So, as we know, there's a huge outcry against "fake news" in response to the whole Pizzagate thing. And while there are concerns with fake news sources misleading people, I can't help but feel that this push is really about censorship of other perspectives. Case in point, Facebook is now blocking RT (Russia Times) from its website.
On the surface, this sounds like a logical extension to the crackdown on fake news. The democrats are worried about Russia influencing people, so they go after a network that is essentially owned by Russia. But honestly, I can't help but feel that this was either done out of ignorance, or done out of some nefariousness.
Look, it's pretty clear that RT is going to be biased at times. It probably can't be trusted in dealing with issues related to Russia. I mean, going to Russia times for objective coverage on Russia's involvement in the world is like going to CNN to hear objective coverage about the democratic primary.
....which is kind of my point. Where's the outcry against CNN being "fake news"? Trump made the argument but then the left freaks out about it and goes on about how this is an attack on the press by the alt right. But honestly, I don't trust CNN as far as I can throw them. Doesn't mean I'd censor them in particular unless we just full on brought back the fairness doctrine and applied it to everyone. Hopefully all the people on the left freaking out about Trump going after CNN is why I'm freaked out about going after RT.
And honestly, I can't say I watch RT often, but from the small clips here and there I've seen, RT seems to mostly be home to a lot of progressives and people who can't make it on corporate news networks for not pushing their narrative. I see a lot of good stuff from people like Lee Camp and Thom Hartmann. People like Larry King, Ed Schultz, and Jesse Ventura are also on RT. So....perhaps RT isn't as bad as we think it is and that calling it "fake news" is just a blatant attempt at censorship of viewpoints outside of the mainstream?
Again, I'm not claiming RT is perfect. It probably isn't. But no news network is. They're all biased in different ways. And honestly, unless they are so egregiously over the top with falsehoods that are leading to real tangible harm in the real world (say, hate speech or something), I don't see why we should be banning specific viewpoints off of certain sites at the top level. Individual debate groups or subreddits in Reddit's case, fine. But on a site wide level? Unless there is a compelling reason to ban something that can be defended and is acceptable to a good proportion of reasonable people, I don't see why we should allow social media to be manipulated like this. It's just flat out censorship to do so. We should want a greater scope of media in America. The "mainstream" networks are all owned and bought and paid for by a small minority of corporations and as such, censoring other networks as fake news in order to prop up these networks seems like a blatant attempt to give these guys an oligopoly over the accessibility of the press in America. This is scary. This is how freedom dies in this country. This attempt to muzzle the media should be resisted by the public and supporters of more independent media.
No comments:
Post a Comment