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Comment by Synaesthesia | Hacker News Reader

Yeah lots of documentaries they won't show. Documentaries that tell the truth about Palestine or Saudi Arabia.

You won't read about the UK's co-ordination with Saudi Arabia in their war on Yemen, in any media there, except for UK declassified run by Mark Curtis.

This is why democratic and independent media is important.

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Indeed, the murder and dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi is distinctly horrific, the mass starvation and other horrors in Yemen merit mention too and the kingdom of Saudi Arabia itself is home to many abuses of its immigrant workforce.

Still, one has to note that attention to the horrific abuse of journalist Jamal Khashoggi is also related to him being in an extremely powerful Saudi family (he was the nephew of Adnan Khashoggi, once the world's large arms dealer, just for one data point). Notably a family also with strong ties to Turkey (where he was murdered). Khashoggi's murder was a logic part of the campaign of the current effective ruler of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, to establish himself as absolute ruler of the kingdom, a campaign that also included kidnapping the various billionaire princes who'd looted the Saudi treasury and literally torturing their billions out of them (given the billionaires had no doubt engaged in similar to violence to whatever underlings, one might be tempted to enjoy such violence but one should avoid such temptation).

And indeed, some might look to MBS as being in the tradition of earlier "enlightened despots" as he also pushes some degree of modernizing measures. I'd tend to just point out the fundamental rottenness of the Saudi regime as well as the general power structure of the entire area.

Nonsense. I was listening to an episode of Radio Four's Moral Maze about the UK's arms sales to Saudi just yesterday.

I found three stories in the Guardian with about two seconds of searching:

- https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/oct/27/uk-faces-ne...

- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/07/britain-to-res...

- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/21/uk-accused-of-...

It's no great secret that the British government are backing the Saudis against Iranian-funded fighters in Yemen.

Why do people always assume that any narrative that opposes mainstream one is automatically "the truth"?

Because people have been trained to believe the mainstream produces nothing but lies and propaganda, and that the truth can only be found elsewhere, and because modern social-media driven culture doesn't allow for the nuance necessary for proper critical thought and honest skepticism.

What you said about social media is absolutely true wrt to trying to have nuanced conversations. It is not true when it comes to fact gathering. For example, my own opinion of Khashoggi changed when I read twitter posts from people I follow for completely unrelated reasons but who happen to have known him personally.

What do you mean "changed?" What was your opinion before and then after reading these Twitter posts?

Before - saudis murdered a martyr for journalistic freedom. After - barbaric power struggle spilled out of Saudi Arabia and claimed one of the players as victim

Fair enough. Kashoggi most definitely was not just any journalist. Either interpretation reflects pretty horrible on the Saudi royal family though.

This is a rather bizarre and kind of scary comment to be honest. It suggests that one's opinion about torture and murder depends on the individual being tortured rather than on the one doing the torture.

I really don't care one bit about Khashoggi, one way or another, and no Twitter post about him could ever make me change my mind that torturing and murdering him is categorically wrong.

Yo you might want to take a long hard look at yourself if you're cool with torturing and murdering anyone.

Are you of the opinion that the bulk of mainstream journalism, like what is shown on the 6 o'clock news, contains the nuance and balance necessary for proper critical thought and honest skepticism?

I'm of the opinion that critical thought and honest skepticism should be applied equally to both mainstream and alternative media, because in modern reality both are essentially the same and can be undermined by the same biases, incentives and narrative distortions.

Simply assuming the mainstream media is lying all the time and every conspiracy theory is probably true is lazy cynicism.

You seem to have answered a question other than the one I asked.

Why do you seem to be assuming it isn't? What's more, if you're talking about Israel, Palestine, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia, that stuff is all out there in reputable news sources that most people don't even bother to read.

Anyone who deals in absolutes either acts in bad faith or lacks maturity or intellect. That being said, when bad actors like SA don't get called out by our politicians, this kind of narrative is passively incentivized. What's happening in Yemen is a tragedy from a human and from a humanistic pov, and it is very obviously underreported in what we call mainstream media. That doesn't do the topic justice, and in a polarized world, to do the topic justice may well be called "to say the truth". Obviously that doesn't help with the polarized state of things, but there is sound emotion (heh) behind the analogy

> Anyone who deals in absolutes either acts in bad faith or lacks maturity or intellect.

Quite an absolute trichotomy.

Don't assume anything is the truth. You have to be skeptical. Now my claim in this instance is that the media doesn't report about the UK's role in Yemen at all. Declassified UK does and they provide evidence. But don't take them or anyone else as gospel.

I am not in the UK. US mainstream media does produce plenty of criticism on US involvement

It makes people feel smart and special.

Youtube was great for this...

> tell the truth about Palestine

I don't know why, but my dogwhistlemetre for antisemitism is spinning out of control.

One can be opposed to the Israeli government without being antisemitic.

Yes indeed. One can criticize a government without talking bad about a race, ethnicity, or religion.

Netflix et al. may not be "democratic," but, in what sense are they not independent? This is just showing that "independent" media isn't sufficient for these types of uncomfortable truths. Nor do I believe democratic media would be sufficient, as we've seen that almost half the US wanted to vote for a delusional, racist, fascist again, after actually seeing the results of doing so the first time.

I agree with you that what we're doing right now isn't working. I don't have a solution or a proposal, but I just don't see how there's any way for media in general to get this sort of stuff out onto the airwaves.

> but, in what sense are they not independent?

Netflix is available in 190 countries [0]. That's an advantage over a traditional distributor. But it ties their hands on what kind of content they can make. A large enough country will certainly hold sway over what's allowed to be on Netflix, even if they only air it elsewhere.

Apple TV+ is an even bigger problem because of Apple's dependence on China. Doesn't matter if Apple TV+ is even available there. It simply cannot produce content that China finds objectionable. China has chastised companies for much less [1] [2].

[0] https://help.netflix.com/en/node/14164 though it is blocked by some of those countries

[1] https://www.nationalreview.com/news/there-are-definitely-tra...

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/06/business/mercedes-daimler...

You do realize we're on an American website, talking about an article in an American publication about how American streaming services won't play this film, and which references the decline of "American film culture," right? I don't think 189 of those countries particularly matter for purposes of this discussion, and I don't see anyone claiming that, say, China, has any independent and democratic institutions at all, much less media.

I think he was trying to say that the NYTimes has no relevant Chinese market so it can’t be coerced by chinese regulations or threatened with a destruction of that part of their business. Global platforms can be threatened, so they adapt their content strategy.

I don't see where NYT was mentioned at all, and, as I mentioned, what Netflix and Amazon do in the other 189 countries doesn't have much to do with what they can and do do in the US.

I believe you're wrong on that last point. The Chinese market is large enough that it absolutely does impact what American media companies do, both in China and elsewhere (including within the US).

I didn't say "American media companies." I said "Netflix and Amazon." Both are perfectly capable of, and, in fact, do block certain titles in certain countries for political reasons. They certainly do it for licensing reasons, which, I suppose you can interpret as political, in a way. If they wanted to, Hulu and Disney and all the other streaming services could do the exact same thing. That was my entire point.

They're not independent in the sense that they say things like "We’re not in the truth to power business" when defending their censorship decisions (https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/7/20953210/netflix-reed-has...). They don't feel they're free to say things powerful people wouldn't like.

No, that just says they don't want to speak truth to power. Netflix is perfectly free to do so, at least in the US. If I had to guess as to their reasoning, I would say it's probably because they don't think it would be profitable enough.

> after actually seeing the results of doing so the first time

It may just be me, but I get the impression that most people that voted for again have been pleased with the result of these last 4 years.

That's the problem.

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