I'm curious if there are some under-the-table agreements in place, so that these social media giants give favor to news media giants by subduing independent entities that might compete with them.
One of the more insidious slogans of the 20th century was "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM." It set the tone that it was more important to cover your backside than to grow and that the way to cover your backside was to stick with conventional, established players. This is why an increasing number of purchasing decisions are made by looking for vendors who meet a certification requirement for which the specifications were created by the two or three largest players in the industry. Your company may take a hit after the crap you bought doesn't work, but you won't get fired because you all you did was use an approved vendor.
Media giants don't need to form formal partnerships with social media players to benefit from the accreditation game, though they often do. No matter how many crap pieces the New York Times or Washington Post run, they've got a name that means nobody will get fired for letting a crap story from one of them make it to the top of the news results. On the other hand, an excellent but controversial piece by an unknown will draw the wrath of those who disagree and you won't have "mainstream" outlets lining up to defend his/her reputation. So it's not worth the risk.
I’ve been chronicling my experiences of being maligned in my local paper and my efforts to get the story corrected... this eventually turned into an investigation on my part which found that my local paper is owned by a corporate conglomerate that owns 350+ publications and none of them appear to have a Correction Policy or a Code of Ethics.
Here’s my first story:
How My Local Paper Destroyed My Life and My Mental Health
Meet The “Sinclair Broadcast Group” of Local Newspapers: Lee Enterprises is one of the largest owners of local newspapers in America. Their apparent indifference to the truth, ethics, and transparency, is terrifying.
Yours is a heartbreaking tale straight out of a Kafka film. I hope this post stays at the top of Matt's comments. The gang here is pretty bright and good hearted. We have enough spare change to pay this guy $50/year...
Maybe a lawyer can look over your Medium acct with an eye to a defamation/slander suit of some kind? IDK, but I'm willing to put $ on that there's a bunch of them that read Matt's stuff.
Models that offer the opportunity for users to pay in exchange for better content influenced by monetisation via advertising have certainly worked in other areas. I see substack as the Bandcamp of journalism and there’s no reason why it couldn’t somehow be exported to a whole network
I have nothing but respect for News2Share. It does live coverage of events, allows all sides to speak candidly about their POV, and doesn’t editorialize.
Fisher's content gets blocked and flagged, while "reputable" sources sail right through. That's a darkly efficient way to not only censor content, but funnel it through 'approved' gatekeepers. When I had a FB account, 'NowThis' was loved by my progressive friends, as it showed context free Woke Corp agitprop that was sure to get anti-Trump eyeballs.
He'd love a verification checkmark? Maybe that's the wrong approach. Asking the enemy for permission might not be as good a strategy as building ones own platform.
The human reviewers are primarily located outside of the US, so even if they didn’t need to work at such a rapid pace that makes paying attention to the details of the content practically impossible, they don’t/can’t understand the nuances of our politics. In practice, they aren't much better than faceless algorithms.
Another shining example of our wonderful Big Tech overlords’ hypocritical behavior. Rather than employ Americans that would be more likely to understand the political nuances involved in this subject matter, they outsource jobs to low-pay Asian job killers. Thanks Big Tech! May I have another?
I agree with you in part, but it's a tricky situation. Hiring Americans who can make split-second politically nuanced decisions doesn't scale, especially when a tech company is still in the money-losing, growth-at-all-costs phase (which may not be YT's place now, but certainly was for a while). I think the best solution would be to have a better appeals system, not a "you only get one, it doesn't matter what new evidence you have" system that YT apparently has.
Unless you want the platform riddled with tasteless, graphic (violent and sexual) content, that's not a great strategy. It's absolutely true that perfectly legitimate journalists and videographers are getting penalized by the strong arm of content moderation, but we got to this place for a reason.
Yes the main reason being Globocap reacting to uncomfortable populist and alt-media journalist exposures of the inner workings of the Empire. MSM, a wholly owned subsidiary of Globocap, will now determine what the great unwashed will be allowed to see, hear and think.
The content moderation and moderators are examined in the extraordinary film "The Cleaners".
The film is both fascinating and disturbing.
"Enter a hidden third world shadow industry of digital cleaning, where the Internet rids itself of what it doesn't like. Here we meet five “digital scavengers”, among thousands of people outsourced from Silicon Valley, whose job is to delete “inappropriate” content of the net. In a parallel struggle, we meet people around the globe whose lives are dramatically affected by online censorship. A typical “cleaner” must observe and rate thousands of often deeply disturbing images and videos every day, leading to lasting psychological impacts.
Yet underneath their work lie profound questions around what makes an image art or propaganda and what defines journalism. Where exactly is the point of balance for social media to be neither an unlegislated space nor a forum rife with censorship? "
I'm curious if there are some under-the-table agreements in place, so that these social media giants give favor to news media giants by subduing independent entities that might compete with them.
One of the more insidious slogans of the 20th century was "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM." It set the tone that it was more important to cover your backside than to grow and that the way to cover your backside was to stick with conventional, established players. This is why an increasing number of purchasing decisions are made by looking for vendors who meet a certification requirement for which the specifications were created by the two or three largest players in the industry. Your company may take a hit after the crap you bought doesn't work, but you won't get fired because you all you did was use an approved vendor.
Media giants don't need to form formal partnerships with social media players to benefit from the accreditation game, though they often do. No matter how many crap pieces the New York Times or Washington Post run, they've got a name that means nobody will get fired for letting a crap story from one of them make it to the top of the news results. On the other hand, an excellent but controversial piece by an unknown will draw the wrath of those who disagree and you won't have "mainstream" outlets lining up to defend his/her reputation. So it's not worth the risk.
Matt, can I offer myself up as a Censored person?
I’ve been chronicling my experiences of being maligned in my local paper and my efforts to get the story corrected... this eventually turned into an investigation on my part which found that my local paper is owned by a corporate conglomerate that owns 350+ publications and none of them appear to have a Correction Policy or a Code of Ethics.
Here’s my first story:
How My Local Paper Destroyed My Life and My Mental Health
https://link.medium.com/Jy6PZIYNxbb
...which led to my 2nd story:
An Up-Close Look At Journalistic Rot In Action: See a series of unbelievable emails with newspaper executives and what they reveal
https://link.medium.com/ZgDYLGaOxbb
...which led to my latest story in this saga:
Meet The “Sinclair Broadcast Group” of Local Newspapers: Lee Enterprises is one of the largest owners of local newspapers in America. Their apparent indifference to the truth, ethics, and transparency, is terrifying.
https://link.medium.com/mzOOT3dOxbb
Yours is a heartbreaking tale straight out of a Kafka film. I hope this post stays at the top of Matt's comments. The gang here is pretty bright and good hearted. We have enough spare change to pay this guy $50/year...
Maybe a lawyer can look over your Medium acct with an eye to a defamation/slander suit of some kind? IDK, but I'm willing to put $ on that there's a bunch of them that read Matt's stuff.
Fingers crossed for you and yours.
This will be the death of FB, Youtube and Twitter. I think we will soon see challengers to all those platforms that will build on two things.
1. The payment from the users to keep their information private from the advertisers and free from commercial.
2. The payments will be used to "patron" the content makers - in a bit, the same way that Spotify distribute funds to the music artist.
Models that offer the opportunity for users to pay in exchange for better content influenced by monetisation via advertising have certainly worked in other areas. I see substack as the Bandcamp of journalism and there’s no reason why it couldn’t somehow be exported to a whole network
I have nothing but respect for News2Share. It does live coverage of events, allows all sides to speak candidly about their POV, and doesn’t editorialize.
My twitter account was shut down for a day because I tweeted "Kill the Filibuster!" They said I was harassing someone - apparently named Filibuster
Fisher's content gets blocked and flagged, while "reputable" sources sail right through. That's a darkly efficient way to not only censor content, but funnel it through 'approved' gatekeepers. When I had a FB account, 'NowThis' was loved by my progressive friends, as it showed context free Woke Corp agitprop that was sure to get anti-Trump eyeballs.
He'd love a verification checkmark? Maybe that's the wrong approach. Asking the enemy for permission might not be as good a strategy as building ones own platform.
The human reviewers are primarily located outside of the US, so even if they didn’t need to work at such a rapid pace that makes paying attention to the details of the content practically impossible, they don’t/can’t understand the nuances of our politics. In practice, they aren't much better than faceless algorithms.
Another shining example of our wonderful Big Tech overlords’ hypocritical behavior. Rather than employ Americans that would be more likely to understand the political nuances involved in this subject matter, they outsource jobs to low-pay Asian job killers. Thanks Big Tech! May I have another?
I agree with you in part, but it's a tricky situation. Hiring Americans who can make split-second politically nuanced decisions doesn't scale, especially when a tech company is still in the money-losing, growth-at-all-costs phase (which may not be YT's place now, but certainly was for a while). I think the best solution would be to have a better appeals system, not a "you only get one, it doesn't matter what new evidence you have" system that YT apparently has.
The best solution is freedom of speech. Stop censoring content when you are a “neutral platform”.
Unless you want the platform riddled with tasteless, graphic (violent and sexual) content, that's not a great strategy. It's absolutely true that perfectly legitimate journalists and videographers are getting penalized by the strong arm of content moderation, but we got to this place for a reason.
Yes the main reason being Globocap reacting to uncomfortable populist and alt-media journalist exposures of the inner workings of the Empire. MSM, a wholly owned subsidiary of Globocap, will now determine what the great unwashed will be allowed to see, hear and think.
The content moderation and moderators are examined in the extraordinary film "The Cleaners".
The film is both fascinating and disturbing.
"Enter a hidden third world shadow industry of digital cleaning, where the Internet rids itself of what it doesn't like. Here we meet five “digital scavengers”, among thousands of people outsourced from Silicon Valley, whose job is to delete “inappropriate” content of the net. In a parallel struggle, we meet people around the globe whose lives are dramatically affected by online censorship. A typical “cleaner” must observe and rate thousands of often deeply disturbing images and videos every day, leading to lasting psychological impacts.
Yet underneath their work lie profound questions around what makes an image art or propaganda and what defines journalism. Where exactly is the point of balance for social media to be neither an unlegislated space nor a forum rife with censorship? "
Here is a clip from the CBC interview with the filmmakers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwbwxStnI3M
IMDB link: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7689936/