Over the last couple of decades, people’s consumption of media has become more fragmented and “tribal,” i.e. focused on supporting their own thoughts and ideas. This issue has been even more acute with the rise of social media and the ever-important algorithm feeding people more
Do you think the existence of these media bubbles—on both the left and right—are harmful?
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Yes. You have Alex Jones on one side, acting like a clown, but being right when he says things like, "I don't like 'em putting chemicals in the water that turn the friggin' frogs gay!" Because it is found out that the hormone pills that humans are using, are making their way into the watersheds, and frogs, who can switch sexes based on the environment around them, are being seriously negatively affected.
Biologists studying frog colonies in the wild have found frog colonies that contain only females. That would last only one generation before that colony disappears. The pharmaceutical hormones that humans are taking may make frogs endangered. But, that's fine. Ol' Alex was just being that crazy uncle again. Right?
Then, you have the Krassenstein brothers posting shit like this:
https://x.com/EdKrassen/status/2008700316175237420
Really? That "No Trespassing" sign is legally binding? They walked into the lobby of a public building, which is receiving public funds, during normal working hours, and they get accosted. But they're the ones at fault for looking into daycares.
Yes. I am comparing Alex Jones directly to Ed Krassenstein, and I am claiming that both of them are the media. Anyone can pick up a microphone and start a podcast, or post online, but most people cannot keep doing it day after day. These two have longevity, and history, and speak mainly on topical news subjects.
Is this a public building? It looks like a daycare.
Yep. Like I said. A daycare in a public building. What is your definition of a "public building"? I think that is where you are getting hung up.
A public building as in owned or operated by a government agency. A school or courthouse is a public building. Public libraries, city halls. A privately run daycare would not be a public building. But I also don't know the details of this situation, so this daycare may be inside or part of a city building. Can you clarify?
Yeah, well, I disagree. I would say that any building that is open to the public is a public building.
That's fine but I'm going off the legal definition of a public building, which differentiates between publicly owned buildings and privately owned buildings. If this was a privately owned daycare in a privately owned building, they can refuse entry to whoever they want as long as it's not discriminatory in nature. Or kick you out. So yeah, an investigative journalist does not have a right to enter a building with a camera crew where people's children are being taken care of if that daycare does not want them there. You can be kicked out of a gas station for the same reason if the staff tell you to leave. Or a hospital, or a bookstore, or a strip club. A public building like a city hall or library? That's more complicated in both directions. You couldn't do that shit in a school, but you probably could in city hall.
If your kids were in daycare today and you learned that the staff let a podcaster and their camera people in to take videos of the place and potentially your kids because they were "investigating" something, would you be a little pissed? How much access should daycares be forced to allow strangers off the stress?
Please show me what court made a legal ruling on this definition you made up.
Of course. I didn't even have to make it up, because it's in the US Code. Specifically 40 USC § 3301(a)(5).
Removing the wedge issue of daycare, think about a hardware store. You can go in, walk around, buy something, not buy something. It's a privately owned building, run by a private business. It's open to the public, but it's not a public building. If you walk in with a camera crew, the employees or owners can tell you to gtfo. If you refuse, they can call the police and have you removed. You have no constitutional right to walk into a hardware store. You can't be asked to leave because you're black, or white, or gay, or Christian, but you can be asked to leave because of behavior.
Your local post office is a public building. Or your public library. Actually your right to enter these places is in the first amendment under the right to assemble. You can still be asked to leave for behavior, but the postmaster can't call the police and have you removed if you just walk in and check your PO box.
Do you really think that you can walk into any business you want, doing whatever you want, and they can't bounce you out? God or even the concept itself. Do public and private buildings not even exist? Every business or place you can go is a public building, and I guess only houses or businesses with locked doors are private buildings? This isn't tricky gotcha semantics; I'm fucking baffled that politically active adults don't understand the distinction between government owned buildings and privately owned buildings. That daycare may be in the police department for all I know, it has nothing discernible for me to google. But if it's a private daycare in a strip mall? You don't get to go in there if they don't want you to, end of story.
That is not what I asked. I asked explicitly
You have time to use ChatGPT to come up with another response.
A court didn't make a legal ruling. US code are laws codified and organized into topics. So I guess I'm giving you actual laws passed by Congress rather than a legal ruling, and I'm not sure why you think US law is invalid here.
I answered your question. Would you answer mine, since this is ATS? Are you entitled to the same free access to a hardware store as your local post office, city hall, or library? You have a right to enter someone's private business, in a building they lease or own, and they cannot ask you to leave or trespass you?
Dude. I'll be real. I read only your first sentence. If you are getting hung up on the definition of "public building", then you've lost the plot. Take your "Uh, ackshully"s elsewhere.
It's a building where the public can go into. It happened. You see it. Stop defending the fraud and corruption.
Edited to add, they receive public funds. I believe that qualifies it. Either way, get over it.
Words have meaning and facts don't care about your feelings. This one isn't a well ackshully but common fucking knowledge from seventh grade civics, so we kinda started from a point where you had a valid complaint until you mentioned that you have a mystery definition of a public building.
It's especially wild that you're using this as an example of left wing reporting bias when this is in fact trespassing. Do you really think freedom of the press means journalists are allowed to freely enter private property? Private property being a location owned and operated by not the government, versus public property, which is owned or operated by the government in some way. Your home is private property. So is the business you work at, unless you're a government employee working in a government building.
But don't read this if ignorance is more comfortable, I guess.
It's more than media bubbles but echo chambers in general. I think this is prevalent on both sides. I'm a regular NPR listener, I agree with very little and find the reporting is often one sided. But it's important, to me at least, to be able to see things from the opposite viewpoint. I laugh out loud when I hear Fox is right wing news... Is it, is it really? It seems just a few of the hosts have a rightwards bend but seems middle of the line on most things with their regular coverage... Like do we even live in the same reality?
Media has always been harmful or at least the potential, there's just more of it now. This will not change.
What is good is the corporate dominance is wanning quickly due to incompetence and actual journalist (independent) are getting more and more credible.
Some Podcasters get orders of magnitude more views than fox, cnn, msnbc combined. relying little on advertisers.
What i really hope, and count on, is that, with the rise of independent journalist, mainstream news will have to up their game and realize that the first amendment for the press is an awesome responsibility and burden that they have invariably discarded in arrogance, relegated to just cut and pasting everyone else's articles.
Who are some independent journalists that you follow and trust?
Following several.. Trust, still too early.
My go to right now is triggernometry. That seems to be the best source for current events.
FWIW- I highly highly recommend Gabe Fleisher. His news is objective and filled with facts. He has been an expert in government knowledge since he was in high school. I have followed him since his first newsletter and you learn so much with each new situation he writes about. Do you have anybody you recommend?
It is wild how this is the state of journalism.
Their 'fact checking' is literally
They're spending more time going after the person who actually did their job while they do hotel room journo cosplay.
And they and their lowbrow audience can't figured out why independents are creaming them.
Damn, I hadn't seen that. unreal.
Really feels like watching the Twilight Zone.
How much more would you like to see CNN dedicate to this story? Calling and establishing sources is journalism. Nick Shirley didn't do that- he just went to a daycare at nighttime and interviewed someone who turned out to be a GOP donor.
Much nighttime, such dark.
Thanks for confirming your primary source allergic bubble.
Sorry. After hours/on break, not nighttime. I was mixing up videos.
Again- without talking to other people, asking follow-up questions, looking at receipts, or comparing to commensurate daytime facilities in the area, how does he know that this is fraud?
It’s important to consume a balanced media diet and listen to all sides even opinions you don’t agree with.
Chocolate is bad for you if you only eat chocolate, but when consumed as part of a balanced diet it’s fine.
If you’re going to have opinions it’s important to have informed opinions which means consuming as much information as possible, every story has more than 1 side.
The unstated-but-important question here is "as opposed to what?"
It's completely understandable for liberals to miss the era where they had basically no real competition and could steer a captive, trusting audience in whatever direction they wanted. But it's unclear why non-liberals would have any nostalgia for such an arrangement (other than an appreciation for shared cultural reference points due to everyone watching the same shows).
Note also that this post-war system was an anomaly: we had a much longer history where people read (openly and explicitly) partisan newspapers. In a way, the current media consumption patterns are a return to tradition and the "90% Democrat journalists pretending to be moderate and people actually buying it era" is the aberration.
Yes in the abstract, no if we're limiting ourselves to realistic alternatives.
To be clear, this isn’t a question about nostalgia. It’s about the undeniable fact that people who follow politics, regardless of their political leanings, tend to comfortably exist within their own media echo chambers. And while they might call themselves “objective,” or say that they’re seeking the truth, few seem willing to truly understand any issue from the “other” side. This tends to lead people to lazy stereotypes and cliches about the other side (i.e. MAGA is a cult, or all Democrats are radical leftists who hate our country, etc.)
You’re right to point out that the media of the past was partisan. But given the power that social media algorithms have in serving up content that’s increasingly more focused on what people want to see, would you say our current media landscape even more dangerous?
No, but I explained why liberals would say yes.
I would be the first to tell you that plenty of liberals exist in these echo chambers and that that’s a problem. I don’t think this is an issue of left and right—it’s not about liberals suddenly being surprised that the media is biased. It’s about more and more people being pushed to the extreme by their media consumption.
So you have no issue whatsoever with people marinating in their own algorithmic-fueled echo chambers?
No, I already said it's bad, just that it's better than realistic alternatives and also better than total liberal hegemony.
This is what I came to say. I don't believe a world without at least one bubble is possible, so the question is kind of moot.
As long as sides exist, it will always be possible to ignore the one you disagree with, assuming they've even got the right to speak.
Right. I think it's a completely fair question to ask in the abstract, but 99.99% of the time when you hear liberals talk about this problem, they are trying to justify censorship.
This is a good faith question and it isn’t about censorship. It’s mostly about the fact that the world we exist in includes very powerful and very intelligent social media algorithms that are designed to keep and build viewership by serving people more of what they like to see. Those algorithms have proven to be unprecedented and enormously successful. As a result, the bubbles many people exist in are particularly airtight.
While partisan media has always existed, this is a new paradigm that exists on all sides of the political spectrum.
I’m not saying it’s only a right wing problem and I’m not suggesting for one second that anything should be censored or prohibited. Please understand this isn’t about some lib who’s angry that the liberal mainstream media has been superseded. I’m simply bringing up the question because I think this reality will continue to play a major role in our politics and it has the potential to distort how people—again, on all sides of the political spectrum—view the world. In fact, it most likely already has distorted many people’s views.
Do you see this as even a little bit dangerous?
Rather than keep repeating myself, I'm just going to ask you a question: what do you want to do about this?
My honest answer is I don’t know. But I see things getting worse before it gets better. Would you agree?
Potentially, but -- as I keep saying -- still not as bad as it was when it was a handful of TV stations.
in some ways in can be if you don't check up on your sources; but it also keeps manipulation and "social engineering" by much of the "main stream" media in check, so I also thing its essential.
24/7 Partisan news is harmful and the source of the political divide.
If you turn off the news your stress will drop.
It's very harmful. Decades ago, the media was impartial. They never reported a story without verification. That's no longer the case.
Today, media's only goal is to incite hate. I no longer watch MSM news or opinionated news stations.
Rather than a goal of “inciting hate” isn’t it really about gaining audience/profits?
I believe it's both. I shouldn't have wrote "only goal".
Why would the media want to incite hate?