Live data from Hacker News

'You're Not Allowed to Film': The Fight to Control Who Reports from Portland

reason.com

211–220 of 325 posts

Re: 'You're Not Allowed to Film': The Fight to Control Who Reports from Portland

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what's the accurate picture from people on the ground?

This is only one data point but I was in Portland this week trying to get away from smoke and it was all peaceful. The protestors I saw looked like kids and older folks out in for a rally. Some were wearing bright vests for visibility, probably from cars. All in all it didn’t seem too wild to me and I’m sure I didn’t see all the protests, again this is just one guy walking down the street. I never felt unsafe for wha…

And what happens once night falls?

Re: 'You're Not Allowed to Film': The Fight to Control Who Reports from Portland

#212
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Police are making it a battleground? Not the people throwing Molotov cocktails, fireworks, and bricks. No, it is the police who have made it a battleground.

the police union needs to call for a 60 day strike. just take away the policing function of the local government for two months. that will lay bare the real motives of the protesters, either peaceful demonstration or violence and looting.

It sounds like you believe that protestors are some sort of cohesive whole. If 90% of protestors are peaceful, and 10% are effectively anarchist provocateurs (or just unlawful types taking advantage of unrest to mask illegal/antisocial behaviour) then the police abandoning things is clearly going to make things turn bad IMO.

Can USA police really not restrain from violently attacking the peaceful elements amongst protestors and just seek to keep the peace against those provably causing violence? They'll actually need to act like grown-ups, be brave, and not arrest people for calling them names and such.

Re: 'You're Not Allowed to Film': The Fight to Control Who Reports from Portland

#213
post #19

The mainstream news reporting on Portland (and other regional rioting) got to the point where they were bald-faced lying about peaceful protests standing in front of burning buildings. The most charitable interpretation I can think of is that these professional journalists think that their readers can’t understand a nuanced world of gray and need everything reduced to black and white. There can be a concept of “BLM”…

Does someone have a list of verifiable comparisons between coverage and (evidence of) events that you respect? This comment and article are "raising concerns", but not contributing to a more realistic public record.

Re: 'You're Not Allowed to Film': The Fight to Control Who Reports from Portland

#214
post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your phrasing is misleading. BLM isn't responsible. A veteran sympathetic to the cause went on a shooting spree granted, but I don't know how you get from that to "BLM was responsible"

You cannot on one hand claim that BLM is an organic, grass roots, and completely headless organization while at the same time disclaiming someone as a member of the supposed unorganized organization composed entirely of people who self identify as BLM members.

@Fellshard makes a good point that decentralisation is often a tool, used both by people who wish to disassociate a group with its actions.

Also this is true in reverse with people seeking to group people who are not actually acting as groups.

That kind of deliberate distortion only makes it harder to comprehend what is really happening often, but there's still a burden of proof.

Obviously organised criminals have been attempting to hide coordinated activity for the longest time too, I understand that bad actors exist who seek to pretend actions are not coordinated. But again, there are times when members of such organisations commit crimes off their own backs, which were not part of any conspiracy.

Re: 'You're Not Allowed to Film': The Fight to Control Who Reports from Portland

#215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. You don't start a negotiation from the middle. Also, most of the actual policy changes would be local. The support of the general population matters much less than the support of those who are impacted. The politicians and leaders need to work out the details and compromises. The point of these protests is that one side has not been listened to, and it is getting people killed, and we're sick of it.

> You don't start a negotiation from the middle. I agree, but you also shouldn't completely discredit yourself before negotiation has started. What do you even bring to the table? The end of protests? Protests are only being tolerated because of presumed public support, which has been dwindling due to some ugly scenes. > The politicians and leaders need to work out the details and compromises. The politicians only ne…

MLK was massively vilified during his lifetime. E.g. [1]:

> According to an early 1968 Harris Poll, the man whose half-century of martyrdom we celebrate this week died with a public disapproval rating of nearly 75 percent, a figure shocking in its own day and still striking even in today’s highly polarized political climate

And [2]

> Back in the 1960s, when King was actually leading protests, just 36 percent of white Americans thought he was helping “the Negro cause of civil rights,” according to historical polling data compiled by the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research. In a 1966 Gallup poll, more than 60 percent of the public rated King more negatively than positively.

> After King was assassinated, two-thirds of Americans said their strongest reaction to his death had been sadness, anger, shame or fear, another survey found. Another 31 percent, however, said they “felt he brought it on himself.”

This idea that MLK was the respectable, acceptable face of the civil rights struggle is a modern fiction, and worth considering before denouncing those currently seen as going too far:

MLK was seen as going too far. He was hated.

The turning point was his death, and even then millions thought he had it coming. It took many years of reappraisals after his death for him to become the popular icon he is today.

Worth considering when considering what future generations will think about those demonstrating now.

[1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/why-martin-luther-kin...

[2] https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/in-1968-nearly-a-thir...

Re: 'You're Not Allowed to Film': The Fight to Control Who Reports from Portland

#216
post #118

I am surprised to see this on the front page of Hacker News. The article makes claims which are completely unsubstantiated. There is no audio/video evidence, and there is no other source (that I could find) corroborating the story, or even mentioning these phrases. From another comment here: https://twitter.com/alex_zee/status/1302284883625046016?s=21 IPC does not exist either.

Isn't that exactly the train something from regular news would be on HN; you know that upvoted stories are ones people want others to be aware of, it doesn't indicate support nor that anyone is vouching for its verity.

Re: 'You're Not Allowed to Film': The Fight to Control Who Reports from Portland

#217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The relevance of newspapers has been greatly diminished. And I am not even a millenial.

Digital subscriptions of Dutch newspapers have grown steadily: https://www.svdj.nl/de-stand-van-de-nieuwsmedia/digitale-opl... (For non-native speakers, scroll to the first graph.)

You can't compare digital subscriptions with print-subscriptions, your own link even says so.

De Telegraaf and het AD alone have lost about 800k subscriptions in the last two decades. And the trend sharpens.

https://www.svdj.nl/de-stand-van-de-nieuwsmedia/papier/oplag...

Re: 'You're Not Allowed to Film': The Fight to Control Who Reports from Portland

#218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You don't start a negotiation from the middle. I agree, but you also shouldn't completely discredit yourself before negotiation has started. What do you even bring to the table? The end of protests? Protests are only being tolerated because of presumed public support, which has been dwindling due to some ugly scenes. > The politicians and leaders need to work out the details and compromises. The politicians only ne…

> What do you even bring to the table? The end of protests? Protests are only being tolerated because of presumed public support, which has been dwindling due to some ugly scenes. The end of protests and a society that works better for everybody, yes. I'd love to have a public safety force that I felt I could rely on. Currently, I don't. > In many areas, the majority already voted in Democrats with the intention of h…

> The end of protests and a society that works better for everybody, yes.

You don't actually bring that society to the table. That's outside of your power. If anything, you promise that this society will somehow come about if only your demands are met. Kind of like the politicians that might promise almost anything, if only you elected them.

> Progressive candidates, like members of the DSA and politicians they endorse. One thing that has come out of these protests is a rise in progressive candidates, both running at all, and actually winning some primaries. The progressive candidate who won the primary for my state House seat over the long-time Dem incumbent chose to run after the Floyd murder.

Sure, but that only happened because these progressives were compatible with voter behavior. Show me the successful progressive Democrat who also supports completely abolishing all prisons. Well, maybe in Portland.

> The protests themselves have moved the overton window.

Have they really? In the public perception, these protests were against police brutality, which virtually everyone is sympathetic with. If the protests had been perceived as being in favor of dismantling the criminal justice system, virtually nobody would've supported that.

> A single recent example is how public support for protesting athletes has changed.

Supporting or not supporting someone's right to protest has been inside the overton window all along. What hasn't been within the overton window would be a position like "protesting athletes should be imprisoned" or "athletes should all be forced to attend a protest".

Similarly, defunding the police is within the overton window, but abolishing policing outright is not.

Re: 'You're Not Allowed to Film': The Fight to Control Who Reports from Portland

#219
post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You don't start a negotiation from the middle. I agree, but you also shouldn't completely discredit yourself before negotiation has started. What do you even bring to the table? The end of protests? Protests are only being tolerated because of presumed public support, which has been dwindling due to some ugly scenes. > The politicians and leaders need to work out the details and compromises. The politicians only ne…

MLK was massively vilified during his lifetime. E.g. [1]: > According to an early 1968 Harris Poll, the man whose half-century of martyrdom we celebrate this week died with a public disapproval rating of nearly 75 percent, a figure shocking in its own day and still striking even in today’s highly polarized political climate And [2] > Back in the 1960s, when King was actually leading protests, just 36 percent of white…

Any discussion of public disapproval of King post-1965 has to mention that he had begun to speak on class issues and economic empowerment for all Americans, he was no longer limiting his efforts to civil rights for African-Americans. Class struggle in the 1960s was definitely outside the USA’s Overton window.

Re: 'You're Not Allowed to Film': The Fight to Control Who Reports from Portland

#220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve found that most people I speak to can’t accept that most issues are complex shades of gray. It’s all our team or their team based on whatever news channel they subscribe to. No one takes time to dig below the surface and think for themselves.

I think this is a natural, human tendency. Us vs. them. Tribalism. That sort of thing.

It's a natural tendency for dangerous world.

People generally don't want to go into the conflict. But when they are cornered they begin so seek cover within their flock.

So when an average Joe is told that silence is violence and he is guilty beyond any repair just because he's drinking beer in his backyard instead of fighting for the good cause, the Joe becomes defensive. And since he's not a master of rhetorics, he just takes the "fuck you all" attitude and goes back to his beer - now all wound up and grumpy.

EDIT: punctuation fixes

Post reply on HN