Comment by deltarholamda | Hacker News Reader

Comment by deltarholamda | Hacker News Reader

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>Neilsen demonstrates that the legacy media are dying fast, fewer and fewer people are tuned in as the broadcasting becomes more and more toxic. This is a good thing imo.

But is it a good thing?

A free press can be thought of as the sensory organs of the polity. If the sensory organs are faulty, or worse are deliberately lying, then alternative sensory organs may fill in the blanks with less robust information. These days, when you read a story from mainstream sources, it's often best to say, "well, I don't know anything about this story, but it's pretty safe to assume that what I just read is either wrong or nonsense." That's really not good. It gets worse if the only alternatives are just as wrong, or just as nonsensical, and you have to apply some kind of boolean bullshit math to get some outline of what the issue even is.

The erosion of public trust isn't a short-term problem.

By 'free press' here I think you mean state sponsored and/or corporate 'news' outlets. The internet has transcended these last century print and broadcast foundationed constructs long ago, but their owners prop up their mastheads as though they are still the top tier of 'fact checked' integrity, despite the fact they are now in some cases sloppier than the Drudge Report ever was.

Tara presumably left a salaried job where her job description changed. Good for her, now the challenge is building credibility on the censorship dominated internet and staying on the right side of the big tech editorial platform gatekeepers....CDA230 where are you?

>> CDA230 where are you?

Right where it has always been, ensuring that online services are not held liable for third party content regardless of moderation choices.

If you’re referring to being banned from twitter or not appearing on the first page of google as “censorship”, then your beef is with the first amendment, not 230.

By "free press," I mean a First Amendment-type operation. Which we probably don't really have at the moment, for the reasons (state sponsored/corporate sponsored) you state.

The Internet did transcend that once upon a time, except now it's just even more corporate sponsored and controlled. There is no First Amendment-type operation as, if a corporate entity wants to, they can deplatform you at the access, services, network, or financing tier, with the full support of the government.

Which wouldn't be so bad, except the government is also fully co-opted by corporate interests. We had a free market and let capitalism take over, and now we don't have a free market, neither in goods and services, nor in information.

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