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Comment by koe123 | Hacker News Reader

Every single time historically we have unregulated media you get a shitshow. I think you can blame our societies nonchalant lassez faire attitude to the propaganda profiteering by American big tech for lots of the issues we face today. Honestly: do cocaine laced recommender algorithms really benefit us? I really hope the EU fully bans this stuff.

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That used to be called "yellow journalism" in America (and "tabloid journalism" in the UK) which led to the Spanish American war in 1898.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish%E2%80%93American_War

My country has had totally unregulated media for 250 years. I'm not sure what other historical examples you have to justify your moral panic, and I understand that more authoritarian societies will struggle with such an approach but I assure you that we have been doing just fine in spite of the occasional chaos.

Cool so you can share nazi talking points on TV? You can call for violence on the TV?

But regulated media is also a shit show!

Like what?

Pravda is the most famous example

UK “D-notices” are another great example

And the Sedition Act, as well as the Comstock Act

Aren't the UK's D-notices advisory. I thought they could be (and often are) ignored by media outlets. I don't think they warrant a mention alongside Pravda.

True, I suppose UK “super injunctions” would be more apt, although the D-notice system has been used multiple times to successfully prevent information from reaching the public.

Take a juicy corruption story to the media and watch them refuse to engage. All of them.

There are things they are allowed to talk about, and things they are not.

It’s been refined over many decades to maintain public ignorance

That Epstein or Enron type scandal you see in the media is tip of iceberg of what is not published.

You just need accountable media.

Torture or murder on a live Facebook stream? You hold Facebook accountable.

“Unregulated media.” LOL.

Care to elaborate? You don’t think the creator of “You should self harm: the TV show” would’ve been regulated and held accountable for the detrimental consequences back in the day? Not saying it was perfect back then, but today I do think internet media companies are out of control.

We had “regulated media” before: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hays_Code. Do you trust people to regulate your media? I don’t.

Uh, the Hays Code is actually a premier example of "Industry Self regulation", as well as it's replacement, the equally absurd and incestuous MPAA ratings system.

It's the exact "Industries have an incentive to self regulate" talking point that conservatives have long used to say industries should be less regulated

And you are pointing to it as an example that we shouldn't use the government to regulate media.

Meanwhile, I think the FCC does a pretty good job, where their regulatory bar is "You cannot blast boobs or these swears over the public wireless spectrum, everything else is fair game", including an entire TV channel called "Fox News" which has had to argue in court on at least one occasion that nobody would assume any program on "Fox News" was news, rather than entertainment.

Right, cos we know that it's regulated - Elon rules X/Twitter, Mark rules Facebook, and shareholder value rules the others. In fact it's even more regulated now because Donald rules over them.

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