Archive for the ‘media’ Category

Social Media Exodus: Nextdoor review

Posted: December 12, 2020 by ng36b in media, Uncomfortable Truths
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Nextdoor’s icon. Kind of like a Monopoly piece

After getting tired of the Facebook, and now YouTube, censorship of anything remotely conservative, I decided to plot my social media exodus. If you read anything online, anyone contemplating leaving Facebook is an idiot, but since I don’t trust the media anyway, I wanted to try it myself. Over the next few Saturdays, I’m going to outline alternatives to Facebook, YouTube and Google, give each the pluses and minuses, and give you a guide on how to transition successfully.

My view of Twitter, even before the election

But I won’t help you with Twitter. Twitter has always been hot garbage. You’re on your own there.

The first platform that you should try is Nextdoor. I found this gem on a list of alternative social media sites, and it does not disappoint. Nextdoor connects you with your neighbors. When you register, you put in your address, which then places you in a pre-defined neighborhood. You then get dropped right into a well-designed home page that shows you posts from your neighbors plus nearby neighborhoods.

The first big difference from Facebook is that there isn’t a friends list to maintain. Nextdoor lets you see only the people in your neighborhood. When you go to post something, you can only post in a number of categories: for sale, safety, general, lost and found and recommendations. When you look at the general feed, its not at all like Facebook. There aren’t annoying Vox articles linked by your liberal friends, or anti-vax memes from that crazy mom down the street. Nope, its just local news.

Which is not a bad thing. I found a city council meeting I had missed, so I got updates on nearby construction projects. I also found out our water metering people were hacked by ransomware, which is why they haven’t sent us a bill. I never saw any of that on Facebook, and those things actually affect me a lot more than most of the things I read on Facebook.

For your interest areas, there are local groups, although not nearly as many as Facebook. It didn’t take long to find a conservative group that was working to support local people running for office. I also quickly found a gardening group and pawpaw (the fruit) group. I had to start a group for dads, but there were a million mom groups already. Although it doesn’t have the number of groups of Facebook, the fact that I can make a group with people in the area only is kind of nice.

The other great feature is the “for sale” section. One of the big benefits of Facebook is the Marketplace section, where you can find a ton of items for sale, or sell your items quickly. I’ve made a killing selling firewood through Marketplace, and that was something I didn’t want to lose. Nextdoor has similar functionality. Even better, I’m not wasting my time looking at items that are hundreds of miles away but offer “free shipping.”

Overall, Nextdoor has about 75% of what I want in social media. I get local things that matter to me, local groups that I care about, and can sell to my neighbors. I miss out on out of area relatives and friends, which is why Nextdoor can’t replicate Facebook. To be fair, they don’t claim to do that, and if you live near most of your family, maybe you won’t mind.

I now find myself checking Nextdoor a lot more than Facebook, and certainly enjoying it more. Maybe you will too, I’d recommend giving it a try.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.

‘Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one’

Posted: December 8, 2020 by chrisharper in media

By Christopher Harper

Sixty years ago, famed columnist A. J. Liebling wrote: “Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.”

Liebling was describing the powerful media families: Sulzberger, Graham, Scripps, Chandler, and others.

Twenty years ago, it was hoped that the inexpensive transition to ones and zeroes would break the corporate hold on the press.

Instead, the media magnates of old have been pushed aside by the tech giants: Facebook, Google, Twitter, and others.

As a result, freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own a portal.

In a critical essay in the Wall Street Journal, journalist Alex Berenson writes: “Information has never been more plentiful or easier to distribute. Yet we are sliding into a new age of censorship and suppression.”

Berenson has been writing about the problems with lockdowns, mask-wearing, and other government policies that he argues are not based on science.

He’s not a conspiracy theorist. He’s a well-known writer who worked for The New York Times. But Amazon has suppressed his self-published articles that questioned the measures used to control COVID-19.

“Google-owned YouTube censors even more aggressively,” Berenson notes. “The company disclosed in October that it had pulled more than 200,000 videos about the epidemic—including one from Scott Atlas, a physician who was advising President Trump. Facebook has not only censored videos and attached warning labels or ‘fact checks’ to news articles but removed groups that oppose lockdowns and other restrictions.”

I can attest that one of my columns here ran afoul of the Facebook “fact-checkers,” and there was no way to remove the “fact check” other than by deleting the entire column.

Here is the way to end the censorship and control of the tech companies over content.

You may have heard that President Trump wants to eliminate what’s known as Section 230 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. On this subject, Trump and Joe Biden agree.

Originally, Section 230 was designed to help websites moderate online porn. But that’s not what’s happening now.

Section 230 guarantees that websites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube cannot be sued in U.S. courts because of what users post. The law states: “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” Alternatively, the tech giants cannot be sued for moderating the posts, which they do continually. Without the law’s liability protection, all of these U.S.-based platforms could be subject to massive lawsuits.

With the massive interference and editing of materials posted on the websites, however, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have become publishers and should be treated as such. 

But the considerable clout of the tech giants has stalled the elimination of the protection. Liebling should be rolling over in his grave.

My idea for subscribers to save some newspapers and magazines and protect conservative voices

Posted: November 29, 2020 by John Ruberry in business, media, News/opinion, politics
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By John Ruberry

More than once President Donald Trump–and as most recently as this morning in a telephone interview with Maria Bartiromo–President Donald J. Trump has called with media “the enemy of the people.”

And for the most part he is correct. On the national side most writers are propagandists for the left. Things are slightly better on the local level, which the president noted in that discussion with Bartiromo. After all only local TV stations were pressing Joe Biden during the presidential campaign about whether he’d pack the court with liberal justices. This is a very serious issue as it would upend and transform one of the three branches of the federal government. Eventually Biden, like a typical liberal, punted the decision by announcing he’d form a committee to explore issues of injustices in the legal system. And the elite media once again practiced the sin of omission in their reporting.

Last year Warren Buffett–although excluding the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal–said of newspapers, “They’re going to disappear.” And this year Buffett disappeared from the newspaper business. 

Old line magazines such as New York, the Atlantic, and the New Yorker are dominated by left-wing journalists. You know, the smug-elitists who got their jobs by way of nepotism and their attendance at an elite university, which probably admitted them because of one of their parents also attended that college. Actually these publications might not have any conservative writers. The last one, the New Yorker, offers a newstand price of $8.99. In my opinion it’s not worth 99 cents. All are behind an internet paywall. All of these publications are intellectually irredeemable and likely doomed to insolvency. 

Let’s get back to newspapers. I cancelled my print subscription to the Chicago Tribune years ago and although I toyed with the idea of subscribing online,being the enterprising sort I learned that the only thing, outside of an occasional sports story, that I cared to read in the Tribune was John Kass’ column, which I discovered I could find on other newspapers sites or Real Clear Politics for free. 

Buffett is right. Newspapers are dead men walking. And magazines. Mostly. Oh, Chicago’s other major daily newspaper, which was purchased by a consortium a few years ago that included the Chicago Federal of Labor for $1, isn’t going to make it. You can bet on it. 

The Tribune, once a strong conservative voice in heavily Democratic Chicago, has been drifting lefward for years. Now it’s “woke.” Except for columnist John Kass. And the Trib is a shell of its former self. Like Warren Buffett–and here the similarities between us end–I’m a former newspaper delivery boy. I hated Thanksgiving Day editions because the papers were jammed with Christmas shopping ads–making the delivery of those bulky papers take three times as long. I have this year’s Thanksgiving Day Tribune lying right next to me. It’s thinner than the Saturday editions–a low readership and therefore a low-advertising day–that I used to deliver. 

Here’s my idea for saving and perhaps transforming daily newspapers and magazines out of the liberal echo chamber that they are now. For instance, the cost of a Tribune subscription, once the promos end, is $3.99 a month. For a dollar more you can have the print edition delivered to your door too. Now, and union rules may have to be changed for this to happen, but I propose for subscribers to have one-quarter of their subscription fee to go directly to the columnist of their choice. If there’s a sports writer or a movie reviewer who you really like, then of course choose that person. And of course I have all newspapers, magazines, and online-only publications in mind. 

My selection at the Tribune would of course be John Kass, a strong conservative voice who suffered a demotion of sorts by seeing his column moved from the coveted page 2 location to the innards of opinion section. The impetus for that move was a rebellion by his leftist co-workers about a column explaining how George Soros funded the campaigns of far-left prosecutors such as Kim Foxx in Cook County, Illinois. Those propagandists called Kass’ column anti-Semitic, even though Kass never mentioned the faith of Soros in that article. Soros is a secular Jew, not a religous one, by the way. Kass was attacked by his colleagues not because he was wrong about Soros–but because he was right.

Kass on a personal level is the antithesis of the media elites of you find elsewhere on the Tribune or at the New York Times and the Atlantic and their ilk. He attended–but did not graduate from–Columbia. That is Columbia College in Chicago, which my daughter once also attended, not the “other” Columbia in New York. The mainstream media of of course is always calling for more diversity within its ranks. But never for more intellectual diversity. Or class diversity. 

So my proposal has two obvious merits. It can save newspapers and it can up the conservative presence at the legacy media. Before it becomes the extinct media. 

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit and is available for hire by a legacy media publication.

3 Days and Waiting Twitter’s New Tina Brown Strategy

Posted: November 24, 2020 by datechguy in blogs, business, elections, media, News/opinion
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I’ve never liked Twitter even though I’ve used it. I was a late adopter, and with good reason. It’s the crystal meth of social media — addictive and destructive, yet simultaneously unsatisfying. When I’m off it I’m happier than when I’m on it. That it’s also being run by crappy SJW types who break their promises, to users, shareholders, and the government, of free speech is just the final reason. Why should I provide free content to people I don’t like, who hate me? I’m currently working on a book on social media, and I keep coming back to the point that Twitter is far and away the most socially destructive of the various platforms. So I decided to suspend them, as they are suspending others. At least I’m giving my reasons, which is more than they’ve done usually.

Glenn Reynolds

Apparently Twitter has decided that even though their written accusations against me are patently false it’s much too embarrassing to grant my appeals quickly only to have their apologies and claims of “mistakes” be illustrated as false.

In fact given the text of my last appeal...

For what is now the 6th time in under 20 days you have locked me out claiming that I was spreading intimate images when I was in fact each time tweeting out a link to a post on Benford’s statistical law which demonstrates the impossibility of Joe Biden’s magic ballots.

Moreover Every time I have appealed you have upheld said appeal apologized and claimed my lockout was an error. YET EVERY SINGLE TIME AFTER THESE “apologies” I HAVE RETWEETED THE VERY SAME LINK TO THE VERY SAME PIECE AND WAS LOCKED OUT WITH THE VERY SAME FALSE ACCUSATION AGAINST ME.

To say this is despicable and dishonorable is to not only repeat myself from previous appeals but to say something that is so apparent that it almost doesn’t need saying. That you still do this demonstrate why other alternatives like Parler are doing so well.

Bottom line you’re accusation is false and I’m not only not going to delete the tweet but after this appeal is won I will test to see if your upcoming “apology” and assertion of a “mistake” is worth any more than it was the last five times you sent them.

At least my next lockout for that same link will be lucky number 7

emphasis mine

they have clearly concluded that there is no percentage in handling my appeal in a timely manor.

So I am now on day three of my lockout awaiting the results of my appeal and counting. For Twitter it’s the best of possible worlds in the sense that they keep me silent while pretending that they are carefully considering the nuances of my appeal but they keep the Benford’s law post from spreading, at least on their platform, while always dangling the carrot that if I just delete the tweet in question I’ll be welcomed back.

Now if I was 14 or 21 or maybe even in my 30’s that might has some oomph, alas dear twitter I’m nearer to my 70th birthday than I am to my 45th and thus lived many decades without twitter, and while it is a convenience I can continue to function without it.

While the in the short term such a plan will achieve goals in the long term discouraging your product (that’s folks like me) from being on your platform while encouraging them to go to other places such as Gab (Parler wants a cell phone number that I don’t have) might not be appealing to one’s customer base (advertisers) which is likely to have as bad an effect on shareholders as encouraging your voter base to not reproduce with the same predictable results.

The problem exemplified by the case of Lena Dunham is that the “r strategy” (parents having fewer children, with the idea of more “quality” in their offspring) pursued past a certain point, involves an increased risk of eventual reproductive failure. This is what I mean by taking into account secondary and tertiary consequences, thinking forward to the third generation down the line. Suppose this hypothetical:

John and Jane have two children.

If both of their children have two children of their own, John and Jane will have four grandchildren.

If all four grandchildren each have two children, then John and Jane will have eight great-grandchildren.

Now a slightly different hypothetical:

John and Jane have three children.

If each of their children have three children of their own, John and Jane will have nine grandchildren.

If all nine grandchildren each have three children, then John and Jane will have 27 great-grandchildren.

In other words, increasing average family size from 2 to 3 — which is not much, really, in terms of r/K theory — produces a third generation of descendants more than three times larger. This fact is obvious from simple arithmetic, yet its social consequences are profound.

Now if your business model is to attract users so that you can sell exposure to them to advertisers the exile of those who actually reproduce might be a bad idea if you wish to have your company last like a Ford or a McDonalds for generations after you are founded.

But if you are merely using a publicly traded company as a means to an end either social acceptance or to advance a narrative a /la Tina Brown then it all makes perfect sense…to all but the shareholders who were looking for profit rather than status that is.

Those guys are into Parler and Gab

Closing thought, one must also consider that depending on who the shareholders are they might not CARE about profit as long as conservatives are silenced consider:

That’s the real point here. Economics isn’t what’s driving this ideology and status is. Jack and the big investors who back him don’t care about the money, they’re never going to be hurting or needing. It’s all about the stuff money can’t buy and by leaning on conservatives you remain acceptable to the “right” people.

Seriously did you think Tina Brown got all those people to lose all that money over the years because they thought she was brilliant or was putting out to get it? Nobody’s that brilliant and there are plenty of woman who would put out for less. It was all about getting the bona fides and entree to the right parties, and the right people and believe me those “right” people who hate our guts will use that for the fullest effect.

Jack and twitter aren’t going to change because of economic pressure or anything else. He’s virtue signaling and that signal is being seen by the people that he wants to see it.

If the primary goal isn’t profit it’s all good to them.

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