The Political Correctness Haters' Club

[Enrico_sw]

9 minutes ago, Michael* said:

 

Mainstream media believes in "balance" which means if there are two people, one who says it's raining outside and one who says it's sunny, those two viewpoints are treated as having equal value, without being scrutinised.

 

 

The anglo-saxon media are not about journalists anymore, they are mostly editorialists who will say that it's raining outside because of groupthink and without checking what the weather actually is.

 

It's actually not exactly the same in the French press (I read both). Our newspapers have their biases, but they generally tend to stick to the facts and try to have critical thinking.

 

11 minutes ago, Michael* said:

Given the human tendency to cherry-pick evidence and dismiss inconvenient data it's hardly surprising that, without proper scrutiny, so many facile and often completely counter-factual myths keep getting regurgitated. We seem to have arrived at a point where people get to claim that the facts don't tell the whole story, which is just completely insane.

 

Yep, that's a human tendency. That means everybody from all sides does it. Which is why we need people who spend time checking the facts and trying to bring a summarized, but still roughly accurate view of the world (it's the goal, it's never achievable, but still a goal).

 

When it's highly technical, we call these people "scientists" and they are still generally trustworthy. When it's less technical, we call these people "journalists", but their credibility has severely plummeted, because they've become more zealots than journalists (especially in the US).

 

[Enrico_sw]

17 minutes ago, Michael* said:

 

By the same token, there are many people for whom "censorship" and "being subjected to criticism" seem to mean the same thing.

 

Sure. Do you have any example?

 

I can give you plenty of examples of censorship. Especially by Big Tech, who seem to think that they are the scientific and journalistic police of the world, which they are not. They are an oligopoly, that was helped by the US and benefit from several tax loopholes in many countries.

[Enrico_sw]

14 minutes ago, Michael* said:

 

There's an inherent contradiction in the idea of giving power to people you don't trust to manage the changes you require though, surely. The proper channels might work if they were managed by the trustworthy, but there's nothing to be gained by debating people who go out of their way to miss the point.

 

If you disagree with those in power, you can vote. You can civilly debate those who disagree (which is what you're doing here and I sincerely appreciate it). You can write articles, protest civilly if you want (but that doesn't mean looting).

 

14 minutes ago, Michael* said:

Let's not act like everyone loved or even respected Martin Luther King, either. Roughly around the time of his assassination, several polls reflected that he was one of the most hated people in America, and many folks who invoke his name in the present would likely hate him just as much were he alive today.

 

I didn't say that everybody loved him. I like and respect him, that's what matters to me and I don't care about the sad and intolerant souls who hated him 60 years ago.

 

We're in 2020 though. We're not in 1968. I invoke his name, because I agree with him. Because he talked about individuals, peace and color blindness. That's not what many "protesters" say today.

[Stromboli1]

Quote

Journalists’ Twitter use shows them talking within smaller bubbles

Aug 5, 2020 9:30 am by Craig Chamberlain  | Social Sciences Editor  | 217-333-2894

 

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Journalists in Washington, D.C., have long been accused of living in a “Beltway bubble,” isolated from the broader public, talking too much to each other.

 

Their interactions on Twitter, however, show them congregating in even smaller “microbubbles,” says a recent study. The journalists within each communicate more among themselves than with journalists outside the group.

 

That means Beltway journalism “may be even more insular than previously thought,” say study authors Nikki Usher and Yee Man Margaret Ng, “raising additional concerns about vulnerability to groupthink and blind spots.”

 

Usher and Ng, journalism professors at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, identified nine clusters of journalists or “communities of practice” in their study, published online by the journal Social Media and Society.

 

Their “elite/legacy” cluster was the largest, including about 30% of the journalists covered in the study, with The Washington Post, NBC News, NPR and The New York Times among the major newsrooms represented.

 

A congressional journalism cluster included another 20%. The other clusters centered around CNN, television producers, local political news, regulatory journalists, foreign affairs, long-form/enterprise reporting and social issues.

 

In leading the study, Usher said she wanted to “describe the contours of what political journalism in Washington looks like and of the process of making news unfold.” Another goal was to better understand how journalists connect to and learn from each other and establish conventional knowledge.

 

Twitter seemed an ideal way to do that, given its unique role among journalists as a virtual water cooler, Usher said. “Most of the time, what happens on Twitter does not reflect the real world. But in the case of political journalism and political elites, generally speaking, what happens on Twitter is reality.” It’s an online reflection of their offline lives and work, she said, and plays a significant role in agenda-setting.

 

“So this was a particularly potent way of looking, at scale, at how ideas are exchanged, how people are making sense of things,” Usher said.

 

The “at scale” part is where Ng comes in. Usher’s research has focused more on qualitative research, primarily about elite U.S. newsrooms and how new technology impacts how journalists work. Ng, however, specializes in big data and computational social science. She saw particular power in applying those tools to journalists’ interactions on Twitter.

 

“With more than 2,000 journalists in this study, we could not observe each of them individually in real life. So we used their digital life as a way to understand how they interact with their peers,” Ng said.

 

The researchers started with a list of all credentialed congressional correspondents as found in the Congressional Directory, then identified those with active Twitter accounts.

 

Ng collected all the tweets, retweets and replies posted on most of those accounts over two months in early 2018, using Twitter’s application-programming interface. She winnowed those further to only those sent between or referencing other Beltway journalists.

 

The final data set consisted of 133,529 Twitter posts from 2,015 journalists, about one-third of all credentialed congressional correspondents.

 

Ng applied a “community detection” algorithm to determine where there might be clusters of journalists, based on their Twitter interactions. Usher labeled those clusters based on biographical and employment data, as well as an analysis of the words used in the tweets.

 

Several things stood out for Usher in examining these specific clusters. The large elite/legacy cluster, with some of the most influential news media prominently represented, was also among the most insular, she noted. More than 68% of the cluster members’ Twitter interactions with other journalists were within the group.

 

“That also may mean they’re not engaging, in the same kind of way, with the people who are actually on the ground getting these sorts of congressional microscoops, they’re not engaging with the journalists who are the policy wonks,” Usher said.

 

“I was also really intrigued to see that there was a television producer cluster, where Fox was in the mix with ABC and CBS, which might explain why we tend to see a lot of the same faces on TV news programs.”

 

One cluster was labeled as CNN because more than half its members were CNN journalists and much of the conversation related to network stories and personalities, which Usher found problematic.

 

“CNN is telling a story about what is happening with CNN, and that is worrisome. Maybe that’s an organizational branding strategy, but I think it potentially has deleterious effects for public discourse,” she said.

 

In the opposite direction, she was encouraged to see a space in the long-form/enterprise cluster where journalists doing the “deep, thoughtful dives” could exchange ideas.

 

Overall, however, Usher thinks their findings add to concerns about journalists’ Twitter use. “Political journalists in D.C. are people who use Twitter all day. And so the question is what does that do to how they think about the world. And generally, from this paper and a previous one I did on gender and Beltway journalism, it seems to me that it can make things worse.”

 

https://news.illinois.edu/view/6367/326226550

 

[Enrico_sw]

2020 rule, stated by CNN (one of the ruling forces of the New World): women are now called "individuals with a cervix".

If you disagree with the rule, you're a bad person (even if you're a left politician from the UK).

 

Such a lovely world. 

 

 

[Enrico_sw]

The twitter mob tried to go after Gina Carano and the activist weasels got their butts kicked by Gina.   Link

 

The mob didn't understand what Gina was trying to say, because their cognitive abilities are close to nil. Then, they tried to make her talk about their obsessive ideas. It's good that Gina kept her spine.

 

[Enrico_sw]

Quote

Wormageddon! Scientist provokes ire of Twitter users and is accused of sexism, racism and privilege after saying roundworms are 'overhyped'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8588031/Scientist-angers-Twitter-accused-sexism-racism-saying-roundworms-useless.html

 

 

This world is a joke    These activists on twitter are endless mine of fun.

[Enrico_sw]

Quote

Guardians Of The Galaxy’s Zoe Saldana Apologizes For Not Being Black Enough To Portray Nina Simone in 2016 Biopic

 

https://boundingintocomics.com/2020/08/07/in-tears-guardians-of-the-galaxys-zoe-saldana-apologizes-for-not-being-black-enough-when-she-took-on-the-role-of-nina-simone/

 

 

What a stupid, stupid world. Zoe is a great actress who shouldn't apologize to the Twitter mobs.

 

BTW, I love Nina Simone, and, unlike those morons on Twitter, I've been listening to her songs for years, before this bluebird website even existed (this "great" website that allows them to use their little fingers to vomit their hatred in the name of the oxymoron called "social justice").

[Enrico_sw]

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-to-reexamine-nicknames-for-cosmic-objects

 

What...? The Nasa is in on the mass hysteria... Now, it's offensive to use the term "Siamese Twins Galaxy"?? The Orwellian craziness keeps growing, but it's in the name of "good intentions", so sleep well, good people.

 

 

[Enrico_sw]

Oh...

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8606553/Homeless-men-seen-sharing-swigs-liquor-urinating-outside-luxury-Upper-West-hotels.html?ito=social-twitter_dailymailus

[Enrico_sw]

So the protests are not that peaceful, Mr. Mayor...?

https://nypost.com/2020/08/07/portland-riots-continue-as-mayor-scolds-rioters-for-burning-precinct/

 

Did he forget about their doctrine?

[Enrico_sw]

https://www.lawenforcementtoday.com/gutless-new-jersey-principal-thin-blue-line-promotes-racism-microaggressions-picture-will-be-removed-from-yearbook/

 

Wonderful....

[Enrico_sw]

2020 is a stupid, stupid year. What is wrong with people?

https://metro.co.uk/2020/07/24/man-knelt-toddlers-neck-social-media-post-captioned-blm-now-mf-13033620/

https://nypost.com/2020/07/23/ohio-man-seen-kneeling-on-2-year-old-boys-neck-arrested/

[Enrico_sw]

That's one of the most ridiculous conspiracy theories...... People are out of their minds and celebs are  the worst.   

 

What you say is batshit crazy, Jamie Lee Curtis.

[Enrico_sw]

@Stromboli1 Titania has been banned from Twitter!

https://reclaimthenet.org/twitter-restricts-parody-account-titania-mcgrath/

 

The purge from big tech keeps happening.

[Stromboli1]

1 hour ago, Enrico_sw said:

@Stromboli1 Titania has been banned from Twitter!

https://reclaimthenet.org/twitter-restricts-parody-account-titania-mcgrath/

 

The purge from big tech keeps happening.

 

It was only a matter of time................ need Section 230 more than ever, but I don't think it'll happen cause big tech has their tentacles out on both sides of the aisle contributing to campaigns. They're playing both sides, the only one that can do anything is POTUS Trump.

[Sarah.Adams]

bigots strike back  

 

 

[Stromboli1]

Indoctrination at it's finest.

 

https://www.fox4news.com/news/some-believe-canceled-wylie-isd-assignment-that-likened-police-to-kkk-slave-owners-was-taken-out-of-context

[Enrico_sw]

Titania is back

 

And she's roasting vegans, which is hilarious.

 

[Enrico_sw]

Interesting

https://www.wibw.com/2020/08/18/goodyear-employees-say-new-no-tolerance-policy-is-discriminatory/