrogates/pundits didn’t count at all.
is there a governmental regulatory body, created with the purpose of determining if the reporting was factual?
yes
shouldn’t the efficiency of this process be improved via pre-approving any media by this regulator to avoid fines?
You’re looking to slippery slope this into saying this would lead to a system in which only state approved viewpoints should be shown. which is what we currently have. so, what is your idea?
I mean, there was a law to prevent exactly this. Unfortunately the law said they could ask the FCC for permission to violate (the rest of) it.
Also the fediverse is in no way immune. Most of the instances seem to be administered by honest people without a fascist political agenda, but Lemmy and Piefed in particular are incredibly easy to manipulate with user accounts.
At least the admin team isn’t on the side of the fascists, unlike other platforms. Probably wouldn’t take much money to fix that though.
I could get more specific, but let’s just start with that.
I mean, I get it, nobody is talking about the MAGA takeover of the media, but literally half the media is now captured by MAGA, who is going after the rest. Where are people supposed to hear about it?
We don’t have a lot of time left. We have to take control after the Midterms, and go hard on MAGA. Congressional investigations and hearings into anti-monopoly/anti-trust issues in the media will be an important priority. They’ll find that there was a lot of corruption and bribery involved, and those companies will be broken up.
Problem is, people ARE talking about it…
…but where exactly would you expect to HEAR about people talking about it?
Actions speak louder than words.
You’d hope so, but a lot of recent events tend to point to the opposite and it doesn’t look like we’re going to see any actions strong enough to really break through any time soon.
i honestly don’t agree. This is one of those things where the right goes “the left completely controls this thing!” and the left goes “the right completely controls this thing” and neither are correct because reality is never as simple as that.
There’s virtually nothing that either side has a monopoly on. Maybe the left has a power-monopoly on environmental issues + discourse while the right has one on gun rights. Other than that everything is a toss-up.
He is correct in identifying that some group is “flooding the zone” with inane shit like “trans girls playing sports” but this group has to be better described than just right wing. wizardbeard’s explanation is good.
The right definitely does not control media because they have been vocal about how much they hate MSM for ages, forever, and continue to do so.
The left absolutely does not dominate narratives on environmental issues in media outlets. The right wing narratives are taken at face value and amplified despite being objectively false.
Media outlets are publishing articles today that are still talking about renewables as if they were more expensive than fossil fuels. Solar has been cheapest form of power per kWh for years now around the world
The media is tiled to the right. The right complains because that’s never enough for them
Also too much blackpilling paralyses you and others in your movement. You have to look at things objectively and “what would need to be done to fix it” rather than scare people into frenzied action against various targets you list off at random.
