Live data from Hacker News

Six corporations control 90% of America media

techstartups.com

171–180 of 183 posts

Re: Six corporations control 90% of America media

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These media companies also employ a large number of people with diverse opinions. Oh no they don't. If you work in media, you either bow to leftist orthodoxy, or you get fired. See Bari Weiss, etc.

And on the right, Fox let go some of longtime staffers who were not sympathetic to the networks coverage of the 2020 elections. ESPN fired Jemele Hill for calling Trump a white supremacist. If you want to claim that the NY Times is left-leaning than I would agree. It's a newspaper in one of the most liberal cities in the country. Its ethos are probably more reflective of that than any elite orthodoxy.

Fox is garbage. What's your point?

Every media organization sacrificed their credibility wholesale over the past five years.

The federal government accomplished the same for themselves over 2020.

Americans now live in a world where the institutions underpinning public life have lost all of their credibility with the public itself, outside of Blue enclaves.

We don't know where this goes. We really don't. Historically, nowhere good.

Re: Six corporations control 90% of America media

#172
post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you heard of Bounded Rationality? There is an upper bound on what the chimp brain can do. No big diff with a group of chimps. There is always an upper bound. Pretending there is no bound leads to a big trap. Its like telling second graders they can solve tenth grade problems. They cant no matter what they are entertained by, how well they built od consensus or how hard they work. All that it archives is make the…

> Bounded rationality however does recommends a way out of the trap - work on simple problems Climate change is a simple problem, reducible to just one number - the percentage of C02 in Earth's atmosphere. What is difficult is not the technical challenge of how to reduce C02 emissions. We have known that for thousands of years, and all societies practised it until recently. They went about their business without burn…

It's complicated. CO2 and other greenhouse gases raise evaporated water concentrations and initial warming, which trigger several one-way thresholds that we can never undo. It gets complicated/impossible after each threshold breakage, as warming will mostly drive itself and chaotic flux from there on.

Re: Six corporations control 90% of America media

#173
post #66

This doesn't seem to pass the sniff test for me. The six they list doesn't include YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok etc where a huge amount of media is consumed. And would they count YouTube as "one" outlet? I would argue I have greater choice of amongst YouTube creators than I ever did compared to, say ABC, in 1983. The analysis also seems flawed in that they evaluate movies based on box office sales. Which excl…

>And would they count YouTube as "one" outlet? YouTube has editorial control over which videos are allowed to stay up, which videos are eligible to get monetized, and which videos are actively promoted. It's not just a web server with an index and a movie player.

That may be so. The other point is that all those media mergers are perhaps the inevitable consequence of a battled and dying industry due to disruptive technology (YouTube / Widevine).

Re: Six corporations control 90% of America media

#174
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a bit of both. Jay Leno spent years showing us clueless Californians who couldn't tell us why the 4th of July is a holiday. These types would seem to confirm Huxley's suspicions, but they don't make up the entire country. For people who aren't controlled by their base desires, where soma and orgy porgy failed, today, deplatforming and "fact checkers" are stepping in to finish the job.

In a way, the fact checkers and deplatformers are a regression to Orwell-world. These stick out as something out of place or even wrong. More subtle methods like hellbanning and promoting irrelevant content aren't as noticeable. I almost have a little hope, that the bastards have to show their hands now, even if only a little bit.

Yes, sorry I didn't make that clear. "Fact checking" and deplatforming are the Orwellian knockout punch to finish the job begun by the Huxleyan MTV (and similar influences in that vein) a few decades ago.

It's clear that not everyone will be so easy to control like some kind of oversexed zombie. But most don't have the fortitude to continue questioning when challenged by a determined opposition.

Re: Six corporations control 90% of America media

#175

Long time employee of one of those companies, here. To believe that there is some dictate about how a story is covered or why that comes from the top is to believe that we are way more organized than reality. Yes, some corporate-synergy exists to cross-promote, especially on morning shows, but when it comes to news, we are usually pushing so close to deadline there's no way to even allow for corporate control. That s…

> To believe that there is some dictate about how a story is covered or why that comes from the top is to believe that we are way more organized than reality.

And yet exactly this happens[1].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fHfgU8oMSo

Re: Six corporations control 90% of America media

#176
post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, when you say "american media" then don't include all "media" sources, it just looks like clickbait.

from the article it says "Today, 6 media giants control a whopping 90% of what we read, watch, or listen to.". there is a heavy handed content moderation policy on all major social media platforms. it is a rare day when I don't see or hear of blocked suspended or banned content on social media.

And? I'm just pointing out that "90% of what we read, watch, or listen to" is wholly inaccurate.

Re: Six corporations control 90% of America media

#177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would a lifestyle look like that meets these targets?

Subsistence agriculture? Slums? Manhattan hyper density? Cuba (2.68), Tunisia (2.60), Ecuador (2.43), Egypt (2.32), Brazil (2.25), Vietnam (2.20)?

None of that sounds particularly attractive. I would rather use nuclear, wind, or solar to capture the carbon until we figure out how to stop making so much of it.

Re: Six corporations control 90% of America media

#178
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Joe Rogan is now Netflix Okay, but as you say, Netflix isn't in their six either

The companies that produce 99% of what's distributed by Netflix are though.

Distributed != watched. Actual consumption seems to be dominated by Netflix originals.

https://www.newsweek.com/netflix-shows-viewing-figures-most-...

Re: Six corporations control 90% of America media

#179
post #19

This is not news for anyone paying attention to the media space. The big question is ... is there a way out? Or are we destined to have a small number of powerful organizations controlling world's information and in extension, our thought?

Open source platforms provide an alternative to corporate social media. These platforms are developed on a non-profit basis and are hosted by volunteers across the globe. A growing number of such platforms are available today and millions of people are using them already. Mastodon is an alternative to Twitter, and it’s currently home to over two million users. This was the first open platform to get serious traction,…

I’m just saying, I have adhd, I’m not gonna read this whole manifesto, can you just give me a summary at the top? Jeez, people are so trigger happy with the flagging these days.

Re: Six corporations control 90% of America media

#180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

History is written by the winners. The right side is the one they write for themselves. So just always be on the side that is in the majority and has all of the power. Ezpz

Kinda hard not to be Jewish during 1930s Germany when you're a Jew...

Ask George Soros how he figured out how.
Post reply on HN