Comment by DyslexicAtheist | Hacker News Reader

Comment by DyslexicAtheist | Hacker News Reader

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DyslexicAtheist

> There is not a single sentence of introspection as to whether the media actually can’t be trusted.

Some recent headlines (from "moderate" publications - this is just one interest/topic so consider all the other unhinged propaganda they are peddling): https://twitter.com/isgoodrum/status/1372203410297032716

I'm not shocked considering most are owned by people who shouldn't be let anywhere near media (Bezos, Murdoch, Bloomberg etc) so the question "who profits from the narrative" along with over-consumption of news (compared to pre-Internet) is more urgent than it used to be. They not only control the narrative but also are able to tap into Intel journos generate (before it is news).

The Anglosphere _mainstream_ media seems to me a lot more toxic than anything I consume in other languages. No of them are ranked in top-25: https://rsf.org/en/ranking with US at #45 being far behind "shithole countries".

Also with media in other countries people _know_ the media is corrupt because everything else is corrupt too. The corruption in US/Europe isn't any less present (compared to India or China). It has only moved further up (cost) so to "benefit", it takes 10s of thousands wired through shell/shelf companies rather than slipping a dirty cop some cash.

Also BBC is now controlled by ghouls:

The New BBC Chairman has Donated OVER £400,000 to the Conservatives https://bylinetimes.com/2021/01/06/new-bbc-chairman-richard-...

You can't just casually link that tweeter as if it were some media commenter. Ian Goodrum is one of the (thankfully relatively few) outright communist shill tankies on Twitter. I use those words carefully and self-aware that they are frequently misused on the internet: he is literally a shill for the Communist Party of China.

And it shows in this tweet, which is completely devoid of any sane and intellectually honest context.

> Some recent headlines

Some more headlines and excerpts:

Biden withdraws Trump rule on schools disclosing ties to Chinese state-run Confucius Institutes - https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/news/biden-trump-rul...

[China] has spent more than $158 million on schools in the U.S. since 2006. Many colleges didn't reveal they've accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars from China despite Education Department guidance that requires reporting of foreign gifts. - https://www.politico.com/story/2019/02/27/china-college-conf...

Businesses with Chinese connections gave Australia's major parties more than $5.5 million between 2013 and 2015, making them easily the largest source of foreign-linked donations. - https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-21/australian-groups-str...

Apple Told Some Apple TV+ Show Developers Not To Anger China - https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/alexkantrowitz/apple-ch...

Chinese students in Australia fear reprisals at home if they speak out, inquiry hears - https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/mar/12/chine...

Perry Link, emeritus professor of East Asian Studies at Princeton University, says that [..] American scholars practice self-censorship about China and adopt the official narrative of the Chinese regime when talking about sensitive issues. “We don’t talk about ‘Taiwan independence.’ We talk about ‘the cross-Strait relations.’ We don’t talk about ‘the occupation of Tibet.’ We don’t call the June 4th Massacre ‘massacre.’ - https://www.theepochtimes.com/how-the-american-academy-misle...

Leica Camera has sought to distance itself from a promotional video depicting photographers covering the deadly Tiananmen Square crackdown three decades ago, after it landed the German company in hot water in China. - https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3006817/lei...

Mercedes-Benz apologizes to Chinese for quoting Dalai Lama - https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mercedes-benz-china-gaffe...

Uyghur students in Egypt detained, sent back to China - https://www.refworld.org/docid/5971a88ea.html

Nearly a dozen Uyghurs repatriated from Malaysia to China are sent to prison for ‘separatism.’ - https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/malaysia-12202012181...

A national fibreoptic backbone will be built for Pakistan not only for internet traffic, Dawn reports, but also for terrestrial distribution of broadcast TV, which will cooperate with Chinese media in the “dissemination of Chinese culture”. - https://indianexpress.com/article/india/china-pakistan-econo...

I guess it's easy to portray this as unhinged if you don't include any headlines with substance.

Most of your points are straight up racist/xenophobic.

> Apple Told Some Apple TV+ Show Developers Not To Anger China

I guess asking the mainstream media, which has for decades denigrated Asians constantly, to tone it down a little is just too much to ask?

Opposing the Chinese government and the CCP (who are committing genocide) is not being racist.

The "genocide" myth is ridiculous. No country outside of the anglosphere believes it to be true, and that's including all Muslim countries.

Get out of your echo chamber.

Muslim countries that can't do without China's FDI. Not really a free vote at the UN when the alternative is removal of FDI and even sanctions.

Idk anything about that but it's a moot point nonetheless. Countries in the anglosphere can't do without the US either, so of course they'll fall in line.

Additionally, you'll have to have a lot stronger proof than that if you're going to claim that Muslim countries are ok with Muslims being genocided.

The US' influence over the anglosphere is irrelevant to the topic we are discussing.

  "Muslim countries are ok with Muslims being genocided."

I didn't make such a claim. I'm talking about the incentives created for how leaders of Muslim countries vote at the UN in order to protect their own country's economic welfare and perhaps their own political careers as well.

So what I'm getting at is you can't take as evidence the way these Muslim countries present themselves to the world insofar as this particular geopolitical question is concerned because the incentives likely force them into the pro-CCP position irrespective of what the truth is. Expensive moral righteousness is only easy if you're rich.

How is it irrelevant? It's hugely relevant. The ranking system is basically "anglosphere good, others BAD"

It's whataboutism. Irrelevant to the question of whether Muslim countries are economically pressured to conform to the CCP narrative on this particular geopolitical question.

Grouping any speech or behaviour against certain governments and regimes under the umbrella of racism is unfortunately something I've been noticing a lot lately, and I think this is really problematic for at least two major reasons.

First, this clouds the arguments being made against real racism (or at least what I think most people would have agreed on what this term meant in past years), and this weakens the voices of victims of that racism. Second, this gives governments and regimes a powerful mechanism to silence any dissent, by using the cover of racism to shut down cricitism far more effectively by potentially painting anyone who criticizes them as a racist.

The first point risks the word "racist" becoming a blunt label that ultimately reduces its effectiveness. Consider that when just about anyone could be considered a "racist" for discussion or behaviour that arguably has nothing to do with racism, then the term itself really starts to lose its meaning and risks devolving into just another derogatory term again any person with thoughts/behaviours one disagrees with. The second point has the insidious effect of shutting down any honest discussion about the statements and actions of governments and regimes around the world, arguably to the detriment of the vast majority of people in the world.

To me it seems more and more like the label "racist" is being thrown around with far too wide a net. As a result, the real victims of racism get their voices drowned out, while other interests get to co-opt the term as a powerful label to use for pushing their own agendas.

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