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OwlFancier posted:If you don't like the predominant posting style of a thread perhaps you're just not a good fit for it? I find all of mine to be quite agreeable places. Don't do this poo poo in here.
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Feb 6, 2021 23:36
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UCS Hellmaker posted:The issue is no one loving does. Derails from bad sources and poo poo articles that aren't actually real happen all the time and go for pages, get dropped for 1 then get brought back up and go for another 3. Or someone comes in to reinforce the troll just because and welp here's ten pages of bullshit that poo poo up the threads. The solution with this isn’t to try to place guardrails on sources, it’s actually to punish bad faith trolls for being bad faith trolls. Let’s enforce the rules these people are already breaking instead of trying to invent new ones - and since the core problem here is failing to enforce existing rules, how is adding more rules going to help?
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Feb 6, 2021 23:36
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OwlFancier posted:If you don't like the predominant posting style of a thread perhaps you're just not a good fit for it? I find all of mine to be quite agreeable places. For someone who doesn't even post in USPol, you sure have strong opinions about it.
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Feb 6, 2021 23:37
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I have quite strong opinions about moderators feeling the need to stick their oar into places because the assumption that just because they have the ability to do things means they have to find things to do. I have repeatedly suggested that I think less moderation is better and that I also have almost never seen it actually improve anything. They get appointed, they have some big idea to change things because the appointment is seemingly a mandate to treat the forum like their own personal experiment, they make a bunch of changes, it achieves nothing, they burn out or end up getting kicked out because it turns out they were doing some minor atrocity or other on the side, we get another one, the cycle repeats. If you think that moderating is too demanding the option always exists to simply not do it. Not just on a personal level but also as a general philosophy for the entire group. Just because you have the buttons does not mean you need to find ways to apply them. If people require moderation there is a report button and they can post about it, otherwise I find that every thread I post in functions entirely fine without moderator involvement beyond very rare instances and those instances elicit a summons from the people posting, they do not require proactive intervention. USPol I am sure can do whatever it wants, though I would and already have lamented the loss of posters I have found to be nothing but agreeable when I have encountered them elsewhere, as a result of moderation in USPol. But the thread appears to be talking about rules for the entire forum even if we ignore the effect USPol moderation has on the forum more widely. I care because this affects the places I post and the people I like posting with, and therefore ultimately my enjoyment of the forum. I don't know exactly what the changes and the moderation are for, or who they are supposed to benefit although I'm sure I could make some extremely cynical guesses. But the fact of the matter remains that I see this whole thing as being entirely deleterious to my experience of the forum. Whoever it is for, it is not for my benefit. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 00:05 on Feb 7, 2021 |
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Feb 6, 2021 23:48
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OwlFancier posted:I have quite strong opinions about moderators feeling the need to stick their oar into places because the assumption that just because they have the ability to do things means they have to find things to do. I have repeatedly suggested that I think less moderation is better and that I also have almost never seen it actually improve anything. They get appointed, they have some big idea to change things because the appointment is seemingly a mandate to treat the forum like their own personal experiment, they make a bunch of changes, it achieves nothing, they burn out or end up getting kicked out because it turns out they were doing some minor atrocity or other on the side, we get another one, the cycle repeats. "Less government and fewer regulations" is a deeply flawed and self-centered idea that libertarians always push for, so I'm not surprised to see you, an apparent Libertarian thread regular, pushing for its forums equivalent. Of course, I don't know if you yourself are actually a libertarian, but the argument you are putting forth is. Suffice it to say that just because you personally have never seen moderation improve anything does not mean that it actually does not improve anything. It's also a meaningless statement to make because it is unfalsifiable. Your personal philosophy doesn't matter, and neither do the mini-treatises you have posted on political epistemology; what we are interested in doing in this thread is to come up with practical rules and policies that might make debates and discussions higher quality and less tedious. I'm not a moderator myself, but I'll go out on a limb and say that "Don't moderate" will probably never be D&D's moderation policy.
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Feb 7, 2021 00:13
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Aruan posted:The solution with this isn’t to try to place guardrails on sources, it’s actually to punish bad faith trolls for being bad faith trolls. Let’s enforce the rules these people are already breaking instead of trying to invent new ones - and since the core problem here is failing to enforce existing rules, how is adding more rules going to help? The only source that needs a guardrail is the Onion and other literal satire. Everything else is fine if you force posters to expend effort on justifying using them as a source.
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Feb 7, 2021 00:21
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OwlFancier posted:If people want to sincerely advocate for lovely positions I am quite willing to entertain that, unless we can all agree to simply exclude some political positions from the forum, but I do not have any patience for failure to acknowledge that controlling sources via the power structures of the forum is itself a political act. I think we're all in agreement here that some political positions should be excluded from the forum. For example, vile and immoral positions like white supremacism or pedophilia, as well as positions that have overwhelming evidence against them like flat-eartherism or young-earth creationism. Refusing to impose even the most basic standards on sourcing is itself a political act, as demonstrated by every major social media site becoming a hive of far-right conspiracy bullshit. By becoming so sensitive to far-right cries of "bias" and seeking to minimize moderation as much as possible, the likes of Facebook and Twitter gave blatant misinformation and violent white supremacism free reign to spread unchecked. By obsessively trying to carve every last bit of so-called bias out of their moderation standards, they created awful hellholes where moderators were forced to treat "kill all men" and "kill all Jews" equally. Deteriorata posted:How about rather than a blacklist, more of a graylist - sources of agreed dubious integrity that if cited hold the poster to a higher standard. Personally, I think the standard should come down to a basic level of due diligence. When I see some surprising or enraging poo poo online, I don't immediately rush to copy-paste it into a D&D thread - I take a few minutes to try to confirm it, checking it against other sources and checking the veracity of other things written by the source I got it from. If it turns out that I can't find the factoid in question from any other source, and also the source I got that factoid from mostly posts articles endorsing various conspiracy theories, then I don't loving post the hot take because it's probably crap. Nowadays, it's so easy to see enraging clickbait on social media and embed it directly into SA that I suspect a lot of people are going straight from their Twitter feed to USPol without taking any pitstops along the way to check their info or their source.
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Feb 7, 2021 00:59
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Main Paineframe posted:I think we're all in agreement here that some political positions should be excluded from the forum. For example, vile and immoral positions like white supremacism or pedophilia, as well as positions that have overwhelming evidence against them like flat-eartherism or young-earth creationism. And I would agree, I am entirely willing to exclude political positions like that from the forum because I disagree with them politically. Censorship I have no issue with as long as it is open, enthusiastic, and by common consent.
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Feb 7, 2021 01:05
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does anyone have a good example of source that everyone can agree has no place on SA? for example: the epoch times.
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Feb 7, 2021 01:46
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OwlFancier posted:And I would agree, I am entirely willing to exclude political positions like that from the forum because I disagree with them politically. Censorship I have no issue with as long as it is open, enthusiastic, and by common consent. Things like white supremacy and genocide denial are not political positions. The reason we don't allow them is not because we "politically disagree with" them. It is because we find them vile and immoral. Furthermore, the decision to not allow such content on Something Awful was not made based on common consent. The reason for that should be obvious: if common consent had been sought, there would undoubtedly have been posters who would have objected, even if purely on "all censorship is bad" grounds, and by your reasoning, that would have been sufficient to not censor that content. Meaning, at some point you as a moderator/admin/owner need to ignore dissenting voices and do what you think is best and right. You might end up being wrong, but such is life. It won't be the end of the world. With regards to this particular discussion, the question isn't "should mods maintain an extensive blacklist and probate people who ignore it?" I think most people, including the mods, think that is wildly impractical. Rather, the question is, should foreign propaganda outlets, which operate solely to advance the interests of monstrous totalitarian regimes at the expense of liberal democracies (who themselves aren't perfect, mind you), be accepted by posters as valid and credible sources in debate and discussion? If we think that those regimes are vile and immoral, then there is no reason to accept their mouthpieces as sources, and no reason to expect other posters to tediously and painstakingly try to refute them using counter-citations. Instead, the poster who is using them as sources should be dunked on and told to use a better source. And you know what? For virtually anything that is credible and newsworthy, there will almost always be one.
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Feb 7, 2021 02:00
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Of course they're political positions, what on earth else would they be? People who advocate them do so politically, because they want to achieve the political goals that those things describe. And of course it is because we disagree with them politically, because again they are political positions to which we find ourselves wholly opposed, visceral emotional responses are not somehow separate from politics? And the forum literally shed a giant pile of users last year because the administration did not reflect the values of the userbase. People post on the forum voluntarily and pay to do so, it necessarily must operate on common consent because if it doesn't people stop posting. Otherwise lowtax would have just banned everyone. This concept of sources somehow intrinsically affecting the content of the source is daft, yes the specifics of a source are likely to influence what they are going to say, but ultimately it is what they say that is important. Now if you were to post articles from stormfront or something, then I would wager that 100% of them would be nothing but a large string of racial slurs expounding some idiot conspiracy theory, so I can reasonably say that I have no interest in reading them and don't need the check further than the source. But again that is not because the source makes anything they post into racism but instead because the source posts nothing but racism. I don't give a poo poo where you post information from if the information is usable. If the information is available elswhere then... ok? I don't care either way. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 02:18 on Feb 7, 2021 |
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Feb 7, 2021 02:16
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OwlFancier posted:I don't give a poo poo where you post information from if the information is usable. If the information is available elswhere then... ok? I don't care either way. It's disappointing to read this because being able to critically evaluate the credibility of a source, and analyze how their motivations affect that credibility, is Media Literacy 101 stuff.
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Feb 7, 2021 03:02
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If we're going with "a source told me" then there are a large number of alleged journalists working for "proper" publications who spend most of their time citing their mysterious government sources on twitter and in articles and as far as I'm concerned it's all just gossip, you can talk about it if you want or don't, but it is all exactly as substantiable as any other "my uncle at nintendo said" shite. And it doesn't become more real if the guardian or the BBC is the one doing it.
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Feb 7, 2021 03:11
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If we're going to require everyone to proofread the proof they link, you're going to run into situations where someone didn't do that, not because they did that on purpose but because their ability to critically think isn't working correctly. I'm afraid this style of enforcement will become an excuse to respond with condescending remarks, rather than as an opportunity to point out how their critical thinking skills lead them to the wrong conclusion.
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Feb 7, 2021 05:22
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Aruan posted:The solution with this isn’t to try to place guardrails on sources, it’s actually to punish bad faith trolls for being bad faith trolls. Let’s enforce the rules these people are already breaking instead of trying to invent new ones - and since the core problem here is failing to enforce existing rules, how is adding more rules going to help? Thorn Wishes Talon posted:It's disappointing to read this because being able to critically evaluate the credibility of a source, and analyze how their motivations affect that credibility, is Media Literacy 101 stuff. Slow News Day posted:Things like white supremacy and genocide denial are not political positions. Slow News Day posted:Rather, the question is, should foreign propaganda outlets, which operate solely to advance the interests of monstrous totalitarian regimes at the expense of liberal democracies (who themselves aren't perfect, mind you), be accepted by posters as valid and credible sources in debate and discussion? If we think that those regimes are vile and immoral, then there is no reason to accept their mouthpieces as sources, and no reason to expect other posters to tediously and painstakingly try to refute them using counter-citations. Instead, the poster who is using them as sources should be dunked on and told to use a better source. And you know what? For virtually anything that is credible and newsworthy, there will almost always be one.
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Feb 7, 2021 08:57
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A Buttery Pastry posted:The premise here is that the information has already been vetted. I think OwlFancier is perhaps reacting to the unstated belief that information coming from a "propaganda outlet" is automatically invalid because it comes from a "propaganda outlet", and should thus be distrusted or even dismissed if you find it elsewhere too. Information coming from a foreign propaganda outlet (no need to use scare quotes, we know for a fact that RT and Epoch Times are propaganda outlets) absolutely and definitely cannot be trusted. The entire point of propaganda is that it mixes truth with fiction to the point where the line becomes very blurry, and the truthy bits (that often can be verified via other sources) make it much more likely that the fictional bits will also be accepted and internalized. This is especially true when the message has been carefully crafted and fine-tuned for a specific audience who may have a propensity to not question it because it fits their existing worldview and biases. Therefore, you shouldn't use propaganda outlets as sources even if the stuff they are reporting has been confirmed by other sources (this is extremely rare by the way — these outlets are almost never the ones breaking important news or doing original investigative reporting that can be verified). As someone who has studied this, I can tell you that there are people whose full-time job is to pick apart things reported by foreign propaganda outlets and trace their various elements to their origin. It is painstaking and tedious work that requires training. It is not something that your average poster can be expected to do reliably (either as the person using the source, or the person consuming it), because you need access to specialized tools and third-party expertise to do it. Adopting a "I will read it and make up my own mind" approach will quickly lead you off a cliff and make you an unwitting vector for the propaganda (such people actually tend to be the easiest targets).
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Feb 7, 2021 19:07
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Herstory Begins Now posted:We have at various points allowed people to discuss Reade's accusations in multiple threads but it progressively devolved into massive shitshows that were all around disgusting and unpleasant and, imo, categorically unhealthy both on an individual level and to dnd as a space as a whole. Even in the threads that had multiple extremely severe warnings of 'if you are lovely about this you will get huge probes.' Perhaps it would be less bad if the moderation... Did anything beyond continuing the usual pattern of probations, and in particular took responsibility for starting this whole mess by letting vile poo poo fester for months and then having the most tepid response to it (and hitting people upset about said vile poo poo harder than the people posting it). Instead you still have people saying or implying that they think Reade is a liar and getting away with it, or only getting hit when they push their luck. Hell, that's what happened with the posts that started this latest thing; someone threw Biden being a rapist into a list of what was supposed to be absurd accusations against him, and they only got punished because they posted more after GJB said to stop, even though that initial post itself was evidently both denying that Biden did what he was accused of and an attempt to bait people who believe the accusations. It warranted immediate action, but if they weren't an idiot who missed the lifeline they were being handed they'd have gotten away without any consequences. And before someone tries to say, "but they might not have been trying to call Reade a liar, you can't punish people based on so little," you can get immediate warnings or probations just for saying "the Democrat Party" instead of "the Democratic Party" because it's immediately assumed you're trolling; I don't think it's unreasonable to expect the moderation to take people casting aspersions on rape victims at least as seriously as they do people using the wrong name for a political party. Endless benefit of the doubt is extended to people posting awful things, even if they have a history of doing so (see also: All of the worst posters from when open rape apologism was condoned here still being really active and often still hinting at their previous positions), while the crackdown on people calling that out is swift and brutal. Hell, FoS admitted in the QCS thread that he doesn't think people actually care about Reade's accusations except as a weapon to use against other posters, which is a really loving awful thing to say and suggests that he's unaware of how viscerally unpleasant this subforum became as a result of what he allowed to be posted here, but explains a lot about the enforcement of the rules since all this blew up: quote:There was no discussion or even attempted of the allegations, what happened was: Seriously, this post is vile. The moderation does not take this issue seriously and sees the concerns of one side as fake/not worth considering. That is why this issue isn't any closer to being resolved; because you refuse to actually acknowledge that there is an issue beyond people disagreeing with you. And the, "Attempting to discredit Reade is already disallowed in D&D because it's gross to smear victims," line is infuriating because you did allow that for months, you still allow it if people have the slightest plausible deniability, and you still act like you aren't the ones primarily responsible things got this bad in the first place and instead treat the people upset about what you've fostered here like they're the problem. Anyway, on the topic of sources, can the people who are opposed to allowing certain sources please articulate the difference between, say, RT, Al-Jazeera, and the BBC, besides western chauvinism and seeing things through an "us vs them" lens that views things "we" do fundamentally differently? The last of those was explicitly listed as a "good" source as opposed to the former two in at least one USPol post, but it's not like the British Broadcasting Corporation isn't effectively controlled by the party in power and heavily biased for them and their agenda and against their enemies, even more than other sources in the same country. They can be just as biased and manipulative as some of the "bad" sources people are railing against, but because their propaganda takes forms and reinforces things those people are used to they don't view it as propaganda. Really, if one wants to ban outlets for being biased sources of misinformation or the propaganda arms of their respective states, they should be able to explain why the source responsible for this isn't fundamentally unserious and slanted in ways the "bad" sites they want gone are:  The only way the BBC is not a "foreign propaganda outlet" is if you're living in the UK yourself, and that only gets rid of the "foreign" part; you need stronger guidelines than that if you want to justify completely banning the use of certain sources. (Or actually follow through on it and ax the BBC and such too, though that's clearly not what the people posting here want. It's not the position I support either, but I would at least be impressed if someone actually did sincerely and consistently argue for that.)
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Feb 7, 2021 22:54
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Thorn Wishes Talon posted:Information coming from a foreign propaganda outlet (no need to use scare quotes, we know for a fact that RT and Epoch Times are propaganda outlets) absolutely and definitely cannot be trusted. The entire point of propaganda is that it mixes truth with fiction to the point where the line becomes very blurry, and the truthy bits (that often can be verified via other sources) make it much more likely that the fictional bits will also be accepted and internalized. This is especially true when the message has been carefully crafted and fine-tuned for a specific audience who may have a propensity to not question it because it fits their existing worldview and biases. Therefore, you shouldn't use propaganda outlets as sources even if the stuff they are reporting has been confirmed by other sources (this is extremely rare by the way — these outlets are almost never the ones breaking important news or doing original investigative reporting that can be verified). Roland Jones posted:Really, if one wants to ban outlets for being biased sources of misinformation or the propaganda arms of their respective states, they should be able to explain why the source responsible for this isn't fundamentally unserious and slanted in ways the "bad" sites they want gone are: Leadership packed with members of the ruling party: Check Straight up makes up stories or doctors them in service of the ruling party: Check RT or the BBC?
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Feb 8, 2021 18:34
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A Buttery Pastry posted:The reason I put propaganda outlet in scare quotes is that I am not sure the people using propaganda outlet mean propaganda outlet, or only a subset of that category. The continued insistence of stressing foreign really seals the deal for me in this regard, and is extremely funny to read for me since every news source even mentioned in this thread is a foreign outlet to me. But I see that Roland Jones has already expanded on that point. Epinephrine fucked around with this message at 06:06 on Feb 9, 2021 |
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Feb 9, 2021 05:01
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Epinephrine posted:So far as I can tell the last time someone earnestly used the BBC as a source was 3 months ago (and I think they could have used another source for that), and a search of BBC in the USPOL fall thread only gave 21 hits and that one from December is literally the only one I could find that uses the BBC as a source [EDIT: earnestly, not ironically or to criticize the BBC]. In the entire thread. A google search suggests the last time the BBC was linked in a USPOL thread (search: site:forums.somethingawful.com uspol bbc.co.uk) was back in June. I went through all this work because I didn't recall the last time the BBC was actually used, in earnest. as a source. Epinephrine posted:I'm sure others will be willing to debate you on the merits of whether state-sponsored media is the same as propaganda (imo it's not)
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Feb 9, 2021 06:25
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A Buttery Pastry posted:This thread is about D&D, not USPOL. Unless it is actually just about USPOL rules? In which case, might I suggest making American politics a subforum of D&D and disallow it entirely in D&D proper rather than creating some sort of dual-rules system where you have to guess whether the American moderators believe it to be an American thread using American rules. fool of sound posted:As we begin the restructuring of USPol, it's important to discuss this now: what should the expectations be for posted sources? How responsible are posters for the sources they post? My hope is that, with feedback from this thread, we can develop solid guidelines for posting, discussing, and debunking sources that can be added to the rules thread and give us a solid basis for enforcing better discourse. And holy poo poo I never thought the below would happen, so let's hit this nail on the head until it's so unrecognizable that you can in earnest argue it's not a nail. quote:This is what I mean when I say I don't trust the definition of "propaganda outlet" in this thread. Put another way, if I didn't include that aside, your own statement here would be a complete, rather than a 99%, non-sequitur, which is only slightly less interesting than using "other people will disagree with you" as some kind of win for your position. I'd much rather live in a world where I don't have to explain all this, but here you are and here I am. Epinephrine fucked around with this message at 13:43 on Feb 9, 2021 |
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Feb 9, 2021 07:49
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The fact that we're in this thread doing a a ridiculous reductio ad absurdum about how the BBC is the same as RT because someone managed to generalize the idea of propaganda to three true/false questions is exhibit loving A of exactly what propaganda outlets like RT are trying to accomplish.
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Feb 9, 2021 13:18
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Jarmak posted:The fact that we're in this thread doing a a ridiculous reductio ad absurdum about how the BBC is the same as RT because someone managed to generalize the idea of propaganda to three true/false questions is exhibit loving A of exactly what propaganda outlets like RT are trying to accomplish. It’s telling how the folks doing this refuse to agree to just explain when posting something why they believe the source to be good and their own opinion on the particular topic. Nothing more than bad-faith posting.
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Feb 9, 2021 15:31
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Solkanar512 posted:It’s telling how the folks doing this refuse to agree to just explain when posting something why they believe the source to be good and their own opinion on the particular topic. It's been explained over, and over, and over. The explanation just gets reduced and generalized to absurd levels for bad-faith, self-serving ends. edit: just in this thread: Slow News Day posted:Your definition of propaganda in this context is overly broad and misses the mark. quote:it's not like the British Broadcasting Corporation isn't effectively controlled by the party in power and heavily biased for them and their agenda and against their enemies, even more than other sources in the same country. They can be just as biased and manipulative as some of the "bad" sources people are railing against, but because their propaganda takes forms and reinforces things those people are used to they don't view it as propaganda. Accusations of bad faith posting are god damned Trumpian levels of projection here. Jarmak fucked around with this message at 15:46 on Feb 9, 2021 |
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Feb 9, 2021 15:38
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Should the Feb. 2 Tara Reade piece on RT have been banned from USPol and maybe all of D&D? Also, if this thread is not about all of D&D, the title needs a change.
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Feb 9, 2021 15:51
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Jarmak posted:It's been explained over, and over, and over. If you don't want things to be reduced and generalized to absurd levels for bad-faith, self-serving ends... You are going to have to make more bold and clear stances on things than weakly waving a hand towards Trump at things you don't like. WHAT is the issue with specific propaganda outlets you don't like, and how is that different in any way to the others in ways that are not ascribed to your own partiality?
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Feb 9, 2021 15:55
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Insanite posted:Should the Feb. 2 Tara Reade piece on RT have been banned from USPol and maybe all of D&D? Was anyone banned for posting that article? Does the existence of that one article allow full out trust of RT without question or further explanation?
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Feb 9, 2021 15:56
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socialsecurity posted:Was anyone banned for posting that article? Does the existence of that one article allow full out trust of RT without question or further explanation? Not talking about posters. Should the source itself be okay to post or not? If the answer is "yes, but it should be accompanied by discussion," how is that different from how things should work right now, anyway? And to that bolded part, I'd really hope that posters don't treat any source with "full out trust... without question."
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Feb 9, 2021 16:00
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Jarmak posted:
Yes, directly insulting me as “trumpian” is surely the way to convince me that you’re posting in good faith.
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Feb 9, 2021 17:06
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This thread is relevant to all of D&D but is particularly important to the upcoming USNews thread. As for the question, I think that the issue isn't "should the Reade column be banned"; it's more "should the person posting the column be asked to defend it up front because it's published by a questionable outlet" and "to what degree is it appropriate to criticize the outlet rather than the content of the article".
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Feb 9, 2021 17:19
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fool of sound posted:This thread is relevant to all of D&D but is particularly important to the upcoming USNews thread. Yea, I think this becomes a big question when it comes to articles about things that cannot be confirmed. For example, a NYT reporter vs an RT reporter being an exclusive source that says something along the lines of "White House officials are discussing sanction options on Iran". I don't know the feasibility of this occurring, but in my opinion posting an NYT reporter saying that is responsible where as posting an RT reporter saying that is irresponsible. Which comes back to what sources are trustworthy and to what extent. I don't have a good idea without maintaining a "trustworthy news outlet" list. Maybe enforcing a format if you're posting a news-related tweet or article to at least make posters think through what they're posting? It could be enforcing a few basic questions for the poster to include, such as ones that have been posted earlier in this thread (e.g. "Who is the author/if a tweet from a personal account, what professional relevance do they have", "Where else I looked to confirm that this information is accurate, if applicable/not exclusive", etc). It might be too burdensome for some posters, but I think something that discourages  isn't necessarily a bad thing either.Regardless, if someone keeps posting false information/random twitter accounts making up information/etc, I think their probations should be severely ramped.
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Feb 9, 2021 17:42
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fool of sound posted:"should the person posting the column be asked to defend it up front because it's published by a questionable outlet" Given the nature of the column--it's Tara Reade herself talking about Dems' reception of her story compared to their reception of AOC's story--I think that it would be strange to demand that posters "defend" RT up front. Attack Reade's arguments, maybe, but her opinion seems newsworthy and is directly relevant to US politics. We can surmise why she could not publish it elsewhere. It's likely that RT obliged because the story is damaging to Joe Biden, but that's a totally different branch of discussion, and it's one that can displace legitimate discussion about the column's content. And, to be frank, in situations where subjects are ignored in mainstream media--whether it be because they're contentious, damaging to those in power, or just extremely niche--making it tough to share them without getting bogged down in sourcechat seems like a good way to muzzle discussion. fool of sound posted:"to what degree is it appropriate to criticize the outlet rather than the content of the article" I think that being critical of outlets' bents and biases is good and interesting! There's just a load of difference between going to war about original RT reporting on Hunter Biden's laptop vs. Tara Reade's op-ed that asks, "Why did AOC get support from the party when I received hostility?" This feels like a matter where hard and fast rules about source/outlet quality might not work, but I'm just a guy.  That said, if there's a desire to have a USNews thread that is NYT story after NYT story because people miss Google Reader, well, that's its own thing.
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Feb 9, 2021 17:46
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I don't think the Tara Reade article is super relevant here because it's an op-ed. It doesn't try to claim to be anything more than the positions of the particular person writing it, who has no particular affiliation with RT besides the fact that they let her write an op-ed. No one's looking at the Tara Reade article and saying "it must be right because it's posted on RT". They're evaluating it based on Tara Reade's credibility as a survivor, not RT's credibility, because RT doesn't have any credibility to lend to the article. That's completely different from talking about, say, RT news articles about Alexei Navalny, in which RT reporters' credibility and the credibility of RT as an organization might play a major role.
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Feb 9, 2021 17:46
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There literally are people ITT arguing that anything published by RT is wrong because it is foreign russian propaganda.
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Feb 9, 2021 17:49
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OwlFancier posted:There literally are people ITT arguing that anything published by RT is wrong because it is foreign russian propaganda. This. What about if I'd like to discuss a Chris Hedges interview with Cornel West on On Contact? https://www.rt.com/shows/on-contact/511893-west-america-existential-crisis/ Now we're talking about someone who draws a paycheck from RT, but has a sizable presence on the American Left talking to Cornel West, one of the more mainstream socialists we have.
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Feb 9, 2021 17:54
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OwlFancier posted:There literally are people ITT arguing that anything published by RT is wrong because it is foreign russian propaganda. Who ITT said everything published by RT is wrong? I've only seen people talk about skepticism regarding the news articles that they publish.
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Feb 9, 2021 17:57
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On literally this page?Thorn Wishes Talon posted:Information coming from a foreign propaganda outlet (no need to use scare quotes, we know for a fact that RT and Epoch Times are propaganda outlets) absolutely and definitely cannot be trusted. The entire point of propaganda is that it mixes truth with fiction to the point where the line becomes very blurry, and the truthy bits (that often can be verified via other sources) make it much more likely that the fictional bits will also be accepted and internalized. This is especially true when the message has been carefully crafted and fine-tuned for a specific audience who may have a propensity to not question it because it fits their existing worldview and biases. Therefore, you shouldn't use propaganda outlets as sources even if the stuff they are reporting has been confirmed by other sources (this is extremely rare by the way — these outlets are almost never the ones breaking important news or doing original investigative reporting that can be verified). It is directly arguing against the very concept of indivudal analysis of anything coming from RT because only people with a big enough brain can do that which you, as a poster, do not have. Or just above: Slow News Day posted:Things like white supremacy and genocide denial are not political positions. The reason we don't allow them is not because we "politically disagree with" them. It is because we find them vile and immoral. Furthermore, the decision to not allow such content on Something Awful was not made based on common consent. The reason for that should be obvious: if common consent had been sought, there would undoubtedly have been posters who would have objected, even if purely on "all censorship is bad" grounds, and by your reasoning, that would have been sufficient to not censor that content. Meaning, at some point you as a moderator/admin/owner need to ignore dissenting voices and do what you think is best and right. You might end up being wrong, but such is life. It won't be the end of the world. Which is seemingly arguing that anything that comes from it is inherently tainted by evil. There does not appear to be a distinction based on what is published in either of these positions, merely everything coming from "the outlet" OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 18:02 on Feb 9, 2021 |
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Feb 9, 2021 18:00
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Kalit posted:Who ITT said everything published by RT is wrong? I've only seen people talk about skepticism regarding the news articles that they publish. Discendo Vox posted:RT et al must not have a footprint on the forums as a source of information.
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Feb 9, 2021 18:03
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Furthermore if your position is that propaganda is simply things published by a foreign organization with the intent to discredit the US government, publishing Reade entirely unedited is propaganda. Because she has actual, good reasons to be critical of the US government. And publishing her absolutely serves that purpose, but it is not in any way exclusive with the idea that what she writes is truthful and important. Which is a perfect microcosm of the stupidity of this concept of "no propaganda allowed"
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Feb 9, 2021 18:09
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I see posters who are saying that RT should not be considered a trustworthy news source, not OwlFancier posted:There literally are people ITT arguing that anything published by RT is wrong because it is foreign russian propaganda.
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Feb 9, 2021 18:09
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