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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
Even with 280 characters I'm really lost what he's trying to tell us here
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If my Trumpterpretation device isn't broken, I believe hes whining about the fact that the news isn't still talking (fellating him) about the Kim Jung Un meeting.
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Well, in the first hours the press thought it might be true that the US had conceded its demand that DPRK makes clear steps towards denuclearization before being willing to talk. Turns out that was not the case.
Trump, of course, blames this on everybody else rather than himself for not knowing the official US position on DPRK which can apparently not be changed by a president. So when news agencies started posting WHs official statements regarding any potential meeting, he read them and cried "fake news!"
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the white house is the one that started adding conditions then taking them away then adding them again
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On March 11 2018 08:50 GoTuNk! wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2018 05:18 Nebuchad wrote:On March 11 2018 05:14 Jockmcplop wrote:On March 11 2018 04:59 Nebuchad wrote:On March 11 2018 04:18 GoTuNk! wrote:On March 11 2018 04:07 Nebuchad wrote:On March 11 2018 03:59 GoTuNk! wrote:On March 11 2018 03:44 ChristianS wrote:On March 11 2018 02:53 Danglars wrote:On March 11 2018 01:40 ChristianS wrote:
[quote]
Did someone say he would? Or did you just hear someone say he's "literally Hitler" and decide to make up for them what they meant by that?
I can't say for sure, but I assume people mean they think he's a racist who maintains support using racially charged grievance politics and would prefer authoritarian rule if he could get it. I personally don't think the comparison to Hitler is all that apt - he's his own kind of terrible - but I think the people who are literally looking for the concentration camps are few and far between.
Of course, the FEMA death camps conspiracy theory has been around for a while, so that crowd still exists, but that doesn't have much to do with Trump, does it? Only in today's era do the crazies have a class of almost-as-crazies finding nuance in the accusation of "literally Hitler." Just abandon any attempts to understand the current era if you're rationalizing away 'literally Hitler.' This is useless commentary. I'm not saying I agree with such people, I'm saying let's not accuse them of saying things they're not. Surely you've already given up on understanding the current era if you've decided not to bother trying to figure out what these people think and why they think it. First of all, the very phrase "literally Hitler" is almost always meant ironically (not unlike the phrase "history's greatest monster"), but let's forget that for a moment and assume they mean it mostly seriously. In what ways do you think they find Trump and Hitler similar? Do you think they believe that Hitler evaded capture all these years, donned an orange wig, and ran for president? If we took them at their word, that's the only way he could be "literally Hitler." Otherwise, they presumably come to the conclusion that he is similar to Hitler in some respects, while obviously being dissimilar in others. We've got people here in the forum who apparently think Trump is "literally Hitler." Why not ask them whether they believe he's setting up death camps for blacks and Jews before just assuming that's what they think? Because we are not idiots. If I call you someone "literally a genocidal maniac" it doesn't mean "someone who says mean things". I hope you'll remember that position of yours the next time you hear that SJWs on campuses are the real fascists. Wrong. You can be a fascist or a communist without murdering people or personally forcing them to death by starvation, since it's a political position. Organizing to riot and violently shut down lectures you disagree with on universities does come close though. Calling them "literally mousolini" would be different. Nice try. So it's wrong to compare Trump and Hitler, but it's correct to compare SJWs and fascists? You can compare Trump to Hitler, but its pointless. He isn't like Hitler. A much more interesting comparison is John I of England. He was petty and nasty, treated powerful barons with disrespect constantly, pissed everyone off, as well as having a ridiculously unhealthy diet. He did some stuff right, but failed alot too. That's all fine but I'm much more interested in the fact that GoTunk thinks comparing Trump and Hitler is awful and evidence of idiocy but at the same time comparing SJWs and fascists is all the rage. I never said such thing. What I said is you can certainly call people who organize to violently shut down lectures of people who disagree with them, fascist. Wether they call themselves "SJW", freedom fighters, or christian templars is irrelevant to the act.
This literally reads:
"I never said such thing.
What I said was such thing."
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On March 11 2018 08:50 GoTuNk! wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2018 05:18 Nebuchad wrote:On March 11 2018 05:14 Jockmcplop wrote:On March 11 2018 04:59 Nebuchad wrote:On March 11 2018 04:18 GoTuNk! wrote:On March 11 2018 04:07 Nebuchad wrote:On March 11 2018 03:59 GoTuNk! wrote:On March 11 2018 03:44 ChristianS wrote:On March 11 2018 02:53 Danglars wrote:On March 11 2018 01:40 ChristianS wrote:
[quote]
Did someone say he would? Or did you just hear someone say he's "literally Hitler" and decide to make up for them what they meant by that?
I can't say for sure, but I assume people mean they think he's a racist who maintains support using racially charged grievance politics and would prefer authoritarian rule if he could get it. I personally don't think the comparison to Hitler is all that apt - he's his own kind of terrible - but I think the people who are literally looking for the concentration camps are few and far between.
Of course, the FEMA death camps conspiracy theory has been around for a while, so that crowd still exists, but that doesn't have much to do with Trump, does it? Only in today's era do the crazies have a class of almost-as-crazies finding nuance in the accusation of "literally Hitler." Just abandon any attempts to understand the current era if you're rationalizing away 'literally Hitler.' This is useless commentary. I'm not saying I agree with such people, I'm saying let's not accuse them of saying things they're not. Surely you've already given up on understanding the current era if you've decided not to bother trying to figure out what these people think and why they think it. First of all, the very phrase "literally Hitler" is almost always meant ironically (not unlike the phrase "history's greatest monster"), but let's forget that for a moment and assume they mean it mostly seriously. In what ways do you think they find Trump and Hitler similar? Do you think they believe that Hitler evaded capture all these years, donned an orange wig, and ran for president? If we took them at their word, that's the only way he could be "literally Hitler." Otherwise, they presumably come to the conclusion that he is similar to Hitler in some respects, while obviously being dissimilar in others. We've got people here in the forum who apparently think Trump is "literally Hitler." Why not ask them whether they believe he's setting up death camps for blacks and Jews before just assuming that's what they think? Because we are not idiots. If I call you someone "literally a genocidal maniac" it doesn't mean "someone who says mean things". I hope you'll remember that position of yours the next time you hear that SJWs on campuses are the real fascists. Wrong. You can be a fascist or a communist without murdering people or personally forcing them to death by starvation, since it's a political position. Organizing to riot and violently shut down lectures you disagree with on universities does come close though. Calling them "literally mousolini" would be different. Nice try. So it's wrong to compare Trump and Hitler, but it's correct to compare SJWs and fascists? You can compare Trump to Hitler, but its pointless. He isn't like Hitler. A much more interesting comparison is John I of England. He was petty and nasty, treated powerful barons with disrespect constantly, pissed everyone off, as well as having a ridiculously unhealthy diet. He did some stuff right, but failed alot too. That's all fine but I'm much more interested in the fact that GoTunk thinks comparing Trump and Hitler is awful and evidence of idiocy but at the same time comparing SJWs and fascists is all the rage. I never said such thing. What I said is you can certainly call people who organize to violently shut down lectures of people who disagree with them, fascist. Wether they call themselves "SJW", freedom fighters, or christian templars is irrelevant to the act.
When the lectures are legitimate, and not just thinly veiled trolling, I would be on board. That seems to rarely be the case. Legitimately different opinions are okay, bullshit like... say Milo, not so much. A lot of "boohoo, students are intolerant of my intolerance!" going on these days.
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We also reviewed engagement between automated or Russia-linked accounts and the @Wikileaks, @DCLeaks_, and @GUCCIFER_2 accounts. The amount of automated engagement with these accounts ranged from 47% to 72% of Retweets and 36% to 63% of likes during this time—substantially higher than the average level of automated engagement, including with other high-profile accounts. The volume of automated engagements from Russian-linked accounts was lower overall. Our data show that, during the relevant time period, a total of 1,010 @Wikileaks tweets were retweeted approximately 5.1 million times. Of these retweets, 155,933—or 2.98%—were from Russian-linked automated accounts. The 27 tweets from @DCLeaks_ during this time period were Retweeted approximately 4,700 times, of which 1.38% were from Russian-linked automated accounts. The 23 tweets from @GUCCIFER_2 during this time period were Retweeted approximately 18,000 times, of which 1.57% were from Russia-linked automated accounts.
We next examined activity surrounding hashtags that have been reported as potentially connected to Russian interference efforts. We noted above that, with respect to two such hashtags—#PodestaEmails and #DNCLeak—our automated systems detected, labeled, and hid a portion of related Tweets at the time they were created. The insights from our retrospective review have allowed us to draw additional conclusions about the activity around those hashtags.
We found that slightly under 4% of Tweets containing #PodestaEmails came from accounts with potential links to Russia, and that those Tweets accounted for less than 20% of impressions within the first seven days of posting. Approximately 75% of impressions on the trending topic were views by U.S.-based users. A significant portion of these impressions, however, are attributable to a handful of high-profile accounts, primarily @Wikileaks. At least one heavily-retweeted Tweet came from another potentially Russia-linked account that showed signs of automation.
With respect to #DNCLeak, approximately 23,000 users posted around 140,000 unique Tweets with that hashtag in the relevant period. Of those Tweets, roughly 2% were from potentially Russian-linked accounts. As noted above, our automated systems at the time detected, labeled, and hid just under half (48%) of all the original Tweets with #DNCLeak. Of the total Tweets with the hashtag, 0.84% were hidden and also originated from accounts that met at least one of the criteria for a Russian-linked account. Those Tweets received 0.21% of overall Tweet impressions. We learned that a small number of Tweets from several large accounts were principally responsible for the propagation of this trend. In fact, two of the ten most-viewed Tweets with #DNCLeak were posted by @Wikileaks, an account with millions of followers.
Source
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On March 11 2018 07:42 Excludos wrote:Putin is one of those people I'm pretty sure would be "literally Hitler" if the world hadn't learned from their mistakes and put in checks to make sure a "literal Hitler" wouldn't be possible again. There is no way a genocide in Russia wouldn't be met with closed borders followed by an immediate economic breakdown. That said the man is a psychopath for sure, and has no qualms about murdering his enemies or fellow politicians to gain power
If you believe that it shows a profound ignorance about Putin as a politician. He would in no way, under any circumstances, be a dictator at the level of a Hitler or Stalin. He's pretty much exactly what you'd expect from a proficient, patriotic politician who comes from the KGB; ruthless, absolutely, but not malignant.
It's not an accident that he's genuinely very popular in Russia, a point that even his critics and political opponents openly admit. The idea that the Russian people don't know what they have with Putin is a convenient lie, or that he's somehow pulled the wool over the eyes of the entire country. The truth is the majority of them know exactly what they've got, and they're happy with it for various social, political, historical and economic reasons.
This is an old article from WaPo about it: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/how-to-understand-putins-jaw-droppingly-high-approval-ratings/2016/03/05/17f5d8f2-d5ba-11e5-a65b-587e721fb231_story.html?utm_term=.bdb02cecc64c
I wish people over here didn't need to present him as a bogeyman, so we could grapple with Russia's geopolitical situation in a more productive fashion. The guy's a rational actor, so there's room for some sort of relationship.
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On March 11 2018 18:02 a_flayer wrote:Show nested quote +We also reviewed engagement between automated or Russia-linked accounts and the @Wikileaks, @DCLeaks_, and @GUCCIFER_2 accounts. The amount of automated engagement with these accounts ranged from 47% to 72% of Retweets and 36% to 63% of likes during this time—substantially higher than the average level of automated engagement, including with other high-profile accounts. The volume of automated engagements from Russian-linked accounts was lower overall. Our data show that, during the relevant time period, a total of 1,010 @Wikileaks tweets were retweeted approximately 5.1 million times. Of these retweets, 155,933—or 2.98%—were from Russian-linked automated accounts. The 27 tweets from @DCLeaks_ during this time period were Retweeted approximately 4,700 times, of which 1.38% were from Russian-linked automated accounts. The 23 tweets from @GUCCIFER_2 during this time period were Retweeted approximately 18,000 times, of which 1.57% were from Russia-linked automated accounts.
We next examined activity surrounding hashtags that have been reported as potentially connected to Russian interference efforts. We noted above that, with respect to two such hashtags—#PodestaEmails and #DNCLeak—our automated systems detected, labeled, and hid a portion of related Tweets at the time they were created. The insights from our retrospective review have allowed us to draw additional conclusions about the activity around those hashtags.
We found that slightly under 4% of Tweets containing #PodestaEmails came from accounts with potential links to Russia, and that those Tweets accounted for less than 20% of impressions within the first seven days of posting. Approximately 75% of impressions on the trending topic were views by U.S.-based users. A significant portion of these impressions, however, are attributable to a handful of high-profile accounts, primarily @Wikileaks. At least one heavily-retweeted Tweet came from another potentially Russia-linked account that showed signs of automation.
With respect to #DNCLeak, approximately 23,000 users posted around 140,000 unique Tweets with that hashtag in the relevant period. Of those Tweets, roughly 2% were from potentially Russian-linked accounts. As noted above, our automated systems at the time detected, labeled, and hid just under half (48%) of all the original Tweets with #DNCLeak. Of the total Tweets with the hashtag, 0.84% were hidden and also originated from accounts that met at least one of the criteria for a Russian-linked account. Those Tweets received 0.21% of overall Tweet impressions. We learned that a small number of Tweets from several large accounts were principally responsible for the propagation of this trend. In fact, two of the ten most-viewed Tweets with #DNCLeak were posted by @Wikileaks, an account with millions of followers. Source
I remember people thinking we were crazy when we said Twitter was intentionally suppressing our voices, (far more than suppressing Russians/bots) turns out they were, and they just came out and said it and liberals didn't bat an eye.
This is one reason why I'm strongly suspicious of people who claim their obsession with Russia is about free and fair elections.
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On March 11 2018 22:12 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2018 18:02 a_flayer wrote:We also reviewed engagement between automated or Russia-linked accounts and the @Wikileaks, @DCLeaks_, and @GUCCIFER_2 accounts. The amount of automated engagement with these accounts ranged from 47% to 72% of Retweets and 36% to 63% of likes during this time—substantially higher than the average level of automated engagement, including with other high-profile accounts. The volume of automated engagements from Russian-linked accounts was lower overall. Our data show that, during the relevant time period, a total of 1,010 @Wikileaks tweets were retweeted approximately 5.1 million times. Of these retweets, 155,933—or 2.98%—were from Russian-linked automated accounts. The 27 tweets from @DCLeaks_ during this time period were Retweeted approximately 4,700 times, of which 1.38% were from Russian-linked automated accounts. The 23 tweets from @GUCCIFER_2 during this time period were Retweeted approximately 18,000 times, of which 1.57% were from Russia-linked automated accounts.
We next examined activity surrounding hashtags that have been reported as potentially connected to Russian interference efforts. We noted above that, with respect to two such hashtags—#PodestaEmails and #DNCLeak—our automated systems detected, labeled, and hid a portion of related Tweets at the time they were created. The insights from our retrospective review have allowed us to draw additional conclusions about the activity around those hashtags.
We found that slightly under 4% of Tweets containing #PodestaEmails came from accounts with potential links to Russia, and that those Tweets accounted for less than 20% of impressions within the first seven days of posting. Approximately 75% of impressions on the trending topic were views by U.S.-based users. A significant portion of these impressions, however, are attributable to a handful of high-profile accounts, primarily @Wikileaks. At least one heavily-retweeted Tweet came from another potentially Russia-linked account that showed signs of automation.
With respect to #DNCLeak, approximately 23,000 users posted around 140,000 unique Tweets with that hashtag in the relevant period. Of those Tweets, roughly 2% were from potentially Russian-linked accounts. As noted above, our automated systems at the time detected, labeled, and hid just under half (48%) of all the original Tweets with #DNCLeak. Of the total Tweets with the hashtag, 0.84% were hidden and also originated from accounts that met at least one of the criteria for a Russian-linked account. Those Tweets received 0.21% of overall Tweet impressions. We learned that a small number of Tweets from several large accounts were principally responsible for the propagation of this trend. In fact, two of the ten most-viewed Tweets with #DNCLeak were posted by @Wikileaks, an account with millions of followers. Source I remember people thinking we were crazy when we said Twitter was intentionally suppressing our voices, (far more than suppressing Russians/bots) turns out they were, and they just came out and said it and liberals didn't bat an eye. This is one reason why I'm strongly suspicious of people who claim their obsession with Russia is about free and fair elections.
Well, they didn't *just* say that in the sense of just = recently. This was published in October last year. But yeah, you don't see these stats reported in the media much, for some obscure reason. Maybe because they're thoroughly underwhelming in terms of exposing Russian influence? And you should see the kind of criteria Twitter used for determining if an account was "Russian". My steam account would be flagged as Russian because I use Cyrillic in my nickname there (its "Rак" which is both descriptive of myself in Dota and for mocking Putin's appearance because that's how adult I am lol).
We took a similarly expansive approach to defining what qualifies as a Russian-linked account. Because there is no single characteristic that reliably determines geographic origin or affiliation, we relied on a number of criteria, including whether the account was created in Russia, whether the user registered the account with a Russian phone carrier or a Russian email address, whether the user’s display name contains Cyrillic characters, whether the user frequently Tweets in Russian, and whether the user has logged in from any Russian IP address, even a single time. We considered an account to be Russian-linked if it had even one of the relevant criteria.
But also, as I see this was not clear from the bit I quoted, the 'hidden' tweets were hidden based on the notion that they were spam rather than being allegedly an automated Russian account. The exact definitions for what prompts their automated system to set tweets to be 'hidden' are not clear to me based on this document. Hidden tweets don't show up in search engines, and don't count towards trending and stuff. Maybe its not so bad as it seems in terms of censorship (although 50% of tweets apparently being bots is a disturbing notion on its own).
Meanwhile my friends at Fair.org made this observation (highlight is mine):
Eight days into the first wildcat strike by West Virginia teachers in 27 years—organized by rank-and-file union members in all 55 West Virginia counties—America’s largest liberal cable network, MSNBC, is a virtual no-show in reporting on the momentous labor unrest.
Save for one two-minute throwaway report from daytime show Velshi and Ruhle (2/27/18), MSNBC hasn’t dedicated a single segment to the strike—despite the strike’s unprecedented size and scope, which garnered major coverage from major outlets like CNN (3/1/18), the New York Times (3/1/18), Washington Post (3/2/18), Vox (2/24/18) and dozens of others.
Another major topic that’s non grata at the Comcast-owned cable network is recent efforts by senators Bernie Sanders, Chris Murphy and Mike Lee to end US backing for the brutal, human rights-abusing war on Yemen. Wednesday, the independent, Democrat and Republican introduced a bill to cut off financial and logistical support for Saudi Arabia’s bombing and blockade of Yemen, which has left over 15,000 dead and created more than a million cases of cholera.
As FAIR has noted before, the US-created humanitarian crisis is a total non-issue to MSNBC. During the Obama years, it was ignored entirely (FAIR.org, 10/14/16), and MSNBC hasn’t done much better under Trump’s tenure—reporting on Russia-related stories 5,000 percent more often than on the largest man-made famine on Earth (FAIR.org, 1/8/18).
If congressional Democrats or DoJ officials fed a story to CNN or the Daily Beast, detailing how West Virginia teachers shared a handful of Russian memes in the run-up to the strike, or claiming that a Saudi bombing victim moonlighted as a Kremlin-paid troll, MSNBC would likely have given the stories six segments apiece. Not that the Mueller probe or the larger Russia investigation aren’t newsworthy—they are objectively important—but the nonstop firehose of Russia coverage, as FAIR has shown before, is crowding out other issues important to activists and progressives. Source
MSNBC, just like most other American TV media, is simply dangerous in its inability to address society in a balanced way as far as I'm concerned. And I'm not talking left versus right balance, but simply covering subjects proportionally based on the reality of their actual impact in society. Its disturbing to see, quite frankly.
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On March 11 2018 23:06 a_flayer wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2018 22:12 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 11 2018 18:02 a_flayer wrote:We also reviewed engagement between automated or Russia-linked accounts and the @Wikileaks, @DCLeaks_, and @GUCCIFER_2 accounts. The amount of automated engagement with these accounts ranged from 47% to 72% of Retweets and 36% to 63% of likes during this time—substantially higher than the average level of automated engagement, including with other high-profile accounts. The volume of automated engagements from Russian-linked accounts was lower overall. Our data show that, during the relevant time period, a total of 1,010 @Wikileaks tweets were retweeted approximately 5.1 million times. Of these retweets, 155,933—or 2.98%—were from Russian-linked automated accounts. The 27 tweets from @DCLeaks_ during this time period were Retweeted approximately 4,700 times, of which 1.38% were from Russian-linked automated accounts. The 23 tweets from @GUCCIFER_2 during this time period were Retweeted approximately 18,000 times, of which 1.57% were from Russia-linked automated accounts.
We next examined activity surrounding hashtags that have been reported as potentially connected to Russian interference efforts. We noted above that, with respect to two such hashtags—#PodestaEmails and #DNCLeak—our automated systems detected, labeled, and hid a portion of related Tweets at the time they were created. The insights from our retrospective review have allowed us to draw additional conclusions about the activity around those hashtags.
We found that slightly under 4% of Tweets containing #PodestaEmails came from accounts with potential links to Russia, and that those Tweets accounted for less than 20% of impressions within the first seven days of posting. Approximately 75% of impressions on the trending topic were views by U.S.-based users. A significant portion of these impressions, however, are attributable to a handful of high-profile accounts, primarily @Wikileaks. At least one heavily-retweeted Tweet came from another potentially Russia-linked account that showed signs of automation.
With respect to #DNCLeak, approximately 23,000 users posted around 140,000 unique Tweets with that hashtag in the relevant period. Of those Tweets, roughly 2% were from potentially Russian-linked accounts. As noted above, our automated systems at the time detected, labeled, and hid just under half (48%) of all the original Tweets with #DNCLeak. Of the total Tweets with the hashtag, 0.84% were hidden and also originated from accounts that met at least one of the criteria for a Russian-linked account. Those Tweets received 0.21% of overall Tweet impressions. We learned that a small number of Tweets from several large accounts were principally responsible for the propagation of this trend. In fact, two of the ten most-viewed Tweets with #DNCLeak were posted by @Wikileaks, an account with millions of followers. Source I remember people thinking we were crazy when we said Twitter was intentionally suppressing our voices, (far more than suppressing Russians/bots) turns out they were, and they just came out and said it and liberals didn't bat an eye. This is one reason why I'm strongly suspicious of people who claim their obsession with Russia is about free and fair elections. Well, they didn't *just* say that in the sense of just = recently. This was published in October last year. But yeah, you don't see these stats reported in the media much, for some obscure reason. Maybe because they're thoroughly underwhelming in terms of exposing Russian influence? And you should see the kind of criteria Twitter used for determining if an account was "Russian". My steam account would be flagged as Russian because I use Cyrillic in my nickname there (its "Rак" which is both descriptive of myself in Dota and for mocking Putin's appearance because that's how adult I am lol). Show nested quote +We took a similarly expansive approach to defining what qualifies as a Russian-linked account. Because there is no single characteristic that reliably determines geographic origin or affiliation, we relied on a number of criteria, including whether the account was created in Russia, whether the user registered the account with a Russian phone carrier or a Russian email address, whether the user’s display name contains Cyrillic characters, whether the user frequently Tweets in Russian, and whether the user has logged in from any Russian IP address, even a single time. We considered an account to be Russian-linked if it had even one of the relevant criteria. But also, as I see this was not clear from the bit I quoted, the 'hidden' tweets were hidden based on the notion that they were spam rather than being allegedly an automated Russian account. The exact definitions for what prompts their automated system to set tweets to be 'hidden' are not clear to me based on this document. Hidden tweets don't show up in search engines, and don't count towards trending and stuff. Maybe its not so bad as it seems in terms of censorship (although 50% of tweets apparently being bots is a disturbing notion on its own). Meanwhile my friends at Fair.org made this observation (highlight is mine): Show nested quote +Eight days into the first wildcat strike by West Virginia teachers in 27 years—organized by rank-and-file union members in all 55 West Virginia counties—America’s largest liberal cable network, MSNBC, is a virtual no-show in reporting on the momentous labor unrest.
Save for one two-minute throwaway report from daytime show Velshi and Ruhle (2/27/18), MSNBC hasn’t dedicated a single segment to the strike—despite the strike’s unprecedented size and scope, which garnered major coverage from major outlets like CNN (3/1/18), the New York Times (3/1/18), Washington Post (3/2/18), Vox (2/24/18) and dozens of others.
Another major topic that’s non grata at the Comcast-owned cable network is recent efforts by senators Bernie Sanders, Chris Murphy and Mike Lee to end US backing for the brutal, human rights-abusing war on Yemen. Wednesday, the independent, Democrat and Republican introduced a bill to cut off financial and logistical support for Saudi Arabia’s bombing and blockade of Yemen, which has left over 15,000 dead and created more than a million cases of cholera.
As FAIR has noted before, the US-created humanitarian crisis is a total non-issue to MSNBC. During the Obama years, it was ignored entirely (FAIR.org, 10/14/16), and MSNBC hasn’t done much better under Trump’s tenure—reporting on Russia-related stories 5,000 percent more often than on the largest man-made famine on Earth (FAIR.org, 1/8/18).
If congressional Democrats or DoJ officials fed a story to CNN or the Daily Beast, detailing how West Virginia teachers shared a handful of Russian memes in the run-up to the strike, or claiming that a Saudi bombing victim moonlighted as a Kremlin-paid troll, MSNBC would likely have given the stories six segments apiece. Not that the Mueller probe or the larger Russia investigation aren’t newsworthy—they are objectively important—but the nonstop firehose of Russia coverage, as FAIR has shown before, is crowding out other issues important to activists and progressives. SourceMSNBC, just like most other American TV media, is simply dangerous in its inability to address society in a balanced way as far as I'm concerned. And I'm not talking left versus right balance, but simply covering subjects proportionally based on the reality of their actual impact in society. Its disturbing to see, quite frankly.
Well they go off ratings, don't they? I imagine a teachers strike isn't the sort of thing they want, ratings wise.
That said, I had the impression MSNBC was better regarded - leftie wise - than CNN, is that true? Seems odd that it's CNN who gives the story its fair due, that considered. Might it be something to do with MSNBC's owners?
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On March 11 2018 23:13 iamthedave wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2018 23:06 a_flayer wrote:On March 11 2018 22:12 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 11 2018 18:02 a_flayer wrote:We also reviewed engagement between automated or Russia-linked accounts and the @Wikileaks, @DCLeaks_, and @GUCCIFER_2 accounts. The amount of automated engagement with these accounts ranged from 47% to 72% of Retweets and 36% to 63% of likes during this time—substantially higher than the average level of automated engagement, including with other high-profile accounts. The volume of automated engagements from Russian-linked accounts was lower overall. Our data show that, during the relevant time period, a total of 1,010 @Wikileaks tweets were retweeted approximately 5.1 million times. Of these retweets, 155,933—or 2.98%—were from Russian-linked automated accounts. The 27 tweets from @DCLeaks_ during this time period were Retweeted approximately 4,700 times, of which 1.38% were from Russian-linked automated accounts. The 23 tweets from @GUCCIFER_2 during this time period were Retweeted approximately 18,000 times, of which 1.57% were from Russia-linked automated accounts.
We next examined activity surrounding hashtags that have been reported as potentially connected to Russian interference efforts. We noted above that, with respect to two such hashtags—#PodestaEmails and #DNCLeak—our automated systems detected, labeled, and hid a portion of related Tweets at the time they were created. The insights from our retrospective review have allowed us to draw additional conclusions about the activity around those hashtags.
We found that slightly under 4% of Tweets containing #PodestaEmails came from accounts with potential links to Russia, and that those Tweets accounted for less than 20% of impressions within the first seven days of posting. Approximately 75% of impressions on the trending topic were views by U.S.-based users. A significant portion of these impressions, however, are attributable to a handful of high-profile accounts, primarily @Wikileaks. At least one heavily-retweeted Tweet came from another potentially Russia-linked account that showed signs of automation.
With respect to #DNCLeak, approximately 23,000 users posted around 140,000 unique Tweets with that hashtag in the relevant period. Of those Tweets, roughly 2% were from potentially Russian-linked accounts. As noted above, our automated systems at the time detected, labeled, and hid just under half (48%) of all the original Tweets with #DNCLeak. Of the total Tweets with the hashtag, 0.84% were hidden and also originated from accounts that met at least one of the criteria for a Russian-linked account. Those Tweets received 0.21% of overall Tweet impressions. We learned that a small number of Tweets from several large accounts were principally responsible for the propagation of this trend. In fact, two of the ten most-viewed Tweets with #DNCLeak were posted by @Wikileaks, an account with millions of followers. Source I remember people thinking we were crazy when we said Twitter was intentionally suppressing our voices, (far more than suppressing Russians/bots) turns out they were, and they just came out and said it and liberals didn't bat an eye. This is one reason why I'm strongly suspicious of people who claim their obsession with Russia is about free and fair elections. Well, they didn't *just* say that in the sense of just = recently. This was published in October last year. But yeah, you don't see these stats reported in the media much, for some obscure reason. Maybe because they're thoroughly underwhelming in terms of exposing Russian influence? And you should see the kind of criteria Twitter used for determining if an account was "Russian". My steam account would be flagged as Russian because I use Cyrillic in my nickname there (its "Rак" which is both descriptive of myself in Dota and for mocking Putin's appearance because that's how adult I am lol). We took a similarly expansive approach to defining what qualifies as a Russian-linked account. Because there is no single characteristic that reliably determines geographic origin or affiliation, we relied on a number of criteria, including whether the account was created in Russia, whether the user registered the account with a Russian phone carrier or a Russian email address, whether the user’s display name contains Cyrillic characters, whether the user frequently Tweets in Russian, and whether the user has logged in from any Russian IP address, even a single time. We considered an account to be Russian-linked if it had even one of the relevant criteria. But also, as I see this was not clear from the bit I quoted, the 'hidden' tweets were hidden based on the notion that they were spam rather than being allegedly an automated Russian account. The exact definitions for what prompts their automated system to set tweets to be 'hidden' are not clear to me based on this document. Hidden tweets don't show up in search engines, and don't count towards trending and stuff. Maybe its not so bad as it seems in terms of censorship (although 50% of tweets apparently being bots is a disturbing notion on its own). Meanwhile my friends at Fair.org made this observation (highlight is mine): Eight days into the first wildcat strike by West Virginia teachers in 27 years—organized by rank-and-file union members in all 55 West Virginia counties—America’s largest liberal cable network, MSNBC, is a virtual no-show in reporting on the momentous labor unrest.
Save for one two-minute throwaway report from daytime show Velshi and Ruhle (2/27/18), MSNBC hasn’t dedicated a single segment to the strike—despite the strike’s unprecedented size and scope, which garnered major coverage from major outlets like CNN (3/1/18), the New York Times (3/1/18), Washington Post (3/2/18), Vox (2/24/18) and dozens of others.
Another major topic that’s non grata at the Comcast-owned cable network is recent efforts by senators Bernie Sanders, Chris Murphy and Mike Lee to end US backing for the brutal, human rights-abusing war on Yemen. Wednesday, the independent, Democrat and Republican introduced a bill to cut off financial and logistical support for Saudi Arabia’s bombing and blockade of Yemen, which has left over 15,000 dead and created more than a million cases of cholera.
As FAIR has noted before, the US-created humanitarian crisis is a total non-issue to MSNBC. During the Obama years, it was ignored entirely (FAIR.org, 10/14/16), and MSNBC hasn’t done much better under Trump’s tenure—reporting on Russia-related stories 5,000 percent more often than on the largest man-made famine on Earth (FAIR.org, 1/8/18).
If congressional Democrats or DoJ officials fed a story to CNN or the Daily Beast, detailing how West Virginia teachers shared a handful of Russian memes in the run-up to the strike, or claiming that a Saudi bombing victim moonlighted as a Kremlin-paid troll, MSNBC would likely have given the stories six segments apiece. Not that the Mueller probe or the larger Russia investigation aren’t newsworthy—they are objectively important—but the nonstop firehose of Russia coverage, as FAIR has shown before, is crowding out other issues important to activists and progressives. SourceMSNBC, just like most other American TV media, is simply dangerous in its inability to address society in a balanced way as far as I'm concerned. And I'm not talking left versus right balance, but simply covering subjects proportionally based on the reality of their actual impact in society. Its disturbing to see, quite frankly. Well they go off ratings, don't they? I imagine a teachers strike isn't the sort of thing they want, ratings wise. That said, I had the impression MSNBC was better regarded - leftie wise - than CNN, is that true? Seems odd that it's CNN who gives the story its fair due, that considered. Might it be something to do with MSNBC's owners?
Their motivation for being shitty is irrelevant to me. They could have captured 100% of the audience with 100% of the advertisers and it makes no difference to me as to how I judge how much time they dedicate to one thing or another. Ratings are not what gives news/reporting quality.
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On March 11 2018 15:48 Ayaz2810 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2018 08:50 GoTuNk! wrote:On March 11 2018 05:18 Nebuchad wrote:On March 11 2018 05:14 Jockmcplop wrote:On March 11 2018 04:59 Nebuchad wrote:On March 11 2018 04:18 GoTuNk! wrote:On March 11 2018 04:07 Nebuchad wrote:On March 11 2018 03:59 GoTuNk! wrote:On March 11 2018 03:44 ChristianS wrote:On March 11 2018 02:53 Danglars wrote:
[quote]
Only in today's era do the crazies have a class of almost-as-crazies finding nuance in the accusation of "literally Hitler." Just abandon any attempts to understand the current era if you're rationalizing away 'literally Hitler.' This is useless commentary. I'm not saying I agree with such people, I'm saying let's not accuse them of saying things they're not. Surely you've already given up on understanding the current era if you've decided not to bother trying to figure out what these people think and why they think it. First of all, the very phrase "literally Hitler" is almost always meant ironically (not unlike the phrase "history's greatest monster"), but let's forget that for a moment and assume they mean it mostly seriously. In what ways do you think they find Trump and Hitler similar? Do you think they believe that Hitler evaded capture all these years, donned an orange wig, and ran for president? If we took them at their word, that's the only way he could be "literally Hitler." Otherwise, they presumably come to the conclusion that he is similar to Hitler in some respects, while obviously being dissimilar in others. We've got people here in the forum who apparently think Trump is "literally Hitler." Why not ask them whether they believe he's setting up death camps for blacks and Jews before just assuming that's what they think? Because we are not idiots. If I call you someone "literally a genocidal maniac" it doesn't mean "someone who says mean things". I hope you'll remember that position of yours the next time you hear that SJWs on campuses are the real fascists. Wrong. You can be a fascist or a communist without murdering people or personally forcing them to death by starvation, since it's a political position. Organizing to riot and violently shut down lectures you disagree with on universities does come close though. Calling them "literally mousolini" would be different. Nice try. So it's wrong to compare Trump and Hitler, but it's correct to compare SJWs and fascists? You can compare Trump to Hitler, but its pointless. He isn't like Hitler. A much more interesting comparison is John I of England. He was petty and nasty, treated powerful barons with disrespect constantly, pissed everyone off, as well as having a ridiculously unhealthy diet. He did some stuff right, but failed alot too. That's all fine but I'm much more interested in the fact that GoTunk thinks comparing Trump and Hitler is awful and evidence of idiocy but at the same time comparing SJWs and fascists is all the rage. I never said such thing. What I said is you can certainly call people who organize to violently shut down lectures of people who disagree with them, fascist. Wether they call themselves "SJW", freedom fighters, or christian templars is irrelevant to the act. When the lectures are legitimate, and not just thinly veiled trolling, I would be on board. That seems to rarely be the case. Legitimately different opinions are okay, bullshit like... say Milo, not so much. A lot of "boohoo, students are intolerant of my intolerance!" going on these days.
I don’t think that the far right is scoring very high on self awareness. In France they are sooooo against political correctness but if you say that FN voters are deplorable pond scums, they basically tell you that it’s offensive and how can you generalize, and it’s a huge group of people we are talking about, etc etc...
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On March 11 2018 23:21 a_flayer wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2018 23:13 iamthedave wrote:On March 11 2018 23:06 a_flayer wrote:On March 11 2018 22:12 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 11 2018 18:02 a_flayer wrote:We also reviewed engagement between automated or Russia-linked accounts and the @Wikileaks, @DCLeaks_, and @GUCCIFER_2 accounts. The amount of automated engagement with these accounts ranged from 47% to 72% of Retweets and 36% to 63% of likes during this time—substantially higher than the average level of automated engagement, including with other high-profile accounts. The volume of automated engagements from Russian-linked accounts was lower overall. Our data show that, during the relevant time period, a total of 1,010 @Wikileaks tweets were retweeted approximately 5.1 million times. Of these retweets, 155,933—or 2.98%—were from Russian-linked automated accounts. The 27 tweets from @DCLeaks_ during this time period were Retweeted approximately 4,700 times, of which 1.38% were from Russian-linked automated accounts. The 23 tweets from @GUCCIFER_2 during this time period were Retweeted approximately 18,000 times, of which 1.57% were from Russia-linked automated accounts.
We next examined activity surrounding hashtags that have been reported as potentially connected to Russian interference efforts. We noted above that, with respect to two such hashtags—#PodestaEmails and #DNCLeak—our automated systems detected, labeled, and hid a portion of related Tweets at the time they were created. The insights from our retrospective review have allowed us to draw additional conclusions about the activity around those hashtags.
We found that slightly under 4% of Tweets containing #PodestaEmails came from accounts with potential links to Russia, and that those Tweets accounted for less than 20% of impressions within the first seven days of posting. Approximately 75% of impressions on the trending topic were views by U.S.-based users. A significant portion of these impressions, however, are attributable to a handful of high-profile accounts, primarily @Wikileaks. At least one heavily-retweeted Tweet came from another potentially Russia-linked account that showed signs of automation.
With respect to #DNCLeak, approximately 23,000 users posted around 140,000 unique Tweets with that hashtag in the relevant period. Of those Tweets, roughly 2% were from potentially Russian-linked accounts. As noted above, our automated systems at the time detected, labeled, and hid just under half (48%) of all the original Tweets with #DNCLeak. Of the total Tweets with the hashtag, 0.84% were hidden and also originated from accounts that met at least one of the criteria for a Russian-linked account. Those Tweets received 0.21% of overall Tweet impressions. We learned that a small number of Tweets from several large accounts were principally responsible for the propagation of this trend. In fact, two of the ten most-viewed Tweets with #DNCLeak were posted by @Wikileaks, an account with millions of followers. Source I remember people thinking we were crazy when we said Twitter was intentionally suppressing our voices, (far more than suppressing Russians/bots) turns out they were, and they just came out and said it and liberals didn't bat an eye. This is one reason why I'm strongly suspicious of people who claim their obsession with Russia is about free and fair elections. Well, they didn't *just* say that in the sense of just = recently. This was published in October last year. But yeah, you don't see these stats reported in the media much, for some obscure reason. Maybe because they're thoroughly underwhelming in terms of exposing Russian influence? And you should see the kind of criteria Twitter used for determining if an account was "Russian". My steam account would be flagged as Russian because I use Cyrillic in my nickname there (its "Rак" which is both descriptive of myself in Dota and for mocking Putin's appearance because that's how adult I am lol). We took a similarly expansive approach to defining what qualifies as a Russian-linked account. Because there is no single characteristic that reliably determines geographic origin or affiliation, we relied on a number of criteria, including whether the account was created in Russia, whether the user registered the account with a Russian phone carrier or a Russian email address, whether the user’s display name contains Cyrillic characters, whether the user frequently Tweets in Russian, and whether the user has logged in from any Russian IP address, even a single time. We considered an account to be Russian-linked if it had even one of the relevant criteria. But also, as I see this was not clear from the bit I quoted, the 'hidden' tweets were hidden based on the notion that they were spam rather than being allegedly an automated Russian account. The exact definitions for what prompts their automated system to set tweets to be 'hidden' are not clear to me based on this document. Hidden tweets don't show up in search engines, and don't count towards trending and stuff. Maybe its not so bad as it seems in terms of censorship (although 50% of tweets apparently being bots is a disturbing notion on its own). Meanwhile my friends at Fair.org made this observation (highlight is mine): Eight days into the first wildcat strike by West Virginia teachers in 27 years—organized by rank-and-file union members in all 55 West Virginia counties—America’s largest liberal cable network, MSNBC, is a virtual no-show in reporting on the momentous labor unrest.
Save for one two-minute throwaway report from daytime show Velshi and Ruhle (2/27/18), MSNBC hasn’t dedicated a single segment to the strike—despite the strike’s unprecedented size and scope, which garnered major coverage from major outlets like CNN (3/1/18), the New York Times (3/1/18), Washington Post (3/2/18), Vox (2/24/18) and dozens of others.
Another major topic that’s non grata at the Comcast-owned cable network is recent efforts by senators Bernie Sanders, Chris Murphy and Mike Lee to end US backing for the brutal, human rights-abusing war on Yemen. Wednesday, the independent, Democrat and Republican introduced a bill to cut off financial and logistical support for Saudi Arabia’s bombing and blockade of Yemen, which has left over 15,000 dead and created more than a million cases of cholera.
As FAIR has noted before, the US-created humanitarian crisis is a total non-issue to MSNBC. During the Obama years, it was ignored entirely (FAIR.org, 10/14/16), and MSNBC hasn’t done much better under Trump’s tenure—reporting on Russia-related stories 5,000 percent more often than on the largest man-made famine on Earth (FAIR.org, 1/8/18).
If congressional Democrats or DoJ officials fed a story to CNN or the Daily Beast, detailing how West Virginia teachers shared a handful of Russian memes in the run-up to the strike, or claiming that a Saudi bombing victim moonlighted as a Kremlin-paid troll, MSNBC would likely have given the stories six segments apiece. Not that the Mueller probe or the larger Russia investigation aren’t newsworthy—they are objectively important—but the nonstop firehose of Russia coverage, as FAIR has shown before, is crowding out other issues important to activists and progressives. SourceMSNBC, just like most other American TV media, is simply dangerous in its inability to address society in a balanced way as far as I'm concerned. And I'm not talking left versus right balance, but simply covering subjects proportionally based on the reality of their actual impact in society. Its disturbing to see, quite frankly. Well they go off ratings, don't they? I imagine a teachers strike isn't the sort of thing they want, ratings wise. That said, I had the impression MSNBC was better regarded - leftie wise - than CNN, is that true? Seems odd that it's CNN who gives the story its fair due, that considered. Might it be something to do with MSNBC's owners? Their motivation for being shitty is irrelevant to me. They could have captured 100% of the audience with 100% of the advertisers and it makes no difference to me as to how I judge how much time they dedicate to one thing or another. Ratings are not what gives news/reporting quality.
No, I meant it more as an observation for why they didn't. Unless it's more to do with some sort of anti-strike bias by the owners and they just don't want that stuff on their station.
The news has - industry wide - been driven by market forces more towards ratings and sales. I wish there was an easy fix for that but if there is I don't know what it is. If the Trump Presidency in America - and Brexit in the UK - have shown anything it's that the press is vital and needs some sort of stabilisation against market forces, because they seem inexorably to poison the well of good journalism.
On March 11 2018 23:35 Biff The Understudy wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2018 15:48 Ayaz2810 wrote:On March 11 2018 08:50 GoTuNk! wrote:On March 11 2018 05:18 Nebuchad wrote:On March 11 2018 05:14 Jockmcplop wrote:On March 11 2018 04:59 Nebuchad wrote:On March 11 2018 04:18 GoTuNk! wrote:On March 11 2018 04:07 Nebuchad wrote:On March 11 2018 03:59 GoTuNk! wrote:On March 11 2018 03:44 ChristianS wrote:
[quote]
This is useless commentary. I'm not saying I agree with such people, I'm saying let's not accuse them of saying things they're not. Surely you've already given up on understanding the current era if you've decided not to bother trying to figure out what these people think and why they think it.
First of all, the very phrase "literally Hitler" is almost always meant ironically (not unlike the phrase "history's greatest monster"), but let's forget that for a moment and assume they mean it mostly seriously. In what ways do you think they find Trump and Hitler similar? Do you think they believe that Hitler evaded capture all these years, donned an orange wig, and ran for president? If we took them at their word, that's the only way he could be "literally Hitler." Otherwise, they presumably come to the conclusion that he is similar to Hitler in some respects, while obviously being dissimilar in others.
We've got people here in the forum who apparently think Trump is "literally Hitler." Why not ask them whether they believe he's setting up death camps for blacks and Jews before just assuming that's what they think? Because we are not idiots. If I call you someone "literally a genocidal maniac" it doesn't mean "someone who says mean things". I hope you'll remember that position of yours the next time you hear that SJWs on campuses are the real fascists. Wrong. You can be a fascist or a communist without murdering people or personally forcing them to death by starvation, since it's a political position. Organizing to riot and violently shut down lectures you disagree with on universities does come close though. Calling them "literally mousolini" would be different. Nice try. So it's wrong to compare Trump and Hitler, but it's correct to compare SJWs and fascists? You can compare Trump to Hitler, but its pointless. He isn't like Hitler. A much more interesting comparison is John I of England. He was petty and nasty, treated powerful barons with disrespect constantly, pissed everyone off, as well as having a ridiculously unhealthy diet. He did some stuff right, but failed alot too. That's all fine but I'm much more interested in the fact that GoTunk thinks comparing Trump and Hitler is awful and evidence of idiocy but at the same time comparing SJWs and fascists is all the rage. I never said such thing. What I said is you can certainly call people who organize to violently shut down lectures of people who disagree with them, fascist. Wether they call themselves "SJW", freedom fighters, or christian templars is irrelevant to the act. When the lectures are legitimate, and not just thinly veiled trolling, I would be on board. That seems to rarely be the case. Legitimately different opinions are okay, bullshit like... say Milo, not so much. A lot of "boohoo, students are intolerant of my intolerance!" going on these days. I don’t think that the far right is scoring very high on self awareness. In France they are sooooo against political correctness but if you say that FN voters are deplorable pond scums, they basically tell you that it’s offensive and how can you generalize, and it’s a huge group of people we are talking about, etc etc...
I agree, but I don't like no-platforming and shutting down university talks and the like, and I'm increasingly leery of safe space legislation, which is a good idea in principle that seems to be increasingly mis-used.
There was a recent incident in the UK of Antifa (legitimately Antifa, not alleged) shutting down a public debate between Sargon of Akkad and Yaron Brook in one of our universities. To me that's not something to be celebrated. Sure, Sargon is a twat and nobody should listen to him, but if they want to waste their brain cells and if they think he actually is smart that's on them. Similarly, if people at universities want to listen to Milo spread his garbage, it's up to them.
An article on the event, for the curious: https://www.rt.com/uk/420563-antifa-alt-right-kings/
Universities are where people need to be encountering these ideas, while they're in an environment that's multi-faceted and people actually talk about things.
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On March 11 2018 23:53 iamthedave wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2018 23:21 a_flayer wrote:On March 11 2018 23:13 iamthedave wrote:On March 11 2018 23:06 a_flayer wrote:On March 11 2018 22:12 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 11 2018 18:02 a_flayer wrote:We also reviewed engagement between automated or Russia-linked accounts and the @Wikileaks, @DCLeaks_, and @GUCCIFER_2 accounts. The amount of automated engagement with these accounts ranged from 47% to 72% of Retweets and 36% to 63% of likes during this time—substantially higher than the average level of automated engagement, including with other high-profile accounts. The volume of automated engagements from Russian-linked accounts was lower overall. Our data show that, during the relevant time period, a total of 1,010 @Wikileaks tweets were retweeted approximately 5.1 million times. Of these retweets, 155,933—or 2.98%—were from Russian-linked automated accounts. The 27 tweets from @DCLeaks_ during this time period were Retweeted approximately 4,700 times, of which 1.38% were from Russian-linked automated accounts. The 23 tweets from @GUCCIFER_2 during this time period were Retweeted approximately 18,000 times, of which 1.57% were from Russia-linked automated accounts.
We next examined activity surrounding hashtags that have been reported as potentially connected to Russian interference efforts. We noted above that, with respect to two such hashtags—#PodestaEmails and #DNCLeak—our automated systems detected, labeled, and hid a portion of related Tweets at the time they were created. The insights from our retrospective review have allowed us to draw additional conclusions about the activity around those hashtags.
We found that slightly under 4% of Tweets containing #PodestaEmails came from accounts with potential links to Russia, and that those Tweets accounted for less than 20% of impressions within the first seven days of posting. Approximately 75% of impressions on the trending topic were views by U.S.-based users. A significant portion of these impressions, however, are attributable to a handful of high-profile accounts, primarily @Wikileaks. At least one heavily-retweeted Tweet came from another potentially Russia-linked account that showed signs of automation.
With respect to #DNCLeak, approximately 23,000 users posted around 140,000 unique Tweets with that hashtag in the relevant period. Of those Tweets, roughly 2% were from potentially Russian-linked accounts. As noted above, our automated systems at the time detected, labeled, and hid just under half (48%) of all the original Tweets with #DNCLeak. Of the total Tweets with the hashtag, 0.84% were hidden and also originated from accounts that met at least one of the criteria for a Russian-linked account. Those Tweets received 0.21% of overall Tweet impressions. We learned that a small number of Tweets from several large accounts were principally responsible for the propagation of this trend. In fact, two of the ten most-viewed Tweets with #DNCLeak were posted by @Wikileaks, an account with millions of followers. Source I remember people thinking we were crazy when we said Twitter was intentionally suppressing our voices, (far more than suppressing Russians/bots) turns out they were, and they just came out and said it and liberals didn't bat an eye. This is one reason why I'm strongly suspicious of people who claim their obsession with Russia is about free and fair elections. Well, they didn't *just* say that in the sense of just = recently. This was published in October last year. But yeah, you don't see these stats reported in the media much, for some obscure reason. Maybe because they're thoroughly underwhelming in terms of exposing Russian influence? And you should see the kind of criteria Twitter used for determining if an account was "Russian". My steam account would be flagged as Russian because I use Cyrillic in my nickname there (its "Rак" which is both descriptive of myself in Dota and for mocking Putin's appearance because that's how adult I am lol). We took a similarly expansive approach to defining what qualifies as a Russian-linked account. Because there is no single characteristic that reliably determines geographic origin or affiliation, we relied on a number of criteria, including whether the account was created in Russia, whether the user registered the account with a Russian phone carrier or a Russian email address, whether the user’s display name contains Cyrillic characters, whether the user frequently Tweets in Russian, and whether the user has logged in from any Russian IP address, even a single time. We considered an account to be Russian-linked if it had even one of the relevant criteria. But also, as I see this was not clear from the bit I quoted, the 'hidden' tweets were hidden based on the notion that they were spam rather than being allegedly an automated Russian account. The exact definitions for what prompts their automated system to set tweets to be 'hidden' are not clear to me based on this document. Hidden tweets don't show up in search engines, and don't count towards trending and stuff. Maybe its not so bad as it seems in terms of censorship (although 50% of tweets apparently being bots is a disturbing notion on its own). Meanwhile my friends at Fair.org made this observation (highlight is mine): Eight days into the first wildcat strike by West Virginia teachers in 27 years—organized by rank-and-file union members in all 55 West Virginia counties—America’s largest liberal cable network, MSNBC, is a virtual no-show in reporting on the momentous labor unrest.
Save for one two-minute throwaway report from daytime show Velshi and Ruhle (2/27/18), MSNBC hasn’t dedicated a single segment to the strike—despite the strike’s unprecedented size and scope, which garnered major coverage from major outlets like CNN (3/1/18), the New York Times (3/1/18), Washington Post (3/2/18), Vox (2/24/18) and dozens of others.
Another major topic that’s non grata at the Comcast-owned cable network is recent efforts by senators Bernie Sanders, Chris Murphy and Mike Lee to end US backing for the brutal, human rights-abusing war on Yemen. Wednesday, the independent, Democrat and Republican introduced a bill to cut off financial and logistical support for Saudi Arabia’s bombing and blockade of Yemen, which has left over 15,000 dead and created more than a million cases of cholera.
As FAIR has noted before, the US-created humanitarian crisis is a total non-issue to MSNBC. During the Obama years, it was ignored entirely (FAIR.org, 10/14/16), and MSNBC hasn’t done much better under Trump’s tenure—reporting on Russia-related stories 5,000 percent more often than on the largest man-made famine on Earth (FAIR.org, 1/8/18).
If congressional Democrats or DoJ officials fed a story to CNN or the Daily Beast, detailing how West Virginia teachers shared a handful of Russian memes in the run-up to the strike, or claiming that a Saudi bombing victim moonlighted as a Kremlin-paid troll, MSNBC would likely have given the stories six segments apiece. Not that the Mueller probe or the larger Russia investigation aren’t newsworthy—they are objectively important—but the nonstop firehose of Russia coverage, as FAIR has shown before, is crowding out other issues important to activists and progressives. SourceMSNBC, just like most other American TV media, is simply dangerous in its inability to address society in a balanced way as far as I'm concerned. And I'm not talking left versus right balance, but simply covering subjects proportionally based on the reality of their actual impact in society. Its disturbing to see, quite frankly. Well they go off ratings, don't they? I imagine a teachers strike isn't the sort of thing they want, ratings wise. That said, I had the impression MSNBC was better regarded - leftie wise - than CNN, is that true? Seems odd that it's CNN who gives the story its fair due, that considered. Might it be something to do with MSNBC's owners? Their motivation for being shitty is irrelevant to me. They could have captured 100% of the audience with 100% of the advertisers and it makes no difference to me as to how I judge how much time they dedicate to one thing or another. Ratings are not what gives news/reporting quality. No, I meant it more as an observation for why they didn't. Unless it's more to do with some sort of anti-strike bias by the owners and they just don't want that stuff on their station. The news has - industry wide - been driven by market forces more towards ratings and sales. I wish there was an easy fix for that but if there is I don't know what it is. If the Trump Presidency in America - and Brexit in the UK - have shown anything it's that the press is vital and needs some sort of stabilisation against market forces, because they seem inexorably to poison the well of good journalism.
there are some hard fixes; but mostly they don't work due to economic pressures. the news has always been driven by ratings and sales; but certain models are more problematic than others. from what i've seen, subscription models tend to produce better results. the growth of internet and free/near-free stuff lowered the price they could get for quality content so low that the optimal tactics change. being based on internet advertising for funding seems to produce worse results; partly because the amount of money is simply so low that less is available for reporting, but also because of the basic rule that if you're gettin gsomething for free, YOU are the product. as such their goal isn't to provide news that people want to buy, but to provide anything that gets people to show up so that they can sell the eyeballs/attention.
getting people to try paying more subscription fees is gonna be hard; people are too used to, and too fond of, free stuff on the internet.
any organization needs money to function; with revenue streams getting thinner, there's simply few good ways; and quality is expensive, but people are often reluctant to pay the premium that would be required for it compared to something that seems almost as good.
one way that MIGHT work to produce reliable high-quality journalism and get around the funding difficulty problem is to find a very very rich person who's willing to endow an organization with sufficient funding to do high-quality journalism without having to worry about the sales part. of course the journalism quality may still fail, depending on how the org is setup and what the endowers beliefs and the terms of the endowment are.
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On March 11 2018 18:02 a_flayer wrote:Show nested quote +We also reviewed engagement between automated or Russia-linked accounts and the @Wikileaks, @DCLeaks_, and @GUCCIFER_2 accounts. The amount of automated engagement with these accounts ranged from 47% to 72% of Retweets and 36% to 63% of likes during this time—substantially higher than the average level of automated engagement, including with other high-profile accounts. The volume of automated engagements from Russian-linked accounts was lower overall. Our data show that, during the relevant time period, a total of 1,010 @Wikileaks tweets were retweeted approximately 5.1 million times. Of these retweets, 155,933—or 2.98%—were from Russian-linked automated accounts. The 27 tweets from @DCLeaks_ during this time period were Retweeted approximately 4,700 times, of which 1.38% were from Russian-linked automated accounts. The 23 tweets from @GUCCIFER_2 during this time period were Retweeted approximately 18,000 times, of which 1.57% were from Russia-linked automated accounts.
We next examined activity surrounding hashtags that have been reported as potentially connected to Russian interference efforts. We noted above that, with respect to two such hashtags—#PodestaEmails and #DNCLeak—our automated systems detected, labeled, and hid a portion of related Tweets at the time they were created. The insights from our retrospective review have allowed us to draw additional conclusions about the activity around those hashtags.
We found that slightly under 4% of Tweets containing #PodestaEmails came from accounts with potential links to Russia, and that those Tweets accounted for less than 20% of impressions within the first seven days of posting. Approximately 75% of impressions on the trending topic were views by U.S.-based users. A significant portion of these impressions, however, are attributable to a handful of high-profile accounts, primarily @Wikileaks. At least one heavily-retweeted Tweet came from another potentially Russia-linked account that showed signs of automation.
With respect to #DNCLeak, approximately 23,000 users posted around 140,000 unique Tweets with that hashtag in the relevant period. Of those Tweets, roughly 2% were from potentially Russian-linked accounts. As noted above, our automated systems at the time detected, labeled, and hid just under half (48%) of all the original Tweets with #DNCLeak. Of the total Tweets with the hashtag, 0.84% were hidden and also originated from accounts that met at least one of the criteria for a Russian-linked account. Those Tweets received 0.21% of overall Tweet impressions. We learned that a small number of Tweets from several large accounts were principally responsible for the propagation of this trend. In fact, two of the ten most-viewed Tweets with #DNCLeak were posted by @Wikileaks, an account with millions of followers. Source
Here's the thing - the Podesta emails came from Russia. And then got news coverage every single day (staggered releases). This helps make a difference for those voters on the fence who get scared away by the story of corruption surrounding Hillary. Because of that Russia had an important impact on the election.
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On March 11 2018 18:02 a_flayer wrote:Show nested quote +We also reviewed engagement between automated or Russia-linked accounts and the @Wikileaks, @DCLeaks_, and @GUCCIFER_2 accounts. The amount of automated engagement with these accounts ranged from 47% to 72% of Retweets and 36% to 63% of likes during this time—substantially higher than the average level of automated engagement, including with other high-profile accounts. The volume of automated engagements from Russian-linked accounts was lower overall. Our data show that, during the relevant time period, a total of 1,010 @Wikileaks tweets were retweeted approximately 5.1 million times. Of these retweets, 155,933—or 2.98%—were from Russian-linked automated accounts. The 27 tweets from @DCLeaks_ during this time period were Retweeted approximately 4,700 times, of which 1.38% were from Russian-linked automated accounts. The 23 tweets from @GUCCIFER_2 during this time period were Retweeted approximately 18,000 times, of which 1.57% were from Russia-linked automated accounts.
We next examined activity surrounding hashtags that have been reported as potentially connected to Russian interference efforts. We noted above that, with respect to two such hashtags—#PodestaEmails and #DNCLeak—our automated systems detected, labeled, and hid a portion of related Tweets at the time they were created. The insights from our retrospective review have allowed us to draw additional conclusions about the activity around those hashtags.
We found that slightly under 4% of Tweets containing #PodestaEmails came from accounts with potential links to Russia, and that those Tweets accounted for less than 20% of impressions within the first seven days of posting. Approximately 75% of impressions on the trending topic were views by U.S.-based users. A significant portion of these impressions, however, are attributable to a handful of high-profile accounts, primarily @Wikileaks. At least one heavily-retweeted Tweet came from another potentially Russia-linked account that showed signs of automation.
With respect to #DNCLeak, approximately 23,000 users posted around 140,000 unique Tweets with that hashtag in the relevant period. Of those Tweets, roughly 2% were from potentially Russian-linked accounts. As noted above, our automated systems at the time detected, labeled, and hid just under half (48%) of all the original Tweets with #DNCLeak. Of the total Tweets with the hashtag, 0.84% were hidden and also originated from accounts that met at least one of the criteria for a Russian-linked account. Those Tweets received 0.21% of overall Tweet impressions. We learned that a small number of Tweets from several large accounts were principally responsible for the propagation of this trend. In fact, two of the ten most-viewed Tweets with #DNCLeak were posted by @Wikileaks, an account with millions of followers. Source
Isn't the % of tweets from Russia irrelevant? It's about timing and getting things trending, no? And if there are automated mass retweets and comments at the same time, as the article seems to suggest, then they did their job, and the thing people are accusing them of, right?
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On March 12 2018 00:38 Doodsmack wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2018 18:02 a_flayer wrote:We also reviewed engagement between automated or Russia-linked accounts and the @Wikileaks, @DCLeaks_, and @GUCCIFER_2 accounts. The amount of automated engagement with these accounts ranged from 47% to 72% of Retweets and 36% to 63% of likes during this time—substantially higher than the average level of automated engagement, including with other high-profile accounts. The volume of automated engagements from Russian-linked accounts was lower overall. Our data show that, during the relevant time period, a total of 1,010 @Wikileaks tweets were retweeted approximately 5.1 million times. Of these retweets, 155,933—or 2.98%—were from Russian-linked automated accounts. The 27 tweets from @DCLeaks_ during this time period were Retweeted approximately 4,700 times, of which 1.38% were from Russian-linked automated accounts. The 23 tweets from @GUCCIFER_2 during this time period were Retweeted approximately 18,000 times, of which 1.57% were from Russia-linked automated accounts.
We next examined activity surrounding hashtags that have been reported as potentially connected to Russian interference efforts. We noted above that, with respect to two such hashtags—#PodestaEmails and #DNCLeak—our automated systems detected, labeled, and hid a portion of related Tweets at the time they were created. The insights from our retrospective review have allowed us to draw additional conclusions about the activity around those hashtags.
We found that slightly under 4% of Tweets containing #PodestaEmails came from accounts with potential links to Russia, and that those Tweets accounted for less than 20% of impressions within the first seven days of posting. Approximately 75% of impressions on the trending topic were views by U.S.-based users. A significant portion of these impressions, however, are attributable to a handful of high-profile accounts, primarily @Wikileaks. At least one heavily-retweeted Tweet came from another potentially Russia-linked account that showed signs of automation.
With respect to #DNCLeak, approximately 23,000 users posted around 140,000 unique Tweets with that hashtag in the relevant period. Of those Tweets, roughly 2% were from potentially Russian-linked accounts. As noted above, our automated systems at the time detected, labeled, and hid just under half (48%) of all the original Tweets with #DNCLeak. Of the total Tweets with the hashtag, 0.84% were hidden and also originated from accounts that met at least one of the criteria for a Russian-linked account. Those Tweets received 0.21% of overall Tweet impressions. We learned that a small number of Tweets from several large accounts were principally responsible for the propagation of this trend. In fact, two of the ten most-viewed Tweets with #DNCLeak were posted by @Wikileaks, an account with millions of followers. Source Here's the thing - the Podesta emails came from Russia. And then got news coverage every single day (staggered releases). This helps make a difference for those voters on the fence who get scared away by the story of corruption surrounding Hillary. Because of that Russia had an important impact on the election.
Yeah, it's as I have said from the start: the only notable Russian interference was hacking the DNC and giving the data to Wikileaks to be published. Everything after that was up to the American media. 'Media' here, of course, includes social media, news media, political ads, and undoubtedly swarms of media bots and paid shills.
On March 12 2018 00:54 Saryph wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2018 18:02 a_flayer wrote:We also reviewed engagement between automated or Russia-linked accounts and the @Wikileaks, @DCLeaks_, and @GUCCIFER_2 accounts. The amount of automated engagement with these accounts ranged from 47% to 72% of Retweets and 36% to 63% of likes during this time—substantially higher than the average level of automated engagement, including with other high-profile accounts. The volume of automated engagements from Russian-linked accounts was lower overall. Our data show that, during the relevant time period, a total of 1,010 @Wikileaks tweets were retweeted approximately 5.1 million times. Of these retweets, 155,933—or 2.98%—were from Russian-linked automated accounts. The 27 tweets from @DCLeaks_ during this time period were Retweeted approximately 4,700 times, of which 1.38% were from Russian-linked automated accounts. The 23 tweets from @GUCCIFER_2 during this time period were Retweeted approximately 18,000 times, of which 1.57% were from Russia-linked automated accounts.
We next examined activity surrounding hashtags that have been reported as potentially connected to Russian interference efforts. We noted above that, with respect to two such hashtags—#PodestaEmails and #DNCLeak—our automated systems detected, labeled, and hid a portion of related Tweets at the time they were created. The insights from our retrospective review have allowed us to draw additional conclusions about the activity around those hashtags.
We found that slightly under 4% of Tweets containing #PodestaEmails came from accounts with potential links to Russia, and that those Tweets accounted for less than 20% of impressions within the first seven days of posting. Approximately 75% of impressions on the trending topic were views by U.S.-based users. A significant portion of these impressions, however, are attributable to a handful of high-profile accounts, primarily @Wikileaks. At least one heavily-retweeted Tweet came from another potentially Russia-linked account that showed signs of automation.
With respect to #DNCLeak, approximately 23,000 users posted around 140,000 unique Tweets with that hashtag in the relevant period. Of those Tweets, roughly 2% were from potentially Russian-linked accounts. As noted above, our automated systems at the time detected, labeled, and hid just under half (48%) of all the original Tweets with #DNCLeak. Of the total Tweets with the hashtag, 0.84% were hidden and also originated from accounts that met at least one of the criteria for a Russian-linked account. Those Tweets received 0.21% of overall Tweet impressions. We learned that a small number of Tweets from several large accounts were principally responsible for the propagation of this trend. In fact, two of the ten most-viewed Tweets with #DNCLeak were posted by @Wikileaks, an account with millions of followers. Source Isn't the % of tweets from Russia irrelevant? It's about timing and getting things trending, no? And if there are automated mass retweets and comments at the same time, as the article seems to suggest, then they did their job, and the thing people are accusing them of, right?
Its not an article its their own report.
I know what you're talking about, but I don't really have an answer. The way I'm looking at it, from all the tweets with hashtag #DNCLeaks at least 48% were from accounts that Twitter alleged to be spam/bots. About 2% of that 48% was linked to 'Russian' accounts. That leaves 46% of unknown alleged bots, right? Dare I say that these were probably PAC-financed bots? PACs that had something to gain from promoting #DNCLeaks? GOP-supporting PACs?
Now, what this report doesn't seem to delve into is the amount of manually operated shill accounts. But, I imagine that the division in numbers will look very similar indeed, considering the amount of money that goes into all-American PACs versus the amount of money that the Russians spent.
But, considering the mass corporate media is in the same boat as Facebook: beholden only to corporate sponsors who - besides their responsibility in the driving the media into the whole 'ratings are everything' game - also finance the PACs, not to mention the amount of ad money received directly from said PACs. So, all in all, it is no surprise that all you'll hear about is how the Russians interfered in this and that. Such a shame.
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On March 11 2018 23:53 iamthedave wrote:
Universities are where people need to be encountering these ideas, while they're in an environment that's multi-faceted and people actually talk about things.
The conversation keeps sliding into whether it's good or bad. It's probably bad, but I don't really care cause the fact that we let people like Sargon talk in universities is disgraceful in the first place. I'm not here for that, I'm here because it's fascist. Specifically, (much) more comparable to fascism than Trump is to Hitler.
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On March 11 2018 23:53 iamthedave wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2018 23:21 a_flayer wrote:On March 11 2018 23:13 iamthedave wrote:On March 11 2018 23:06 a_flayer wrote:On March 11 2018 22:12 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 11 2018 18:02 a_flayer wrote:We also reviewed engagement between automated or Russia-linked accounts and the @Wikileaks, @DCLeaks_, and @GUCCIFER_2 accounts. The amount of automated engagement with these accounts ranged from 47% to 72% of Retweets and 36% to 63% of likes during this time—substantially higher than the average level of automated engagement, including with other high-profile accounts. The volume of automated engagements from Russian-linked accounts was lower overall. Our data show that, during the relevant time period, a total of 1,010 @Wikileaks tweets were retweeted approximately 5.1 million times. Of these retweets, 155,933—or 2.98%—were from Russian-linked automated accounts. The 27 tweets from @DCLeaks_ during this time period were Retweeted approximately 4,700 times, of which 1.38% were from Russian-linked automated accounts. The 23 tweets from @GUCCIFER_2 during this time period were Retweeted approximately 18,000 times, of which 1.57% were from Russia-linked automated accounts.
We next examined activity surrounding hashtags that have been reported as potentially connected to Russian interference efforts. We noted above that, with respect to two such hashtags—#PodestaEmails and #DNCLeak—our automated systems detected, labeled, and hid a portion of related Tweets at the time they were created. The insights from our retrospective review have allowed us to draw additional conclusions about the activity around those hashtags.
We found that slightly under 4% of Tweets containing #PodestaEmails came from accounts with potential links to Russia, and that those Tweets accounted for less than 20% of impressions within the first seven days of posting. Approximately 75% of impressions on the trending topic were views by U.S.-based users. A significant portion of these impressions, however, are attributable to a handful of high-profile accounts, primarily @Wikileaks. At least one heavily-retweeted Tweet came from another potentially Russia-linked account that showed signs of automation.
With respect to #DNCLeak, approximately 23,000 users posted around 140,000 unique Tweets with that hashtag in the relevant period. Of those Tweets, roughly 2% were from potentially Russian-linked accounts. As noted above, our automated systems at the time detected, labeled, and hid just under half (48%) of all the original Tweets with #DNCLeak. Of the total Tweets with the hashtag, 0.84% were hidden and also originated from accounts that met at least one of the criteria for a Russian-linked account. Those Tweets received 0.21% of overall Tweet impressions. We learned that a small number of Tweets from several large accounts were principally responsible for the propagation of this trend. In fact, two of the ten most-viewed Tweets with #DNCLeak were posted by @Wikileaks, an account with millions of followers. Source I remember people thinking we were crazy when we said Twitter was intentionally suppressing our voices, (far more than suppressing Russians/bots) turns out they were, and they just came out and said it and liberals didn't bat an eye. This is one reason why I'm strongly suspicious of people who claim their obsession with Russia is about free and fair elections. Well, they didn't *just* say that in the sense of just = recently. This was published in October last year. But yeah, you don't see these stats reported in the media much, for some obscure reason. Maybe because they're thoroughly underwhelming in terms of exposing Russian influence? And you should see the kind of criteria Twitter used for determining if an account was "Russian". My steam account would be flagged as Russian because I use Cyrillic in my nickname there (its "Rак" which is both descriptive of myself in Dota and for mocking Putin's appearance because that's how adult I am lol). We took a similarly expansive approach to defining what qualifies as a Russian-linked account. Because there is no single characteristic that reliably determines geographic origin or affiliation, we relied on a number of criteria, including whether the account was created in Russia, whether the user registered the account with a Russian phone carrier or a Russian email address, whether the user’s display name contains Cyrillic characters, whether the user frequently Tweets in Russian, and whether the user has logged in from any Russian IP address, even a single time. We considered an account to be Russian-linked if it had even one of the relevant criteria. But also, as I see this was not clear from the bit I quoted, the 'hidden' tweets were hidden based on the notion that they were spam rather than being allegedly an automated Russian account. The exact definitions for what prompts their automated system to set tweets to be 'hidden' are not clear to me based on this document. Hidden tweets don't show up in search engines, and don't count towards trending and stuff. Maybe its not so bad as it seems in terms of censorship (although 50% of tweets apparently being bots is a disturbing notion on its own). Meanwhile my friends at Fair.org made this observation (highlight is mine): Eight days into the first wildcat strike by West Virginia teachers in 27 years—organized by rank-and-file union members in all 55 West Virginia counties—America’s largest liberal cable network, MSNBC, is a virtual no-show in reporting on the momentous labor unrest.
Save for one two-minute throwaway report from daytime show Velshi and Ruhle (2/27/18), MSNBC hasn’t dedicated a single segment to the strike—despite the strike’s unprecedented size and scope, which garnered major coverage from major outlets like CNN (3/1/18), the New York Times (3/1/18), Washington Post (3/2/18), Vox (2/24/18) and dozens of others.
Another major topic that’s non grata at the Comcast-owned cable network is recent efforts by senators Bernie Sanders, Chris Murphy and Mike Lee to end US backing for the brutal, human rights-abusing war on Yemen. Wednesday, the independent, Democrat and Republican introduced a bill to cut off financial and logistical support for Saudi Arabia’s bombing and blockade of Yemen, which has left over 15,000 dead and created more than a million cases of cholera.
As FAIR has noted before, the US-created humanitarian crisis is a total non-issue to MSNBC. During the Obama years, it was ignored entirely (FAIR.org, 10/14/16), and MSNBC hasn’t done much better under Trump’s tenure—reporting on Russia-related stories 5,000 percent more often than on the largest man-made famine on Earth (FAIR.org, 1/8/18).
If congressional Democrats or DoJ officials fed a story to CNN or the Daily Beast, detailing how West Virginia teachers shared a handful of Russian memes in the run-up to the strike, or claiming that a Saudi bombing victim moonlighted as a Kremlin-paid troll, MSNBC would likely have given the stories six segments apiece. Not that the Mueller probe or the larger Russia investigation aren’t newsworthy—they are objectively important—but the nonstop firehose of Russia coverage, as FAIR has shown before, is crowding out other issues important to activists and progressives. SourceMSNBC, just like most other American TV media, is simply dangerous in its inability to address society in a balanced way as far as I'm concerned. And I'm not talking left versus right balance, but simply covering subjects proportionally based on the reality of their actual impact in society. Its disturbing to see, quite frankly. Well they go off ratings, don't they? I imagine a teachers strike isn't the sort of thing they want, ratings wise. That said, I had the impression MSNBC was better regarded - leftie wise - than CNN, is that true? Seems odd that it's CNN who gives the story its fair due, that considered. Might it be something to do with MSNBC's owners? Their motivation for being shitty is irrelevant to me. They could have captured 100% of the audience with 100% of the advertisers and it makes no difference to me as to how I judge how much time they dedicate to one thing or another. Ratings are not what gives news/reporting quality. No, I meant it more as an observation for why they didn't. Unless it's more to do with some sort of anti-strike bias by the owners and they just don't want that stuff on their station. The news has - industry wide - been driven by market forces more towards ratings and sales. I wish there was an easy fix for that but if there is I don't know what it is. If the Trump Presidency in America - and Brexit in the UK - have shown anything it's that the press is vital and needs some sort of stabilisation against market forces, because they seem inexorably to poison the well of good journalism. Show nested quote +On March 11 2018 23:35 Biff The Understudy wrote:On March 11 2018 15:48 Ayaz2810 wrote:On March 11 2018 08:50 GoTuNk! wrote:On March 11 2018 05:18 Nebuchad wrote:On March 11 2018 05:14 Jockmcplop wrote:On March 11 2018 04:59 Nebuchad wrote:On March 11 2018 04:18 GoTuNk! wrote:On March 11 2018 04:07 Nebuchad wrote:On March 11 2018 03:59 GoTuNk! wrote:
[quote]
Because we are not idiots. If I call you someone "literally a genocidal maniac" it doesn't mean "someone who says mean things". I hope you'll remember that position of yours the next time you hear that SJWs on campuses are the real fascists. Wrong. You can be a fascist or a communist without murdering people or personally forcing them to death by starvation, since it's a political position. Organizing to riot and violently shut down lectures you disagree with on universities does come close though. Calling them "literally mousolini" would be different. Nice try. So it's wrong to compare Trump and Hitler, but it's correct to compare SJWs and fascists? You can compare Trump to Hitler, but its pointless. He isn't like Hitler. A much more interesting comparison is John I of England. He was petty and nasty, treated powerful barons with disrespect constantly, pissed everyone off, as well as having a ridiculously unhealthy diet. He did some stuff right, but failed alot too. That's all fine but I'm much more interested in the fact that GoTunk thinks comparing Trump and Hitler is awful and evidence of idiocy but at the same time comparing SJWs and fascists is all the rage. I never said such thing. What I said is you can certainly call people who organize to violently shut down lectures of people who disagree with them, fascist. Wether they call themselves "SJW", freedom fighters, or christian templars is irrelevant to the act. When the lectures are legitimate, and not just thinly veiled trolling, I would be on board. That seems to rarely be the case. Legitimately different opinions are okay, bullshit like... say Milo, not so much. A lot of "boohoo, students are intolerant of my intolerance!" going on these days. I don’t think that the far right is scoring very high on self awareness. In France they are sooooo against political correctness but if you say that FN voters are deplorable pond scums, they basically tell you that it’s offensive and how can you generalize, and it’s a huge group of people we are talking about, etc etc... I agree, but I don't like no-platforming and shutting down university talks and the like, and I'm increasingly leery of safe space legislation, which is a good idea in principle that seems to be increasingly mis-used. There was a recent incident in the UK of Antifa (legitimately Antifa, not alleged) shutting down a public debate between Sargon of Akkad and Yaron Brook in one of our universities. To me that's not something to be celebrated. Sure, Sargon is a twat and nobody should listen to him, but if they want to waste their brain cells and if they think he actually is smart that's on them. Similarly, if people at universities want to listen to Milo spread his garbage, it's up to them. An article on the event, for the curious: https://www.rt.com/uk/420563-antifa-alt-right-kings/Universities are where people need to be encountering these ideas, while they're in an environment that's multi-faceted and people actually talk about things.
tl;dr Universities are good. Duhh
The US continues to be in Afghanistan, five years in, seemingly for no other reason than to give American youths a foreign place to have adventurous & dangerous experiences & fight & maybe die there. This is not a good reason to be in a state of wartime vigilance. That being said, if by some amazing miracle they are able to put in a representative democratic & functioning government in there that would be an incredibly impressive achievement. I would imagine that oil is a factor in that decision. However, as of now, the US has the highest oil production rate due to the oil fields in Texas, Saskatchewan, North Dakota, & South Dakota, so that is not as huge of a draw as maybe it used to be.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/03/a-war-without-an-objective-6000-days-in/
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EPT
