The following is commentary intended for discussion. Add your comments.
Over the past few years, the news media has allowed itself to be fundamentally transformed.
Under threat of censorship on Twitter and other Big Tech platforms, news outlets as well as individual reporters, have dutifully begun to censor themselves lest their entire accounts-- or jobs-- be deplatformed.
Some are hoping Elon Musk's purchase of nearly 10% of Twitter will lead toward a much-needed shift in the control of our information.
What do you think? Leave your comments below.
I think people skills cancel their socialist media accounts.
I am hopeful that Mr. Musk will move Twitter in the direction of free speech. Time will tell.
The US media are (yes: are -media id a plural noun) the Soviet-style dezinformatsiya apparatus of our Bolshevik regime. They suppress only conservative opinion.
The lying and gaslighting has become so bad that it is now literally insane. The Elon Must/Twitter story has pushed people over the edge. In the Washington Post, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, there was an article warning that rich people like Musk should not be allowed to influence social media platforms.
Similarly, someone warned that Musk's apparent opposition to vigorous censorship is a sign of his authoritarian tendencies and is exactly the approach a dictator would take!
Media-ites who regret Musk being able to buy a majority of Twitter stock will now find out how their self-censorship led to that event.
I believe the real power behind the power will make sure that Musk falls in line. If he doesn't, these special interests will use their propaganda machine to destroy him.
Unfortunately if the owner of Meta (Facebook) has no power over publishing the truth regardless of political nonsense and pressure, it is doubtful that the purchase of one tenth of a competing social media conglomerate will garner any true changes.
In college at the University of Michigan, I served as the president of the student chapter of The Society of Professional Journalists/SDX (none of the grad students wanted the job.) This was just post Watergate and I remember great conferences and discussions about journalistic standards and integrity. I don’t recognize what passes for journalism these days and we are all the worse for it.
Well stated Susan. Ordinary people have lost faith in our news and don't know what or whom to believe .. that's very troubling.
We need another Richard Mellon Scaife and other newspapers as his Pittsburgh Tribune-Review . All we have are Democratic party apologists. That's why newspapers are dying.
What else might be "censored"? Almost the entire contents of the declassified 354 page PDF (publicly available for download) Rand Report Extending Russia Competing from Advantageous Ground.
Available here. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR3063.html
Of note in the report is Measure 3
CHAPTER FOUR
Geopolitical Measures.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Measure 1: Provide Lethal Aid to Ukraine. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Measure 2: Increase Support to the Syrian Rebels.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Measure 3: Promote Regime Change in Belarus.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Measure 4: Exploit Tensions in the South Caucasus.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Measure 5: Reduce Russian Influence in Central Asia.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Measure 6: Challenge Russian Presence in Moldova.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
Recommendations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Sure... "Promote Regime Change in Belarus." Does this constitute "election interference?" Hillary Clinton equated such interference to a declaration of war.
Not picked up or at this moment even mentioned by the widely read Drudge Report is that yet another leader in Pakistan has been removed from power. Many see it as US interference or US revenge because the leader did not want Pakistan to engage in sanctions against Russia.
Also note that the Rand report stressed sanctions as a key to destabilize Russia. President Biden recently slapped new sanctions on Russia and then added the US needed to gather evidence for the reason he was slapping on the sanctions. The rush to sanctions predated this war. The Rand report prepared years ago argued for increasing sanctions on Russia to weaken Russia.
And from the Rand report "The steps we posit would not have either defense or deterrence as their prime purpose,"
Plain, unadulterated aggression on the part of the US government. Out-in-the-open. Unclassified. Not much reported. Media today dutifully state that Russia's invasion of Ukraine is "unprovoked." The whole Rand Report instead talks about how to play into Russian anxieties, not to calm and allay them (as the US would say it is doing publicly) but to increase and exacerbate them to get Russia to do erratic things. They recognize the risks. They point these out. But they (The Rand people) were paid by factions in the US government to produce this report... factions in the US government who hate Russia. Now everyone in Russia sees how bad the US is and hardly anyone there now supports the US.
And now some people around the world also believe the US to be behind what is going on in Pakistan. Will this even make the list of US foreign interventions? Probably not.
I don't doubt that some (many?) may self censor, there are still some real journalists out there (such as yourself Ms. Attkisson) who have integrity and do real reporting. Then there are others who aren't self censoring but are the force behind those who have the power, for now, to control to a greater extent what gets heard through the major outlets and reward those who do self censor.
I'm more confident that these trends will shift the control of information back toward the masses, at least in the U.S. -- the continuing emergence of alternative social media platforms and of individual voices with differing opinions.
Why aren’t more people buying stock in all the networks and useing their votes to oust the liberal heads
The situation can be summarized as follows: The Left is out-of-control and has been for some time now. With the added strength and power of the tech media platforms and the anti-Trump movement, cancel culture and de-platforming has exacerbated the issue to the point that freedom of speech/expression has ceased to exist in the USA. The human emotions of fear, greed and power-hunger have been driving this phenomenon and only courage and wisdom will defeat it. There are already instances of such taking place, including the actions of Elon Musk, but many others as well, that bode for a defeat of this disastrous extreme Left-wing ideology and the sooner it is relegated to the dust bin of history, the better it will be for us all.