Hacker News Reader

Comment by BitwiseFool | Hacker News Reader

I'm getting really burned out by the wanton use of the term 'Propaganda'.

"YouTube spreads propaganda and is toxic to children. Twitter spreads propaganda and is toxic to racial relations. Facebook spreads propaganda and is toxic to democracy itself."

What does the author actually mean by this? Messages posted and shared by government entities? Or, people sharing inflammatory opinions?

View on HN

By 'propaganda', I'm guessing the author means "things I don't agree with".

Author is spreading anti-skub propaganda.

All three of those statements in the article included clickable links for both their "spread propaganda" claim and their "toxic to ..." claim. Did clicking those links not give some good idea of what kinds of things the author was getting at?

But in recent history, aren't there plenty of cases that do seriously warrant use of the term "propaganda"? If, as twitter says, the Chinese government was running swarms of accounts tweeting about the current HK situation, is that not propaganda? When the Internet Research Agency was posting from fake accounts to influence the US election, is that not propaganda?

Yes we should be wary of hyperbole, but we can also recognize the real deal when we encounter it.

I feel the same way about Orwellian metaphors. So many things are wrongthink and thoughtcrime and a slippery slope to a boot stomping on our head forever now. It's not even clever, much less compelling, and most people who invoke them probably haven't even read Orwell, they're just familiar with the memes.

Being numb to the repeated warnings of our imminent descent into an Orwellian nightmare is the most damning critique of our society I've heard all day.

When every little thing is a sign of our imminent descent into an Orwellian nightmare, then nothing is.

Right, I get it. It's the same reason nobody believes you when you point out the glaring similarities between Trump and Hitler. Because on the Internet, everyone is Hitler. We're failing ourselves.

Well, when you are slowly but steadily descending into an Orwellian nightmare, it's natural for "every little thing" to be a sign.

Maybe you think of propaganda as something with a negative connotation, due to only encountering the word in context of "bad governments" doing it. It's not, it's just a term to describe the pushing of a judgement to an audience. Like the article is doing calling things toxic left and right.

NYTimes spreads propaganda and is toxic to the credibility of media.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com