Media

Media articles feature analysis and commentary about mass media, entertainment, censorship, and propaganda.

All media articles at Brownstone Institute are translated into multiple languages.

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Washington Post

No, Washington Post, the Experts Were the Whole Problem

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In 2020, rather than encourage the very wealth creation that has long been the biggest foe of death and disease (by far), panicky politicians quite literally chose economic contraction as a virus mitigation strategy. Historians will marvel at the abject stupidity of the U.S. political class, but not the Post’s editorialists or the authors of a report that the editorialists remarkably find insightful.

No, Washington Post, the Experts Were the Whole Problem Read Journal Article

censorship powers

Meet the VLOPs! The EU Extends its Censorship Powers

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The European Commission announced its first list of designated Very Large Online Platforms – or VLOPs – that will be subject to “content moderation” requirements and obligations to combat “disinformation” under the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA). As VLOPs, the designated services will be required “to assess and mitigate their systemic risks and to provide robust content moderation tools.”

Meet the VLOPs! The EU Extends its Censorship Powers Read Journal Article

Censorship-Industrial Complex

The Censorship Industrial Complex

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Big Media and Big Tech fell completely out of sync with material reality, smearing criticism that had previously been normal, and explicitly banning topics from social media such as discussion of a possible lab leak, or vaccines not stopping viral transmission. Polite society agreed with such bans, stayed silent, or even, as in the case of the Virality Project and its partners, led the censoring. A cadre of North American and European anti-disinformation elites meanwhile had been slowly convincing NGOs in Asia, Africa, and Latin America that their biggest problem was not too little but too much online freedom, the solution to which was more corporate and government control in order to protect human rights and democracy.

The Censorship Industrial Complex Read Journal Article

Global Disinformation Index

What is the Global Disinformation Index?

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For all that the logic of raison du monde is predicated on the discovery of global problems and a proliferation of global solutions unconstrained by law or natural right (or democracy, while we’re at it), the drivers at the personal level are much baser: suckling at the teat of governments and charities and extracting a nice living that way for as long as possible – usually while persuading oneself that one is doing something terribly worthwhile.

What is the Global Disinformation Index? Read Journal Article

The Tucker Carlson Departure From Fox and the Power of Big Pharma 

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Carlson attacked the news media for taking “hundreds of millions of dollars from Big Pharma companies” and promoting “their sketchy products on the air and as they did that, they maligned anyone who was skeptical of those products.”  The facts demonstrate a chilling indication that legacy media remains beholden to Big Pharma, and their programming requires the approval of the figures that they are supposed to hold accountable.

The Tucker Carlson Departure From Fox and the Power of Big Pharma  Read Journal Article

social science and humanities

A Crumbling Regime: Lessons for the Social Sciences and Humanities

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COVID-19 landed in an impoverished information ecology – especially in academic institutions – where increasingly all forms of information and arguments are vetted through ideological lines. In other words, arguments are measured against an always moving line of demarcation based on their suspected rootedness in simplistic political camps. 

A Crumbling Regime: Lessons for the Social Sciences and Humanities Read Journal Article

manipulation

The Manipulation of the Public Mind

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Each of us is, way down, a black-box pool – our innermost thoughts and feelings known only to ourselves, and to God. Honouring that autonomy of thought, and decision making is to respect one’s own and other peoples individuality, freedom and place in the world. By the same token, the manipulation of someone’s free will through deliberate propaganda and psychological tactics is an abomination.

The Manipulation of the Public Mind Read Journal Article

politicized science

Why Politicized Science is Dangerous 

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Ultimately, what Crichton emphasizes is the importance of rejecting politicized science and insisting that governments and researchers follow the actual science to its honest conclusions, whatever those may be. Doing so will likely not benefit the powers-that-be, which is why they so vigorously resist the idea, but it will certainly benefit the rest of humanity.

Why Politicized Science is Dangerous  Read Journal Article

twitter substack

Twitter’s Extremely Dangerous Attack on Substack 

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If this turns out to be deliberate and Elon sticks with it, the effect on chilling research, writing, and free speech will be even worse than when Elon took over Twitter. It will also seriously hurt Substack too. There are huge businesses that are thriving there. It is one of the few bright spots on the Internet today. A loss of reach here will mean the further cartelization of opinion and ideas. 

Twitter’s Extremely Dangerous Attack on Substack  Read Journal Article

climate

Beware Catastrophizing Climate Models and Activists

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The final common element is the subordination of state-based decision-making to international technocrats. This is best exemplified in the proliferation of the global climate change bureaucracies and the promise—threat?—of a new global pandemic treaty whose custodian will be a mighty World Health Organisation. In both cases, the dedicated international bureaucracy will have a powerful vested interest in ongoing climate crises and serially repeating pandemics.

Beware Catastrophizing Climate Models and Activists Read Journal Article

media blame

Media Is to Blame for Covid Vaccines’ Wall of Infallibility

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At the very outset, compelling entire populations to take a scientifically novel vaccine, produced on a political timetable, against a disease that for the bulk of people was a bad cold, was a highly questionable policy, arguably trashing traditional medical ethics about informed consent.

Media Is to Blame for Covid Vaccines’ Wall of Infallibility Read Journal Article