While we are still trying to process what happened Wednesday, Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson is pushing a story that claims Big Tech is dominated by liberal authoritarian-totalitarians who are censoring conservatives and pushing a liberal agenda with search result tweaks, slanted algorithms, and other measures.
Now the show does raise some valid concerns about the power Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc. have to shape the news — and Liberals are certainly concerned for valid reasons.
But what Full Measure is pushing is the idea that Big Tech has a liberal bias, and throws out cherry-picked examples with heavy spin that ‘prove’ the Big Tech companies are disseminating disinformation and censoring conservative views. The Section 230 issue that Trump is obsessing about is brought up.
What Full Measure does not mention is that they are a platform dedicated to promoting news with a conservative bias. A 2018 report from The Guardian gives an example of how their corporate owner — Sinclair Broadcast Group — has their own agenda.
The chairman of Sinclair Broadcast Group met Donald Trump at the White House during a visit to pitch a potentially lucrative new product to administration officials, the Guardian has learned.
David D Smith, whose company has been criticised for making its anchors read a script echoing Trump’s attacks on the media, said he briefed officials last year on a system that would enable authorities to broadcast direct to any American’s phone.
“I just wanted them to be aware of the technology,” Smith said in an interview. He also recalled an earlier meeting with Trump during the 2016 election campaign, where he told the future president: “We are here to deliver your message.”
emphasis added
The problem with the First Amendment is that free speech is not synonymous with truthful speech. As the old saw ruefully notes, “A lie can go halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its boots.” In the digital age, lies move at the speed of light and mutate faster than the coronavirus. They can be dressed up with top-line production values to make them easier to swallow. And they can be good for the bottom line.
Timothy Snyder’s brilliant piece in the New York Times makes the following observation:
Post-truth is pre-fascism, and Trump has been our post-truth president. When we give up on truth, we concede power to those with the wealth and charisma to create spectacle in its place. Without agreement about some basic facts, citizens cannot form the civil society that would allow them to defend themselves. If we lose the institutions that produce facts that are pertinent to us, then we tend to wallow in attractive abstractions and fictions. Truth defends itself particularly poorly when there is not very much of it around, and the era of Trump — like the era of Vladimir Putin in Russia — is one of the decline of local news. Social media is no substitute: It supercharges the mental habits by which we seek emotional stimulation and comfort, which means losing the distinction between what feels true and what actually is true.
This statement, “Truth defends itself particularly poorly when there is not very much of it around, and the era of Trump — like the era of Vladimir Putin in Russia — is one of the decline of local news.” is pertinent to the wikipedia note on Sinclair that: “A 2019 study in the American Political Science Review found that "stations bought by Sinclair reduce coverage of local politics, increase national coverage and move the ideological tone of coverage in a conservative direction relative to other stations operating in the same market."[3][4]”
And let us not forget Stephen Colbert’s “truthiness” — the belief or assertion that a particular statement is true based on the intuition or perceptions of some individual or individuals, without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts.[1][2]Truthiness can range from ignorant assertions of falsehoods to deliberate duplicity or propaganda intended to sway opinions.[3][4]
Conservatives are masters at playing the victim card. This particular ‘report’ is a response to all of the platforms that have ‘cancel cultured’ Trump’s accounts. Trump’s entire presidency has been built on lies. Wednesday those lies resulted in a failed coup against American democracy, five dead, a national trauma — and celebration by those who are invested in the lies.
Here’s the Full Measure take on what happened going into the election:
If Big Tech developed a heavy hand after Trump’s election, it became a sledgehammer the final weeks of the 2020 campaign. Twitter labeled and censored many of President Trump’s tweets. It censored a New York Post expose on Joe Biden’s son. And post-election, YouTube banned videos disputing Biden’s victory. Facebook’s Zuckerberg, Google’s Pichai and Twitter’s Jack Dorsey declined our interview requests.
In testimony to Congress, they vigorously defended their practices, saying they’ve responded to calls to stop dangerous misinformation and fake news.
If anywhere in this report you can find Full Measure admitting that Trump and others WERE spreading dangerous misinformation and fake news, that would be newsworthy all by itself.
You can see the video and the transcripts here for Part 1 and Part 2. While Atkisson may be addressing a serious concern — how Big Tech controls the flow of information — she and the rest of the Neo-Fascists and QAnon cultists are the last ones who should be trusted to come up with answers.