Media articles feature analysis and commentary about mass media, entertainment, censorship, and propaganda.
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Free speech is more than a slogan. It must be an operational reality for everyone. It can be closed down by forces other than edicts from government. It can be suppressed also by arbitrary private actions that reflect regime priorities. Ever more workers and especially intellectuals today work in an environment of fear that leads to self-censorship.
Like a Tweet, Lose Your Job Read More »
Anthony Fauci’s legacy is one of narcissism and power. The glorification of his massive ego trumped any scientific or medical data. His policies were giveaways to the pharmaceutical industry, which helped burnish his image and crush dissent. He saw his opportunity for the spotlight and seized it. Now, rather than admit mistakes, Fauci is intent on revising history. Unfortunately for his legacy, we’re all living with the consequences of his hubris, and they are impossible to overlook.
Fauci’s Never-Ending Victory Tour Read More »
He won’t let go of the memory of an America in which children were safe at school and parents decided what happened to their children. I, many, share this baseline value and are terrified that it is under attack. And he insists on patriotism, in a time of relentless propaganda and the bribery of elites that urges us all to drop national identities, cultures, borders, and even allegiances.
The Meaning of Tucker Carlson Read More »
The excuse that we had to lock down because of freezer trucks does not hold water. The lockdown edict was issued on March 16, 2020, following the declaration of emergency on March 13, three days after Trump’s advisers convinced him to issue the lockdown. In that time, the funeral parlors and morgues closed too, as did most all medical services. The country was also in panic, which is not generally good for public health.
The Freezer-Truck Canard Read More »
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 More »
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 More »
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 More »
The Washington Post’s Editorial Board just published a big article looking back at America’s Covid response. The editorial’s authors use a report from a team of “seasoned experts” to frame what America’s leaders did right and wrong in said response.
The Washington Post Whitewashes the Covid Response Read More »
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 More »
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 More »
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 More »
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 More »
