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Wikipedia bans Breitbart as a source for facts

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Re: Wikipedia bans Breitbart as a source for facts

#111
That's funny. Wikipedia allows Gawker and Vox posts to be used as sources on articles that directly involve Gawker and Vox:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamergate_controversy#cite_ref...

That whole entry is compiled of highly questionable sources.

Seems like a massive double standard.

Re: Wikipedia bans Breitbart as a source for facts

#112
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you are into news and being informed, leaving off sites like breitbart from regular perusal is a mistake. They often bring up facts and perspectives considered unimportant by other outlets. Even infowars has its uses, if for nothing else other than entertainment value. I am not from US so I have no bias in this case, do you mean that I should check sites that I consider to be garbage because they sometimes may br…

I sometimes glance at Breitbart although I'd be more of a NYT guy politically. It can be useful as an indication what the 40% or so that support Trump are thinking.

Yeah, I understand why you would check it once in a while, I personally don't read political news that often since there is nothing really important happening daily. If I have tiem for reading better to read something I like better like science or technology or entertainment.

Re: Wikipedia bans Breitbart as a source for facts

#113
post #3

For all their flaws, Wikipedia is one of the few web information sources that are globally accepted as more or less correct. Everybody has something they hate about Wikipedia, but the general gist is that they're more or less credible. Alternative encyclopedic efforts are totally fringe and/or money-making scams like Everipedia. With this in mind, perhaps social media companies should piggyback on Wikipedia's reputat…

> With this in mind, perhaps social media companies should piggyback on Wikipedia's reputation and flag articles from sources like InfoWars and Breitbart with a banner that reads: "Wikipedia doesn't accept this site as a valid source."

Yes, Wikipedia: the poster child for factual, accurate, unbiased, trusted information.

I've used Wikipedia for a decade and a half and I love it, but every single time I hear someone mention it, or I mention it myself, be it in an academic context or not, it is always met with a negative comment implying that it is not a "legitimate" source for anything - although most will admit it's a fantastic starting resource.

I also wonder whether you would be as gung-ho about this idea if Wikipedia started flagging articles from sources such as HuffPo, DemocracyNow, the various Gawker offshoots, and "anonymous sources".

Re: Wikipedia bans Breitbart as a source for facts

#114
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the national culture of America? Would nationalists deport all the people of European ancestry and give the land back to it's original inhabitants? What culture is preserved by stopping people moving between Mexico and Texas, which are pretty culturally similar and until recently were the same country? I don't there's a narrow line, I think there's no line and they're just branding to try and save face.

I should clarify that I'm from Finland, which gained independence from Russia in a clearly nationalist context. Not to belittle the troubling consequent alignment with Germany in WW2 which we tend to try to explain with "we didn't know Hitler was so evil" and the existential threat by Stalin. Regardless, national pride can take several forms. You could learn folk song and dance. Or you can wield torches in a skinhead…

Well, you must understand the historical context... It wasn't like Finland wanted to roll with Hitler. They were forced to, by the aggressiveness of the Soviet Union and the inaction of the Allied forces.

First, the Soviet Union had just become best buddies with the Nazis (Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and its secret addendum). Second, after demands to cede Finnish territory were rejected, Soviet Union staged a false flag attack and threw eventually overall about a million troops at Finland. The attack was repelled but Finland had to cede roughly 12% of its territory.

Third, the Soviet Union was clearly not done, so what could Finland do? The horrors of 1939 were bound to happen again; Soviets were gearing for war and one could not really expect the weak and submissive Soviet population to make any kind of change for the better within their nation, that much had been taken care of by the death camps, deportations the secret police, tight control of the media, etc. The only actor who could realistically provide substantial help against the inevitable rematch with the Soviet madman was Nazi Germany, a nation run by another madman.

Had USA, UK and the Allies sent troops or at least enough material, or pressured the Soviets to drop their ambitions of annexing a neutral country, Finland would not have needed any help from the Nazis. As it was, Allied help on a meaningful level did not happen. The neighbouring neutral Sweden helped the most, for obvious reasons: if Finland fell, they would be next.

So, yes, it was an existential threat. However, as crude as it may sound, given the circumstances, Hitler being evil or not was surely not even considered.

Re: Wikipedia bans Breitbart as a source for facts

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, many of them are mentally ill, which is pretty obvious if you would actually care to check out their comments on Breitbart, which I have done. I stand by my word, everything I've said about Breitbart is true, whether you like it or not. You can downvote me as much as you want, fact is that Breitbart is a hate speech site that also happens to copy & pastes news from other sources in order to disguise their real p…

Ok, but where is your source that they have schizophrenia?

Unfortunately many conspiracy theorists suffer from schizophrenia, a tendency to believe in conspiracies is one of the symptoms of schizophrenia, and the Breitbart site comments section is full of conspiracy theories - or at least used to be (see below).

Note that I said "many" not "all" in the original post, and that was based on checking their comment section in 2016. Since then I haven't checked whether they have moderation now and whether this has changed, as you may imagine I have better things to do.

Note: Same poster as OP, just from a different account.

Re: Wikipedia bans Breitbart as a source for facts

#116
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the national culture of America? Would nationalists deport all the people of European ancestry and give the land back to it's original inhabitants? What culture is preserved by stopping people moving between Mexico and Texas, which are pretty culturally similar and until recently were the same country? I don't there's a narrow line, I think there's no line and they're just branding to try and save face.

I should clarify that I'm from Finland, which gained independence from Russia in a clearly nationalist context. Not to belittle the troubling consequent alignment with Germany in WW2 which we tend to try to explain with "we didn't know Hitler was so evil" and the existential threat by Stalin. Regardless, national pride can take several forms. You could learn folk song and dance. Or you can wield torches in a skinhead…

>which we tend to try to explain with "we didn't know Hitler was so evil"

There is good reason to believe that the Finns aligned with Nazi Germany for purely tactical reasons of survival rather than any shred of ideological agreement. The notorious Hitler-Mannerheim conversation which consists of fifteen minutes of tape-recorded conversation was recorded initially without der Fuhrer's knowledge or consent, an act of subversion, and was preserved rather than destroyed, again against Hitler's express orders. It is essentially a boastful and deluded monologue from Hitler to an audience that continues to humor him rather than engage with him, even as he escalates into evident delusion and falsehood.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler_and_Mannerheim_recordin...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oET1WaG5sFk

Re: Wikipedia bans Breitbart as a source for facts

#117

That's funny. Wikipedia allows Gawker and Vox posts to be used as sources on articles that directly involve Gawker and Vox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamergate_controversy#cite_ref... That whole entry is compiled of highly questionable sources. Seems like a massive double standard.

Gamergate's entire "mission" is highly questionable.

Re: Wikipedia bans Breitbart as a source for facts

#118

That's funny. Wikipedia allows Gawker and Vox posts to be used as sources on articles that directly involve Gawker and Vox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamergate_controversy#cite_ref... That whole entry is compiled of highly questionable sources. Seems like a massive double standard.

Gamergate's entire "mission" is highly questionable.

Do you think that because of all of the biased media reports about it? That's literally what it's about (as is the topic of this thread). Social media, new media and old media being politicized, cliquish and dishonest.

That Vox and Gawker are viewed as more reputable than Breitbart gets to the very heart of what Gamergate was about (IMO).

Re: Wikipedia bans Breitbart as a source for facts

#119

I'm astonished they accepted Breitbart in the first place. When I first heard about it, I checked it out and literally the first discussion in their comment section was about how to most efficiently gas the maximum number of jews in the US. I'm not kidding. Breitbart is not the only problem of people who read it, many of them are mentally ill (schizophrenia) or they were raised in a way that makes it almost impossibl…

It seems unhelpful to write off Breitbart readers as unaware of reality. They may be uncritical readers of the news, and they may have deplorable beliefs, but many sane, rational people believe terrible things. Or they're willing to associate with people who believe terrible things to further their own agenda, and be complicit in those terrible things.

I agree in hindsight that my comment was unhelpful. The anectdote about the "gassing the jews" thread was true, that was in 2016, but instead of bashing on breitbart I should have emphasized more that there are plenty of more legitimate looking sources of disinformation, especially in the US where lobbying has such a long and powerful tradition. That was the main point I tried to make, but my disdain for Steve Bannon and his entourage got in my way.

(Posted from another account, because I changed my machine, but I'm the same as OP.)

Re: Wikipedia bans Breitbart as a source for facts

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gamergate's entire "mission" is highly questionable.

Do you think that because of all of the biased media reports about it? That's literally what it's about (as is the topic of this thread). Social media, new media and old media being politicized, cliquish and dishonest. That Vox and Gawker are viewed as more reputable than Breitbart gets to the very heart of what Gamergate was about (IMO).

At its surface I will take Vox reporting over what Breitbart puts out there. Much of the Breitbart stories I have read operated on FUD by taking the very smallest bit of information and conflating it into something far worse than what it is. Gakwer & Vox are not without their flaws, especially Gawker.

Gamergate is the perfect example of how media & reporting can be twisted into whatever narrative people want to make. The fact that it evolved into what it did is all the proof you need. If it was ever about "ethics in journalism" they would have never championed YouTuber's and people with 0 track record of journalism. Not to mention they continue to prop up people with known histories of questionable behavior (Cheon, Moriarity). The very fact that much of their 'theory' was based in journalist talking to each other is laughable.

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