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John Oliver is erased from Chinese internet following segment on China

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Re: John Oliver is erased from Chinese internet following segment on China

#61

Post by justinclift »

dagw wrote: post #53
EpicEng wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You can’t call things that rustle your jimmies propaganda just like you can’t call news you don’t like fake. I don't think that's a great analogy. Oliver is biased and he has never pretended to be a journalist. He presents stories he cares about from a specific viewpoint. The definition of propaganda is: >information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political ca…

Essentially any narrative which is not 100% fact based and unbiased is technically propaganda. So in your world is all news propaganda?

It does kind of seem that way. At least, what people generally call "mainstream media.. ;)"

Re: John Oliver is erased from Chinese internet following segment on China

#62

Post by EpicEng »

nemothekid wrote: post #50
tajen wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

John Oliver is correct but the lack of publication of competing viewpoints is what defines US (Democrat) propaganda. For example I’ve seen him state that the wage gap was 25%, straight face! that’s where the alternative viewpoints are sorely lacking and, when you learn the history of achors who have only questioned the credibility of this statistic, you can clearly say: Censorship is enforced with violence in USA.

> For example I’ve seen him state that the wage gap was 25%, straight face! that’s where the alternative viewpoints are sorely lacking I can't believe this "alternate viewpoints" bull is really propagating into the ether. He's either wrong or he's right. He either telling the truth, lying or ignorant. A wage gap almost certainly exists, and can likely attributed to a number of factors backed up by factual research. "…

The world is full of shades of gray. Saying there is a 25% wage gap may not be technically incorrect, but it also doesn't go into _why_ that gap exists. It doesn't say how that number was arrived at or if it is the best representation we can come up with.

If you think the world is black and white you're going to lack understanding on almost any subject because, in the real world, nuance is a thing.

Re: John Oliver is erased from Chinese internet following segment on China

#63

Post by adventured »

pvg wrote: post #46
coliveira wrote: post #32

I don't agree with the censorship decision, but I completely get why other countries don't like Oliver's show. He likes to denounce other countries' politics from the point of view of liberal, first world policy, which may not be in the best interest of other nations. Even though he is doing comedy for the first world market, it comes off clearly as another attempt of propaganda directed at these countries. The way C…

It's a dude with a comedy show on HBO. How is it 'clearly another attempt of propaganda directed at these countries'? It's not like he's on VOA every week.

In a given year, Oliver's content reaches dramatically more than 10x the number of people that VOA does.

He has a platform and he's pushing an ideological view. He isn't just a dude with a comedy show on HBO. That same argument was used to try to undercut critics of Jon Stewart, who similarly had a massive reach and was aggressively pushing a specific ideological view, using comedy to do so. It doesn't matter if you're getting your point across with comedy or non-comedy as the means.

Edit reply to pvg below (my replies are throttled):

Reach isn't necessarily consumption. Oliver actually has massive consumption, VOA does not. VOA's political propaganda doesn't have the implied consumption that is claimed there. Not even remotely close.

If you want to see just how weak VOA actually is, check out their YouTube channel. 187,000 subscribers, hardly anybody is watching their content. Where is the massive audience? Where is the epic demand implied by 236 million? There is blatantly minimal interest in VOA. They're lucky if they get 1,000 views on a video. That's after ten years on YouTube and publishing numerous videos per day (which, again, nobody is watching).

https://www.youtube.com/user/VOAvideo

Last Week Tonight has 6.2 million subscribers. 1.6 billion views in just four years. A typical video is getting three or four million views (3,000x+ of what VOA is seeing on their YouTube channel).

https://www.youtube.com/user/LastWeekTonight

Oliver actually has vast media consumption, VOA has reach with a small amount of consumption.

I also never said that having a viewpoint is propaganda directed at other countries, nor did I say that propaganda is shorthand for what I disagree with, you're inventing all of that.

Re: John Oliver is erased from Chinese internet following segment on China

#64

Post by toyg »

FussyZeus wrote: post #24
toyg wrote: post #7

The "ephemeralness" of the internet is still a huge, huge problem. We've only started to scratch the surface of the issue, and between censorship, "right to be forgotten" and linkrot, it's already a complete shitshow. We need a distributed and censorship-resistant conservancy system, because the Wayback Machine can only do so much (and it can trivially be censored). Unfortunately, it's not a money-making enterprise.

This is probably going to attract a lot of hate: why is conservancy such an important idea? I mean for a lot of websites, sure, I'd very much like to see that sort of thing backed up someplace but I've never once treated an Internet-based source as permanent. If I felt like it was something that would go away someday and that I would sorely miss, I downloaded it. I just don't understand and am curious where this idea…

> where this idea comes from that the Internet must be archived.

Once newspapers finally kick the bucket (which is happening right now, in slow motion), all the information about our world will only be available in this ephemeral form - ready to be rewritten, manipulated or discarded by our rulers like China does now.

Surely that is a terrifying thought, even if you haven't read 1984 or Fahrenheit 451...?

The accountability that comes from historical records is one of the pillars of democratic societies. Losing it will plunge us in a very technological version of the Middle Ages.

Re: John Oliver is erased from Chinese internet following segment on China

#65

Post by EpicEng »

ctrl-j wrote: post #58
EpicEng wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You can’t call things that rustle your jimmies propaganda just like you can’t call news you don’t like fake. I don't think that's a great analogy. Oliver is biased and he has never pretended to be a journalist. He presents stories he cares about from a specific viewpoint. The definition of propaganda is: >information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political ca…

I mean... under that definition isn't all media propaganda? At that point does it just depend on whether or not you choose to use the term in a pejorative manner? If any biased claim can be called propaganda - then it seems the word loses it's meaning. Perhaps the word propaganda is losing it's weight over time? Do we need a specific word for state sanctioned biased media? Or perhaps one specifically for attacks on p…

>I mean... under that definition isn't all media propaganda? At that point does it just depend on whether or not you choose to use the term in a pejorative manner?

If you define "all media" as MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News, then sure. Of course it's a spectrum as well. For example I'd consider PBS a _far_ less biased source than e.g. Fox News, but I'm sure they have their moments as well. I'm not sure writing everything off as propaganda (or not) is useful in any way.

Re: John Oliver is erased from Chinese internet following segment on China

#66

Post by bobwaycott »

icebraining wrote: post #56
mikeash wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of people don’t seem to understand that it’s possible to be both socialist and anti-Stalinist.

It's even possible to be socialist and non-Marxist, and certainly anti-Bolshevik.

It’s also possible to be Marxist, socialist, and vehemently anti-Stalinist.

Re: John Oliver is erased from Chinese internet following segment on China

#67

Post by ggggtez »

EpicEng wrote: post #47
amerine wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I squint and ignore the fact that personalities like Oliver have been doing their ideological-driven (rightly so IMO) comedy perspective bits for years I can see how how you could naively call that “propaganda”. However, the logical side of me can’t fathom how the reported events are anything remotely “propaganda”. They are legitimate things that free-press nations can discuss how they like, including laughing at…

>You can’t call things that rustle your jimmies propaganda just like you can’t call news you don’t like fake. I don't think that's a great analogy. Oliver is biased and he has never pretended to be a journalist. He presents stories he cares about from a specific viewpoint. The definition of propaganda is: >information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political ca…

Once again, it seems like people who read dictionaries missed the boat.

Propaganda has a specific legal definition which maybe is more relevant than what you found in Webster.

Re: John Oliver is erased from Chinese internet following segment on China

#68

Post by ggggtez »

mrdrozdov wrote: post #27

> It’s impressive to see the pace of Chinese censors. I'm not sure that impressive is the right term here...

It is. If someone eats 100 hot dogs in 20 minutes, you might still say "That's impressive" but also feel horrified and sickened.

Re: John Oliver is erased from Chinese internet following segment on China

#69

Post by adventured »

oelmekki wrote: post #39
drogorbrn wrote: post #3

Did they remove him from hacker news too?

I think it's safe until we mention Winnie the Pooh. Woops. Context: in his China segment, Oliver asserts that China has banned Winnie the Pooh from the internet because it was used to mock the president. And then he (Oliver) used tons of Winnie the Pooh references. We already are seeing a lot of partisan arguments in this thread (as one could have expected, I guess). For my part, I don't care about the politics on th…

It won't work, China is perfectly happy to block every external Web site as necessary. They're fine with relying solely on their internal network, they've structured things to that end as it is now. Censorship does work if you're willing to insulate your nation from external media, as they prove time and time again that they are. That's why censorship has worked in North Korea for nearly 70 years. It works if you're willing to pay whatever the consequences involved happen to be.

Re: John Oliver is erased from Chinese internet following segment on China

#70

Post by bb88 »

ctrl-j wrote: post #58
EpicEng wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You can’t call things that rustle your jimmies propaganda just like you can’t call news you don’t like fake. I don't think that's a great analogy. Oliver is biased and he has never pretended to be a journalist. He presents stories he cares about from a specific viewpoint. The definition of propaganda is: >information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political ca…

I mean... under that definition isn't all media propaganda? At that point does it just depend on whether or not you choose to use the term in a pejorative manner? If any biased claim can be called propaganda - then it seems the word loses it's meaning. Perhaps the word propaganda is losing it's weight over time? Do we need a specific word for state sanctioned biased media? Or perhaps one specifically for attacks on p…

The 20th century changed the meaning of the word to be more about manipulation, where as the original definition was neutral. [1] The manipulation suggested deceitfulness on the part of the party creating and distributing it.

So it's one of these things where OP can use a politically charged word, and then claim it was used in the neutral voice.

Personally, rather than have an argument about what amounts to "propaganda" in the 21st century, let's just admit that Oliver is not deceitful, yet biased.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda

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