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Social media are turbocharging the export of America’s political culture

economist.com

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Re: Social media are turbocharging the export of America’s political culture

#91

Post by mandis »

dismayedbycorp wrote: post #25
mc32 wrote: post #14

What's a bit ironic to me is that this extension of US cultural hegemony used to be derided as cultural imperialism back a few decades ago before other cultural exports became vogue (Anime, K-Pop, etc.) when it was the US vs everyone else. But now, many of the people who would have decried this kind of hegemonic influence delight in it. They delight in the fact we can establish norms for communication and discourse n…

> Can you imagine corporate policy of SF or Menlo Park sets what people in Mumbai or Seoul can discuss regarding SARS-Cov-2? You don't have to imagine of course, it already does. Also, last year someone mentioned here that joebiden.info (which AFAICT is just a website with a collection of inconvenient clips and reports on Biden, maybe misinterpreted to fit an agenda in some cases) was censored in Messenger, seemingly…

Now why is this comment being downvoted. The last few nooks of the internet are being invaded by thought police.

Re: Social media are turbocharging the export of America’s political culture

#92

Post by nickelpro »

I don't understand HN's problem with this. It's a freemarket of ideas, no one is being forced to follow Americans on Twitter or subscribe to American content producers on Youtube. What even is the alternative being proposed here? Segmenting the internet so people from different countries _can't_ interact with one another? Is that preferable?

Re: Social media are turbocharging the export of America’s political culture

#93

Post by Dma54rhs »

wolverine876 wrote: post #72

America provides the means by which political culture flows, such as via Twitter and Facebook, but remember that a significant portion (of unknown size to me) of American social media rhetoric is imported . Where did trolling, nationalism, troll farms, hate speech, nihilism, mass-scale disinformation - where did each of those originate? I'm not implying an answer, by the way. I don't know; is there any research? My p…

20 years ago American left wingers had similar ideas than your right does right now, what are you trying to say? Do people think the infamous Russians invented the right wing rhetoric? That is next level history washing and quite frankly misinformation.

Re: Social media are turbocharging the export of America’s political culture

#94

Post by sms737 »

nickelpro wrote: post #92

I don't understand HN's problem with this. It's a freemarket of ideas, no one is being forced to follow Americans on Twitter or subscribe to American content producers on Youtube. What even is the alternative being proposed here? Segmenting the internet so people from different countries _can't_ interact with one another? Is that preferable?

> Segmenting the internet so people from different countries _can't_ interact with one another? Is that preferable?

Oh no, we enjoy interacting with each other. Just segment us off from the Americans and we'll be happy. /s

Re: Social media are turbocharging the export of America’s political culture

#95

Post by acituan »

wolverine876 wrote: post #67
dasb wrote: post #43

It's funny when radical progressivists in my country try to translate the "white male" cliché into our local context, because white (as in caucasian white) people are are less than 5% of our population.

It doesn't sound difficult to me. It has nothing to do with whiteness and maleness; it's about political power. If there is a group that is a dominant political power, it's the same thing. That's why issues of 'reverse racism' are a different problem: Discrimination is about power, not race. If American Buddhists are discriminatory against Baptists, it's obnoxious but not an issue of oppression or much threat to Bapt…

> If there is a group that is a dominant political power, it's the same thing

The problem is to assume that dominant political actors cohere to constitute a group, a conspiratorial evil one at that. Hypotheses of evil conspirators played out so many times throughout history and it never ended well.

We all have a not-so-high-precision heuristic of detecting agency, therefore we sometimes ascribe agency where there is none. This unchecked unfortunately leads to Gnosticism-like belief structures where there are assumed demi-gods and demi-demons playing over us. Proof is any news feed, which will deify or demonize the character-du-jour. (And to be consistent, I am not making media into another conspiratorial force; if we are watching news like that it is only because we've been showing demand for it.)

Re: Social media are turbocharging the export of America’s political culture

#96

Post by coliveira »

mc32 wrote: post #14

What's a bit ironic to me is that this extension of US cultural hegemony used to be derided as cultural imperialism back a few decades ago before other cultural exports became vogue (Anime, K-Pop, etc.) when it was the US vs everyone else. But now, many of the people who would have decried this kind of hegemonic influence delight in it. They delight in the fact we can establish norms for communication and discourse n…

It is clearly imperialism pure and simple. The US uses its financial stronghold on internet companies to essentially dictate what is allowed or not in public discuss. You don't need to be very smart to see that Google, FB, Twitter are bound to US norms and regulations (and its surveillance state) and give very little thought to what other countries need/want. If you think this is normal, just think again.

Re: Social media are turbocharging the export of America’s political culture

#97

Post by LAC-Tech »

3grdlurker wrote: post #89
LAC-Tech wrote: post #54

It's not a recent phenomena - it's been happening since WWII. The weirdest part is - the stronger someone is influenced by American political culture, the more they'll tell you about how awful America is.

Because people who are ignorant about America obviously have nothing to say of it? I’m not sure what your point is exactly, but you sound like you’re making ignorance of global politics a good thing.

I'm not trying to make any point at all.

Re: Social media are turbocharging the export of America’s political culture

#98

Post by coliveira »

I think this also has a negative aspect for the US. The current polarization and anti-democratic way of thinking via conspiracy theories is a common occurrence, well-known for people in third world countries. It is just the vitriol that has been long employed by the US around the world to "combat" enemies identified as communists. These tactics are now coming back to bite Americans themselves, imported by the hands of the right-wing movement, who did this for decades outside the US. Now, the democracy in the US is the one in peril due to these same tactics, turbocharged by the internet.

Re: Social media are turbocharging the export of America’s political culture

#100

Post by stubish »

mandis wrote: post #91
dismayedbycorp wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can you imagine corporate policy of SF or Menlo Park sets what people in Mumbai or Seoul can discuss regarding SARS-Cov-2? You don't have to imagine of course, it already does. Also, last year someone mentioned here that joebiden.info (which AFAICT is just a website with a collection of inconvenient clips and reports on Biden, maybe misinterpreted to fit an agenda in some cases) was censored in Messenger, seemingly…

Now why is this comment being downvoted. The last few nooks of the internet are being invaded by thought police.

Unsubstantiated claim, followed by a seemingly unrelated segue into US political commentary.
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