No Such Thing as News

These were the words I read in the YouTube chat of a video about the man who defended himself with his firearm in Albuquerque. It's no wonder he felt that way, and many people do. When the AP can put out a video that completely leaves out the reason why the man discharged his firearm, has comments disabled so their lies can't be called out on their channel, and makes no correction and gives no context, then we ask ourselves along with Pilot, "What is truth?" or more to the point, "What is News?" because it certainly doesn't feel like truth. When I have to get the actual footage from the Chinese state media, when I have to get the full story from Russian mouthpiece RT, I really question what good remains in our mainstream media anymore.

It Was Good

Ever since Rush Limbaugh started his program way back around the time I was born, people have been waking up to the daily spin from their newspapers and national affiliate stations. We learned that what we were receiving on our doorstep was not news, but carefully crafted editorialized takes on events that fit certain narratives, with perhaps the exception of the odd local paper. If these yellow journalism rags were a quick hit of propaganda, then the cable news networks were where one mainlined their idiocy. It would be about seven years before Fox News came on the scene, and Rush was the very first national voice for conservatism that paved the way for those at Fox and other conservative talk shows. He interpreted the news from a conservative perspective, told us what he thought, asked us what we thought, and he didn't lie to us about what he believed. He may have been wrong (it continues to be a rarity) but he never misled. He didn't slow down audio clips to make people sound dumb, he didn't selectively edit to artificially prop up his views, none of this nonsense. He didn't have time for that then, and he certainly doesn't have time for that now. He spent more of his time defending his own name than he probably should have liked, answering the empty attacks and setting the record straight. When they impugned his character, he didn't react, he simply corrected the record. In those rare cases he made a mistake or misspoke, he corrected himself. Even now, I pray that his health rallies and his body is strengthened so that, selfishly, we may all continue to hear his strong voice from behind the golden EIB microphone, reminding us that conservatism doesn't mean compromising on our principles so we may be popular, it means sticking to our guns and keeping the faith, holding up the flame of liberty and passing it on successfully to the next generation.

This is not what news is today, in 2020.

Today, I read the news and I must search over multiple articles and various videos before I can tease out what it is that actually occurred. I can't trust my own eyes. I can't trust my own ears. I understand media manipulation better than most, and yet I still struggle to make out what is real and what is false. But manipulated video and audio is oddly the least problematic portion of the modern media landscape. What is truly problematic and insidious is the collusion of the progressive news organizations and big tech to control the very reality that is presented to us by "fact-checking", half truths, and censorship (including self-censorship).

“Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”.... “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”....Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. ... And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.”

The Devil Is In The ToS

The platforms, devilish realms of entrapment that they are, promised us that our discussions would be open, liberal, free from the unnecessary constraints of content, a forum where the ideas were free to be exchanged and the best allowed to rise to the top. It turns out, that what we really have bitten into is a system which binds us and subjugates us into their platform, and allows us to talk to our fellow prisoners during yard time. Richard Stallman (whom the media character assassinated recently) understood the power of these systems to enslave us, blind us, and abuse us. And of course, when the users want to change the course of discussion, and they talk about subjects and ideas that are anathema to the enslaving platform, censorship is applied. In some cases, after having nursed at the teat of the platform for their living or extra income for sometime, they are forced to engage in doublespeak and euphemisms. Subjects are avoided, opinions are suppressed, all to maintain the income from ads. At least users can present simple facts, right? Well, those are in dispute. They are fact checked, and yet no one checks the fact checkers. The facts are intercepted and presented with "context" yet no one contextualizes why the platform is intent on countering conservative opinions or any other alternative point of view. Well, at least the users can get their message out, even if it is presented with annoying window dressing. But then you have the shadow banning, the muting, the selective promotions, the demotions, .... What recourse is there? None. In the words of Joshua, "The only winning move is not to play."

Change The Conversation

If we are to ever be free to share and champion truth, to debate and discuss without self-censorship, to make content and associate with those we wish to (without fear of our voice being silenced or our history being removed) We need to get serious about distributed media, distributed networking, and peered servicing. If you're on this platform, you likely are more informed about this than most people, but it's not enough to be informed, we must make this knowledge palatable to the masses.

Learn how to change the future of the web for everyone, and share.