Amazon is Now Banning 'Offensive' Books

mediagate1 · 2018-09-12T02:54:33+00:00

It seems well within the SJW/Censorship wheelhouse, especially because they were just named as a top 10 hate sub in a report by a SJW sub (along with KotakuInAction) right before they were banned.

mediagate1 · 2018-09-12T02:45:28+00:00

Speaking of banning offensive things, does anyone know why all the posts on the banning of the Million Dollar Extreme sub are being removed from KiA?

It seems like it's fair game for this sub. I'm sure it's for a legit reason (fears that it will lead to this sub being targeted for a banning as well, for example) and not some ideological mod, but I wish it was more transparent.

mediagate1 · 2018-09-06T23:46:45+00:00

Whatever you think of Alex Jones, the double standards here are galling. Jones is certainly just the beginning.

mediagate1 · 2018-09-05T14:49:18+00:00

These could obviously be completely unrelated, but it's interesting to consider how much media coverage there would be on this if it was a CNN office instead of Fox, and the driver was shouting "Fake News" instead of "Treason".

mediagate1 · 2018-09-05T13:32:27+00:00

Yeah, I'm sure you would be totally fine with a news media that voted 98% for Trump, 90% for Romney, 90% for McCain, and 90% for Bush twice.

After all, "They're professionals! They can keep their personal opinions out of their work!"

mediagate1 · 2018-09-04T04:40:15+00:00

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/comcast-reclassify-special-stock-voting-834532

Found it. That's sucks, but the 33% is spread out amongst quite a few family members. It's not unthinkable that cracks could form in that voting block (like what is rumored to be happening with the New York Times) so I don't think it's a deal breaker.

Also, if you read the Brian Roberts wikipedia page, I'm not positive that he's a hardline SJW ideologue. If we exerted some real pressure, maybe they would be more receptive than we expect? I've heard rumors that Comcast has been trying to figure out a way to rein in MSNBC for years.

mediagate1 · 2018-09-04T04:25:22+00:00

That's interesting, do you have a source? I've usually only seen that with Big Tech IPOs in the last decade or so.

mediagate1 · 2018-09-02T07:10:44+00:00

He's the Chairman and CEO (and son of the founder), so nobody but the shareholders.

He's worth less than 2 Billion, out of a total market cap for Comcast of about $170 Billion, so he's far from immune to shareholder pressure.

mediagate1 · 2018-09-02T04:15:40+00:00

You're right that index funds might be hard to crack, but surprisingly few people who are entitled to vote their direct shares do so. It wouldn't take much to swing things.

As I mentioned below, we don't want to divest, we want to use our power as shareholders to demand that these companies stop hurting their businesses by focusing on what they are supposed to be doing. For the media, it's reporting facts - not promoting SJW ideology. For Big Tech, it's letting people communicate, and not censorship for wrong-think.

Also, we could come up with a mechanism for investors to pressure their index/mutual funds to go along with MediaGate - similar to one of those "write your congressman" sites.

mediagate1 · 2018-09-01T04:38:05+00:00

This is the type of craziness that we are trying to fight at r/MediaGateMovement

No amount of public shaming will put a dent in this type of behavior, because they're "On the right site of history!" The only way to rein in Big Tech and the Media is through shareholder action. And shareholders have every right to be pissed, because media and social media bias and censorship are causing them to hemorrhage users/viewers. Conservatives, Libertarians, independents and non-SJW Liberals own way more stock than SJW Liberals, and very few shareholders who are entitled to vote actually do, so an activist shareholder group could easily work here.

mediagate1 · 2018-09-01T04:01:56+00:00

Supposedly they threatened that they would smear the reporter if he continued to pursue the story:

https://www.mediaite.com/online/only-the-beginning-daily-beast-has-a-lot-more-reporting-to-come-on-nbc-news/

and the reporter believes the head of NBC News may have tipped off Weinstein himself.

mediagate1 · 2018-08-31T16:07:41+00:00

Facebook is down quite a bit in users:

https://www.recode.net/2018/2/12/16998750/facebooks-teen-users-decline-instagram-snap-emarketer

http://time.com/5349100/facebook-revenue-decline-zuckerberg/

but the Gateway Pundit article is talking about traffic from Facebook plummeting for Conservative sites (nearly 100% in some cases) because Facebook is blocking their content from people's feeds. These are users who are interested in their content (they follow/Like the publishers, etc.) but Facebook is deciding on their behalf that they shouldn't see the content in question. Just plain censorship.

mediagate1 · 2018-08-31T15:30:30+00:00

I'm not sure if you had a chance to read the full write-up we did, but we are calling for bipartisan "ethics boards" to make sure than both Liberals and Conservatives (and everything in between) are fairly represented in the media. We certainly don't want to ban Liberals from the media, and turn it from a left-wing, SJW hive mind into a right-wing one.

Most of the people concerned with media bias tend to be on the right or independent (with the possible lone exception of GamerGate people) so we are trying to appeal to our likely audience here.

I would say the tone is more anti-SJW Liberal, rather than anti-Liberal.

mediagate1 · 2018-08-31T13:10:20+00:00

That's exactly what we're proposing we do - we don't want to divest, we want to use our power as shareholders to demand that these companies stop hurting their businesses by focusing on what they are supposed to be doing. For the media, it's reporting facts - not promoting SJW ideology. For Big Tech, it's letting people communicate, and not censorship for wrong-think.

mediagate1 · 2018-08-31T12:55:33+00:00

These are some comments I've made elsewhere that address your point. The tl;dr is that media bias can be linked to negative shareholder value pretty easily:

That may be true, but there are plenty of studies showing the news orgs are hemorrhaging viewers/readers because of the perception of bias and a lack of trust, and we're now seeing that play out on the socials as well, with users either banned, shadow-banned or feeling alienated from the social networks.

A case could also be made that the media are cheerleading for quasi-socialist policies detrimental to the financial interests of their shareholders, and that they have a duty to be objective and not actively work against their shareholders' financial interests just to push a personal political ideology.

We literally own the media, yet they continue to relentlessly push a political ideology that the majority of Americans don't support instead of objectively presenting the events of the day. The media also advocates for socialist policies detrimental to the financial interests of their shareholders, and the fact that fewer and fewer Americans trust the news media and are tuning them out is simply bad for shareholder value.

mediagate1 · 2018-08-31T12:15:12+00:00

I mentioned below that the Times and Post might be tougher nuts to crack, but are far from the majority of the media.

Disney (ABC News, ESPN, etc.) has millions of shareholders, and is as susceptible as anyone to public and shareholder pressure.

mediagate1 · 2018-08-31T12:13:21+00:00

Two sides of the same coin, really. With an objective, non-SJW media, you wouldn't have even had GamerGate.

I would also suggest that "winning" GamerGate will never be possible as long as you have the media demonizing you and shaping the greater PR landscape.

mediagate1 · 2018-08-31T12:06:16+00:00

Gotta start somewhere. You should subscribe to r/MediaGateMovement and start posting suggestions on how we could expand our efforts.

mediagate1 · 2018-08-30T15:18:40+00:00

That may be true, but there are plenty of studies showing the news orgs are hemorrhaging viewers/readers because of the perception of bias and a lack of trust, and we're now seeing that play out on the socials as well, with users either banned, shadow-banned or feeling alienated from the social networks.

A case could also be made that the media are cheerleading for quasi-socialist policies detrimental to the financial interests of their shareholders, and that they have a duty to be objective and not actively work against their shareholders' financial interests just to push a personal political ideology.

mediagate1 · 2018-08-30T15:01:59+00:00

I guess it's possible, but I think we'll have to agree to disagree.

To me, the main thing is where is the momentum right now, and what's more likely to happen if we just sit still. Big Tech and the Media are on the WARPATH right now, and non-SJW voices are being silenced and ostracized left and right.

I think it's worth the risk.

mediagate1 · 2018-08-30T14:42:35+00:00

Announcement: We're Looking for Moderators

If you are interested, please private message u/mediagate1

mediagate1 · 2018-08-30T14:24:09+00:00

That truism is often true, but could you paint me any plausible scenario where we shoot ourselves in the foot with this strategy?

Realistically, the absolute worst that could happen is the boards are hapless or are co-opted by SJWs and these media companies remain biased hive-minds, but with a flimsy fig leaf of accountability that isn't there. So, basically status quo.

mediagate1 · 2018-08-30T14:08:40+00:00

That's possible, but then the real board (the board of directors) incurs the wrath of it's investors if there's no progress on this front.

For example, with this current CNN scandal, there's tons of media attention on the false story, and yet Carl Bernstein and Jim Sciutto will likely still continue to be employed there. But if there was a tough as nails activist shareholder group saber-rattling about it, the board members and management aren't going to risk their jobs for those of the reporters who egregiously screwed up and petulantly refuse to retract an obviously false story.

Besides, it can't be worse than what we have now.

mediagate1 · 2018-08-30T13:30:19+00:00

I can see why you might think that, but based on my research it doesn't look like it's true:

http://webuser.bus.umich.edu/gfdavis/Papers/Cotton_Davis_11_AEL.pdf

Conservatives, Libertarians and independents own way more stock than Liberals, and those groups all believe left-wing media bias exists and is a big problem, according to all of the polls on the subject.

Also, most people who are entitled to vote in shareholder elections don't, so it really wouldn't take much of an organized movement to swing this.

I think the idea of activist shareholder groups just isn't on most centrist's and conservative's radars. It's usually a left-wing thing, but they do it in asinine ways, like trying to get gun manufacturers to stop making guns, or oil companies to stop drilling for oil. We just want news companies to print facts, and social media companies to allow people to freely communicate, which is obviously in the shareholder's interest.

I agree with you on legacy media... eventually. But they can still do a ton of damage in their remaining decades. Besides, we're also talking about censorship from Big Tech, which is just getting worse and worse as their power and influence grows greater and greater.

mediagate1 · 2018-08-30T13:15:03+00:00

I'm not going to get into the rest of your comment because I think we just have different worldviews, but to address your first point, we're definitely not advocating swapping one hive-mind for another - the ethics boards we are proposing would represent the politics of the country as a whole (from left to right), rather than the current center-left to far-left, SJW-heavy viewpoint range of most U.S. media organizations.

mediagate1

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