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Comment by wtmt | Hacker News Reader

> NC: One thing that’s happened is the press has been pretty much muzzled. They are very uncritical.

This is a big issue with mass media in India that many don’t realize or want to realize. Between — a) most of the mainstream media houses (except a few) not asking tough questions (but supporting the government for everything), b) the Supreme Court ignoring important cases and not hearing them for years and c) the amount of fake news spread through WhatsApp — the liberal forums in India are filled with stories of how people are losing relationships or finding it difficult to digest the fact that their loved ones are close minded bigots.

Twitter has become a cesspool of bots, political party “IT Cells” and people copy pasting the same messages and hashtags, while WhatsApp has become the main source of truth (actually falsehood) for most people.

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I am beginning to think that fascism is mostly a runaway media effect. 100 years ago it was the beginnings of mass-media being understood and incorporated into politics; now it is the internet.

It seems like something akin to witchcraft crazes on a truly horrifying scale.

Ok, I like this idea!

The Malleus Maleficarum was a runaway 'hit' just after the printing press was invented. It's comically evil and while not fascism as we'd say it is today, damned if the methods of torture, psuedo-trial, and presumptions of guilt aren't mirrored in fascism (among others).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malleus_Maleficarum#Popularity...

I guess you could say the same in the US. Actual facts and critical discourse have to be actively sought out by people who actually care about these things while the vast majority are swimming in a sea of mainstream media noise.

In the US, the problem is less the sea of mainstream media noise than it is the carefully crafted puddle of right-wing misinformation, anchored by Fox News and bolstered by a variety of foreign and domestic special interests operating in social media.

I really hope you don't believe the left is free of misinformation, biased reporting, and algorithm-optimized bubble think. It's happening on both sides.

No, of course not. But the effort on the right is much more focused and concerted, with a lot more money behind it both domestically (the arms and energy industries) and from foreign actors (notably Russia). And these agents, particularly Russia, are not only producing right-wing memes but also left-wing ones, in order to undermine trust generally. What's happening now is not the usual emergent misinformation that bubbles up from randomly distributed extremists on both sides, but a much more organized effort.

> fake news spread through WhatsApp

aka people communicating as they have for thousands of years. People love making up stories and spreading them. We need to stop blaming software for human nature.

There's a reason why Moses included it in the ten commandments...

I believe it was God who included it, Moses just wrote it down.

No theological statement intended. Just meant that people clearly enjoyed the "sin" of malicious deceit even two thousand years ago.

Nothing new under the sun.

> the amount of fake news spread through WhatsApp — the liberal forums in India are filled with stories of how people are losing relationships or finding it difficult to digest the fact that their loved ones are close minded bigots.

Can’t understand what this means. Are you saying the liberal forums are full of people who are struggling with family members who are deluded by WhatsApp based fake news?

You can substitute India for America and your points stand.

I think there's lots of blame to go on companies like Cambridge analytica. That tech is literally a weapon of mass destruction.

Zygna did something similar to CA, so have previous campaigns. Plenty of blame to go with engagement algorithms and suppressing things with Orwellian terms like "unbiasing" and filtering auto complete results and having execs allow behavior since they're on the same side. I think the past is being looked at through rose colored lenses. New media enables more people to capture and share as opposed to the official mouth pieces of traditional broadcast media setting the story. Tech is just a thing, people inside echo chambers and settling for the first thing that agrees with them is the exact opposite of critical thinking.

You think the US media supports the US government for everything? Have you been reading the news the past 3 years? It seems to me to be just the opposite, where a majority of the voices in the media are against whatever the government(ie Trump) does. Heck, the few times when segments of the media agree with the government, it comes couched in language like "I hate Trump as much as you, but this time he might be onto something"

The press in the US is just as factional as the parties. But there's a subset who live off slander - Alex Jones eventually got sued off the air for lying about Sandy Hook. That kind of thing does far more damage than just supporting one party or the other.

Which is why it's illegal and you get sued for it. I don't think that's a good comparison - something illegal that is routinely punished vs something that is neither illegal nor punished, but has massive effect

Well, it's not criminal and it's very hard to succeed in a slander action in the US. So it's very rarely punished. Which is why he could run a channel of lies for two decades. Most of the time it was bizarre fictional allegations against the government.

I think media widely supports the middle grounds that both Republicans and democrats occupy:

Drops lots of bombs on civilians in the middle east.

Make a ton of money for shareholders from healthcare.

Ignore, or pay only lip service to, the crimes against humanity of corrupt regimes like Israel, Saudi Arabia, China.

Wholeheartedly support the MIC.

For profit prisons.

Housing cost crisis.

Failing infrastructure.

Small stories get through here and there. But no media companies are giving the ruling class a hard time about these things. Though They're happy to spend hours every day shitting on trump. Might that just be a distraction from these dire issues we can track by the coffins behind them

I think there's lots of blame to go on companies like Cambridge analytica.

CA literally didn’t do anything that FB itself didn’t do, and was praised for doing in the previous election cycle. They just did it for the “wrong” side.

Can you give examples of being muzzled?

One example is looking at the coverage The Hindu gave the BJP, RSS, and Modi before he came power and after. Before they were critical of BJP when it warranted, but since they came into power the coverage has been fawning.

This sort of comparision can be made across the spectrum of the news media. They are smarter than outright jailing journalists.

That's hardly muzzling, is there evidence of threats? Even Blair and the sun struck a deal in his time

And that was despicable. Here the entire media spectrum has hardly complained about the fact that the sitting PM, a man FAMOUS for lambasting his predecessor as a mute, has never had a single non-staged media appearance.

IIRC the ONE time Modi did have a question session without being in control, it was a disaster.

And of this fact, there is not the slightest self awareness or questioning from the reporters or heads of news channels.

Again how is that muzzling the media? Not appearing for interviews is very different to gagging the media from saying things like in China.

Internet in Kashmir has been down for the longest period ever in a democracy, 172 days and counting [0]. Several cities in UP, Karnataka also faced Internet shut downs during recent protests [1].

[0] https://www.dw.com/en/indian-court-kashmir-indefinite-intern...

[1] https://www.medianama.com/2019/12/223-internet-shutdown-up-k...

Anytime a protest/riot spills onto the street in any country, there will be 2 groups of people :

1. Those who value privacy over security

2. Those who value security over privacy

No matter which side any government tilts towards, even if its a reasonably balanced approach, the other side will complain about it.

That's not media companies per say across India, that's one region internet has been down

Indian media uncritically promotes government propaganda. I visited my parents back home, and the news channels are unrelenting in their defense of the govt

That is unfair. Republic and India tv appears to be pro government where as NDTV and other appears to be anti-BJP channels.

This is not nearly accurate. NDTV "and others"(not sure of any other mainstream channels) have also hsitorically been hard on the UPA governments even if you consider them pro-Congress. The current breed of mainstream channels (Zee, Republic, India) who hold most of the eyeballs in India are not just pro-government they blatantly lie to protect the government's incompetence. Added to the fact teh BJP is a top advertiser on TV media creates a dangerous incestuous relationship the scale of which we've not ever seen before.

Check out the analysis of 200 prime-time debates done by peeing human. Republic, India TV, Zee News, ABP News, Aaj Tak, Times Now, Sudarshan News and countless regional channels are pro-govt. NDTV is the last channel standing.

Not true, wire, scroll and various others are anti gov in india

And none of those are media channels, and are extremely small when it comes to circulation.

Essentially if you even know of them, you are not part of the mainstream audience.

NDTV and times now are very mainstream

Times Now is the biggest govt mouthpiece

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