Submitted 3 weeks ago by BB8@50501.chat to [deleted]
My husband doesn’t belong to 50501 and he is skeptical of the news being censored, can anone help me show him otherwise.
Use a VPN. On the American side try to find any signs of bad past news on Trump. Now do it from another country on the VPN. See the difference before your very eyes. You can also do this on TikTok and probably get similar results.
You’re going to have to be more specific. There is no network-level filtering of content at the network delivery layer in the US and US can access any international hosts if the host permits it.
Search engines do have regional awareness (that can basically always be changed as a setting) to deliver more local results. I suspect this on social media platforms is what you’re referring to. It’s not exactly censorship, but they definitely promote with an agenda.
Don’t get me wrong, Trump and Republicans are fascists who deserve the worst fate and would gladly setup this kind of system, but it’s not like there’s a network component to censorship like you see in China and some other dictatorships (yet).
Source: I’m always traveling and on VPNs from all regions of the Earth
So far most of the American censorship happens at Layer 7 (or Layer 8 - the meat layer), not Layer 3.
Use a VPN.
Do not recommend people to use random free VPN’s. You should pick your VPN provider carefully as all your traffic will flow through their servers and could bite you in the ass.
I think you might be tackling this the wrong way.
You can’t really provide hard evidence that “the news is censored” to someone who doesn’t want to believe that, because the term “censored” is subjective.
As in, reasonable evidence would be a peer reviewed study of media bias, of which there are many, but a “skeptic” can reject that evidence on the grounds that it doesn’t meet their definition of censorship.
A more meaningful conversation would be to ask whether news sources have bias, and which are more biased than others and in which way.
The term “censorship” implies a big secret not being told, which isn’t my impression of what’s happening. Rather, there’s a constant conservative spin on everything that happens.
Sadly, I suspect you might be about to discover that you can’t change your partner’s political alignment. I’m in my 40s, and in my age group you’re either lucky enough to share political views with your partner, or you ignore the issues you disagree on, or you separate.
ask him if he’s heard about the latest CEO shooting, and point out how it ISN"T Brian Thompson’s cathartic death
I haven’t even heard this one
Same
Do you mean Chip Terhune, CEO of SAIF?
Shit I live near this incident and heard nothing about it.
Imma need a link for this please. Who?
What is 50501
Thank you
Appears also recently a lemmy instance appeared for it. 50501.chat or something like that.
E.S. Herman and Noam Chomsky’s book Manufacturing Consent is a great place to start. You can skip most of the book honestly, (it’s out of date), but the “5 Filters” part is like a decoder ring for American Legacy Media.
It’s free to read online
Amazing how many subjects Chomsky wrote about. I think his review of BF Skinner’s Behaviourism might be his best work because it is so devastatingly well argued.
Unfortunately, his UG work in the field of linguistics turned out to be really bad.
Universal Grammar states that all of the knowledge about languages is already in your brain when you’re born. The only thing that happens in language aquisition is figuring out which parameters are in what state: If your mothertongue is German, then the parameter “has case system” is switched to “yes” and the parameter “has tone system” is switched to “no”.
The idea is that there is some parameter that is set to yes in ALL languages. But everytime such a parameter is put forward, we find that it isnt the case actually.
The next problem is its eurocentrism. Languages, through the lens of UG, all have to have similar parameters as Indo-European languages. Whenever languages do not fit that model, the first instinct in UG is to press it into that model, which leads to stuff like invisible affixes, invisible words and even invisible subjects.
Instead of analyzing a language on its own, forming new categories to understand the mechanics of the language, UG tries its hardest to computerize and systematize languages.
Maybe teach him about passive voice, and then show examples of it in news media?
Not sure if something like this will do, but it is really concerning.
Great suggestion.
Maybe look for coverage of a topic or event from a few major US media sites/papers, and then at the same event from somewhere outside the US.
Etc.
One of the easiest ways might be to have him take a look at an app like GroundNews, which displays biases of publications and shows blindspots in the media according to political lean. The biases and differences in headlines, presentation, language used, and what stories get reported at all by any given publication become very apparent.
Words to watch out for are things like “attacked”, “bashed” or “slammed” instead of “criticised”; “forced” instead of “chose”, eg “company forced to cut jobs”; “muzzled” or “gagged” instead of perhaps “censored”. The implied violence charges the story emotionally, it’s the most common form of news manipulation. They’re trying to make you feel - usually fear or anger - rather than think.
I’m so sick of seeing “slammed” in news.
My only complaint about Ground News (and most media bias meters in general) is that factual papers will almost always be listed as left-leaning. Because the Overton window has shifted so far to the right that cold hard facts presented exactly as they happened with zero spin now has a left-wing bias.
The problem, though, is that depending on how deep his conspiratorial beliefs go, she might have to argue with a crazy person. It then doesn’t matter what facts and real actual research she shows, it will just be brushed aside as if it were mere dust.
Some people will hold their breath even when their body is telling them that they are about to suffocate, just because their brainwash outlet told them that oxygen is poisonous, what can you do?
Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky
What exactly do you mean by “news is censored”? Are you saying that certain stories aren’t getting the kinds of traction you think they should be getting? Or, are you saying that major events are not being covered at all because the government is threatening news organizations that cover them?
Perhaps a graphic depicting the extreme consolidation of news would help?
If he’s into documentaries, see if he might like the Adam Curtis documentary HyperNormalisation.
Regardless of whether the news is censored, you might just find that your husband has a different political perspective to you. Some people find that a dealbreaker but personally I enjoy having different opinions to my partner. It means that our beliefs get challenged (in a good natured way) and that one or both of us get the opportunity to change our minds from an initial knee-jerk take on an issue.
Getting flashbacks to reddit’s aita.
jjagaimo@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Look at the NYTs coverage of the genocide in gaza (“boohoo poor israel, self defense”) and general media coverage Bernie Sanders (doesnt exist until he has no chance of winning something, even though he’s been saying the same thing for the last 60 years
tourist@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
The IDF will bomb a hospital and kill 200 people
NYT article will say something like “200 Dead after bombs drop near a place, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.”
They phrase everything so carefully.
Like the bombs were some sort of natural disaster and not an intentional military strike on civilians.
They always append “Hamas run health ministry”, to imply the information can’t be reliable, because it’s from a US-designated terrorist organisation
The Israeli media will say “We killed 300 Palestinians”
TheDorkfromYork@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
Wasn’t the bomb in this case from a Hamas fired rocket?
Wouldn’t you want the news to not rush to conclusions?