John Oliver is erased from Chinese internet following segment on China
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In China, you wouldn't have that option.
The answer is yes, it's more difficult.
However, the logical side of me can’t fathom how the reported events are anything remotely “propaganda”. They are legitimate things that free-press nations can discuss how they like, including laughing at them.
You can’t call things that rustle your jimmies propaganda just like you can’t call news you don’t like fake.
For example I’ve seen him state that the wage gap was 25%, straight face! that’s where the alternative viewpoints are sorely lacking and, when you learn the history of achors who have only questioned the credibility of this statistic, you can clearly say: Censorship is enforced with violence in USA.
I can't believe this "alternate viewpoints" bull is really propagating into the ether. He's either wrong or he's right. He either telling the truth, lying or ignorant.
A wage gap almost certainly exists, and can likely attributed to a number of factors backed up by factual research. "Alternate viewpoints" is a laughable reason to let anyone with a soapbox dump garbage into the ether.
If you think the world is black and white you're going to lack understanding on almost any subject because, in the real world, nuance is a thing.
Where? I've just seen his clip on the wage gap[1] and he says no such thing. Is there another clip?
I don't think that's a great analogy. Oliver is biased and he has never pretended to be a journalist. He presents stories he cares about from a specific viewpoint. The definition of propaganda is:
>information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view.
Seems fitting. Just because you may agree does not make it any less propaganda. Essentially any narrative which is not 100% fact based and unbiased is technically propaganda.
So in your world is all news propaganda?
Let me ask you this? Do you consider Fox News propaganda? How about MSNBC? CNN? If not, which shows specifically? I'm fairly certain the _majority_ of what those networks air falls squarely in the propaganda bucket because what they air is primarily dictated by how much money they think it will make them.
An example of news which I would not consider propaganda is PBS Newshour. In general they are pretty good. Not easy to tell though; you really have to do a lot of work on your own to be certain.
This explanation seems confused to me.
Is the primary concern of these networks ideology or is it profit? If it's ideology, then profit does not dictate their content. If it's profit, then ideology does not dictate their content. There, of course, is overlap, but there must be one primary goal that ultimately decides content.
Personally, I do not believe those news organizations are propaganda because I do not believe they would forego profit to push an ideological stance. In contrast, I believe that state media in China would forego profits to push an ideological stance.
As a real world example, we can consider how the New York Times pushed the Clinton e-mail story ad nausem in the lead up to the 2016 election, despite this being in opposition to the ideology of the majority of its readers.
If any biased claim can be called propaganda - then it seems the word loses it's meaning.
Perhaps the word propaganda is losing it's weight over time? Do we need a specific word for state sanctioned biased media? Or perhaps one specifically for attacks on political states or policies?
If you define "all media" as MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News, then sure. Of course it's a spectrum as well. For example I'd consider PBS a _far_ less biased source than e.g. Fox News, but I'm sure they have their moments as well. I'm not sure writing everything off as propaganda (or not) is useful in any way.
You realize that _I_ am not defining anything, right? I suggest you write Webster.
I think the problem is the pedantry of your typical engineer. No one is saying that all propaganda is equal, or that it is all inherently bad. Per a literal reading of the definition I find it hard to accept anything other than a laying out of factual data to not be propaganda, but it can be minor (e.g. PBS), major (e.g. Fox News), or somewhere in between. That's why I said above that I don't think this is a terribly useful discussion.
But if you don't agree with that then maybe we can come to common ground on the "especially of a... misleading nature." Some reporting, even if biased, is far more misleading than the rest. So if Oliver presents the facts (_all_ the relevant facts) and then shares his interpretation of those facts, not propaganda I suppose. However, if anything relevant is left out I don't know how you can call it balanced.
So it's one of these things where OP can use a politically charged word, and then claim it was used in the neutral voice.
Personally, rather than have an argument about what amounts to "propaganda" in the 21st century, let's just admit that Oliver is not deceitful, yet biased.
>...often by presenting facts selectively to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded language to produce an emotional rather than a rational response to the information that is presented.
And honestly, what major news outlet today _isn't_? Is that not a huge problem with "mainstream media" (I hate that term) currently? So... still not sure he or others can escape that label.
> using loaded language
You mean like using a loaded word like "propaganda" to describe "rhetoric" and "honest debate"?
I think Oliver's segment is more accurately classified as an op-ed piece with some satire, it's not propaganda.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Op-ed
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion
Propaganda has a specific legal definition which maybe is more relevant than what you found in Webster.
Yes, those darn dictionary readers...
From Black's Law Dictionary[1]:
>A message that is aimed at a specific audience that will try to change their thinking to that of the person releasing such propoganda. It will often contain disinformation to promote a certain view point in politics.
Not sure why they chose to use the word they're defining in the definition, but how precisely is that significantly different? We can debate the level of disinformation in any specific context, but this sounds about the same to me.
>> information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view.
I think the key word there is misleading. Having a genuinely-held viewpoint and expressing it through media isn't propaganda, it's opinion and commentary. Things get into propaganda territory when there's an element of deliberate dishonesty or misdirection or when it occurs in the context of coercive censorship of other viewpoints.
Oliver's segment was not misleading and it was not dishonest, therefore it was not propaganda. In fact, it is an example of the kind of free exchange of ideas that's required for an open society to operate. Examined on certain axes, it's actually the opposite of propaganda.
It's misleading if you omit facts which run contrary to your narrative. I have no idea if this is the case in the China episode, but he has done this previously (specifically thinking about some comments he made on the wage gap, but I'd have to hunt for others.)
Even though I don't know you, I'm sure at some point you've omitted some fact that was contrary to your option or some narrative you were expressing (because literally everyone has). Does that make you a propagandist and everything you write propaganda?
Oliver's recent Xi Jinping segment wasn't propaganda, it was an op-ed/satire that was obviously produced under length constraints.
If your operational definition of propaganda allows you to label all expressions of opinion as propaganda unless they're ponderously lengthy (so as to never omit a thing that some critic might want to see), then I think your definition is flawed.
Do you not think the standard should be higher for someone on national TV with an audience of millions?
Yes, but he should not be held an impossibly high or unreasonable standard, which I believe is what EpicEng is doing. Bear in mind that he's made no specific claims in this thread that Oliver has made misleading omissions, just vague, unsupported accusations.
John Oliver is a comedian. He should strive to be as accurate and complete as that format allows, and I think he satisfies that standard. That entails leaving some things on the cutting room floor in the name of focus, clarity, brevity, and rhetorical impact. This is something we all do because it's required to communicate effectively. He can't reasonably be expected to create ponderously long segments that cover every point and counterpoint that someone from the internet peanut gallery may care to see. This means he's a man expressing an opinion humorously, not a "propagandist."
The number of times he has been misleading and intentionally dishonest has turned me off for good. It was funny and all with friendly jabs at Obama and eviscerating lesser Obama officials, but the agenda in interpreting or even leading the discussions into uncomfortable ground (re: Trump) broke into propaganda before the election was over. e.g. Trump's speaking tactics are dangerous.
Oliver will sacrifice his professed values or even critical thinking to steer a narrative for a laugh (or no laugh). It just stopped being funny.
Didn't China do exactly this?
Thanks for explaining my comment to the rest of the class.
Welp. Wish I saw that one while edit was still an option.
He has a platform and he's pushing an ideological view. He isn't just a dude with a comedy show on HBO. That same argument was used to try to undercut critics of Jon Stewart, who similarly had a massive reach and was aggressively pushing a specific ideological view, using comedy to do so. It doesn't matter if you're getting your point across with comedy or non-comedy as the means.
Edit reply to pvg below (my replies are throttled):
Reach isn't necessarily consumption. Oliver actually has massive consumption, VOA does not. VOA's political propaganda doesn't have the implied consumption that is claimed there. Not even remotely close.
If you want to see just how weak VOA actually is, check out their YouTube channel. 187,000 subscribers, hardly anybody is watching their content. Where is the massive audience? Where is the epic demand implied by 236 million? There is blatantly minimal interest in VOA. They're lucky if they get 1,000 views on a video. That's after ten years on YouTube and publishing numerous videos per day (which, again, nobody is watching).
https://www.youtube.com/user/VOAvideo
Last Week Tonight has 6.2 million subscribers. 1.6 billion views in just four years. A typical video is getting three or four million views (3,000x+ of what VOA is seeing on their YouTube channel).
https://www.youtube.com/user/LastWeekTonight
Oliver actually has vast media consumption, VOA has reach with a small amount of consumption.
I also never said that having a viewpoint is propaganda directed at other countries, nor did I say that propaganda is shorthand for what I disagree with, you're inventing all of that.
You think John Oliver reaches 'dramatically more than 10x' people than VOA? Take a look at:
https://www.insidevoa.com/a/a-record-for-voice-of-americas-g...
You're saying John Oliver is reaching a couple of billion people weekly. This strikes me as somewhat unlikely.
As to the other thing, having a viewpoint is not 'propaganda directed at other countries'. 'Propaganda' is not shorthand for 'a thing I disagree with'.
The top 1 or 2 post on HN right now is about civil forfeiture in the US, a policy I’d guess most people familiar with it today had never heard of before the Oliver segment on it a few years back.
Colbert just seems like the democrat equivalent of Fox News... putting a leftish spin on whatever issue crosses his desk without any regard for journalism.
Even when he speaks on lefty issues that I care about, he seems disingenuous. Like he’s just trying to get brownie points for being progressive. I think he’s so scared of being lumped in with other white men he just goes along ideologically with whatever the lefty zeitgeist tells him to do.
His interviews with people of color are like pulling teeth for me to watch. He’s trying to pander to them, but you can tell he doesn’t actually understand racism or black experience with any depth. He is looking for the “right” thing to say without necessarily caring why it’s right or wrong.
It’s awkward because someone like Jay-Z doesn’t care if you pander to him. He’s dealing with actual politics and actual discrimination and I think people like that are often insulted when someone like Colbert comes at them with the “look at this, aren’t I saying right things?” song and dance.
Context: in his China segment, Oliver asserts that China has banned Winnie the Pooh from the internet because it was used to mock the president. And then he (Oliver) used tons of Winnie the Pooh references.
We already are seeing a lot of partisan arguments in this thread (as one could have expected, I guess). For my part, I don't care about the politics on this topic, I'm just glad someone stands up against internet censorship. Making tons of Winnie the Pooh references is the way to go, we must prove censorship doesn't work.
If it's the case, it's not just only their population opinion that matters, but they need to have a good reputation in the world - that is, if they really want to be a part of it.
With US withdrawing from the world, China has a good opportunity. But the tyranny/autocracy archaism won't fly past their borders.
Kind of like US. We have an idiot running the country, but we have a strong economy so anything goes.
Chinese censorship is working so well, I bet a 100%, western nations will want to adopt its ideas.
But yet here it is taking childish actions against a comedian, trying to make him and his joke disapear just because their feelings got hurt by a winnie the poo story.
I'm not sure that impressive is the right term here...
For instance, if a nourishing lake had suddenly dried up, I'd use a different word. Perhaps devastating.
We need a distributed and censorship-resistant conservancy system, because the Wayback Machine can only do so much (and it can trivially be censored). Unfortunately, it's not a money-making enterprise.
Color me skeptical, but it seems like such a system would eventually need to seek out a business model and would turn into mugshotsonline.us writ large. Or "toxic yelp reviews of dubious origin" but for humans instead of businesses. And with all the perverse incentives.
Censorship is bad, but profit-motivated society-wide forever-grudges against people in no significant position of power is also bad.
Should you care about what happened to me? I can’t really argue for it. But I can say that the dangers the above comment lists are real.
I just don't understand and am curious where this idea comes from that the Internet must be archived. I don't necessarily disagree with it, but it seems like an expectation that's at odds with reality.
Once newspapers finally kick the bucket (which is happening right now, in slow motion), all the information about our world will only be available in this ephemeral form - ready to be rewritten, manipulated or discarded by our rulers like China does now.
Surely that is a terrifying thought, even if you haven't read 1984 or Fahrenheit 451...?
The accountability that comes from historical records is one of the pillars of democratic societies. Losing it will plunge us in a very technological version of the Middle Ages.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Anarcho_Capitalism/comments/3ucp8y/...
I don't think this is complicated; in-fighting amongst left-wing/socialist groups is a staple ever since the term was coined. Socialism never had a single main ideology.
If you go by person-years of ruled population, Socialism does have a predominant type of regime, which generally branded itself as "Marxist," was mostly totalitarian, and accounted for about 100 million deaths in the past century.
A significant portion of the left in North American and Western Europe avows a collective authoritarianism of a mob which uses tactics of toxicity, vandalism, and violence to de-platform, intimidate, and de-facto censor. There is a huge conflict there.
Or is this just something that happens to be popular which creates outrage even when it's not nearly as bad as other things that China censors?
And yet they did!
The Chinese can censor anything they like. During the Arab Spring, which inspired Chinese protests and at the time was sometimes referred to as the “Jasmine revolution”, the word “jasmine” was effectively banned from the Chinese internet. From the rice itself to the Disney character, “jasmine” disappeared overnight.
The implication of such a strict censorship system is that any uncensored content is endorsed by the Communist Party. So if anybody says anything that China doesn’t like, into the censorship bin it goes.
This comment would probably get censored.
Specifically he used the segment to point out that Xi Jinping has more power and influence than almost anybody in China's history, that a personality cult has started to form around him, and that he is using that power in ways that has a wide range of long-term profound domestic and international consequences, including America's place in the World and perhaps even democracy's.
Yes, he used comedy. Yes, he referenced Winnie the Pooh and Xi Jinping's hatred of being likened to him. It's an entertainment show. The fact it is a comedy entertainment show doesn't make the point he makes any less true.
He had a point. He made it. China reacted to the point, not because it was a "random insult", but because if Chinese people watched that segment they may start to raise questions.
He was censored for the same reason that many other things questioning China's authoritarianism are banned from comments like this one I'm making here all the way through to many of the images at the top of this google search: https://www.google.com/search?q=tiananmen+square
Further, Oliver had used his show to make points about Trump, Obama, veterans, affordable healthcare, TV evangelists and a whole host of other social affairs using comedy to tell a story that would be hard to make entertaining using any other device. What exactly is your problem with that?
Just because you don't like his style of humour does not mean he is "randomly insulting people, countries or cultures for no apparent reason".
Also: next time, before throwing statements like that around, question whether you're doing it yourself. What _exactly_ were you hoping to achieve with this comment?
I did watch the segment. And pretty much every other episode of his show. And while the serious bits are usually quite interesting and well thought-out, the "funny" insulting bits are ridiculous and childish. Call them humour if you will, but they don't sit well with my sense of humour.
But yes, he does randomly insult people, countries and cultures for no apparent reason. You assumed, incorrectly, that I was talking about China or Xi.
There is no segment he's done where the insult is purposeless and random. Ever.
I'm still curious what you were hoping to achieve with your own random and purposeless sleight, but let's move on. Have a great day.
Having a mainstream liberal thought leader (in my opinion) like Oliver breaking silence on whether the rise of China, while it is still an authoritarian state, might pose some risk to America is a very welcome and I think significant change. I can't recall the other incidents, but this isn't the first time I've noticed a change in the mainstream information feed on this topic, hopefully this is the sign of things to come. I would love to see a bit on China still enjoying the benefits that come with developing nation status within the WTO, despite the massive economic transformation they've undergone (with a little help from Western CEO's along the way) since their original inclusion.
Lots of people are aware of John Oliver. He affects them through his show. China banning things is "ambiguous stuff happening to ambiguous people literally on the other side of the planet" for most people. Showing them how someone like Oliver can be erased makes it real.
One of the plausible catastrophic end states for humanity is an ultra-stable technocratic totalitarian global state, enabled by pervasive super high tech surveillance and censorship. It’s one of the ‘great filter’ possibilities for why sentient beings never colonise the galaxy - they’re all trapped in bureaucratic self serving versions of 1984 where the state only exists to maintain the state. Democracies and other forms of goveenment are never stable, the only stable state is bureaucratic autocracy, and falling into one only ever has to happen once and you’re done.
This is what China is building, and the model they are exporting to the world.
Bureaucracies lack military response time. Dictatorships lack economic stability. Democracies lack efficiency. Each of these are actually each model's strength, but over time becomes fatal.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_harvesting_from_Falun_Go...
Even democracies can produce political and economic collapse. And there are examples of long-lasting dictatorships (Cuba, North Korea, etc.) that are still surviving with economies and technology far less advanced than China.
I think the scary reality is that throughout history a small percentage of a population has frequently been able to hold power over even millions of people for multiple generations. And unfortunately, there does seem to be "economies of scale" in this where only adding technology and a few more people to the power structure can dictate power over an increasing number of people.
That said, it's easy to see the faults in other countries and I'm sure the diverse group of readers at HN can find similar instances of this power structure in their own countries.