Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by kodablah 2958 days ago
What even is this article? There is nothing substantive here. Like many other mainstream tech articles these days, this reeks of mass-media narrative control. I just wonder if it's the clicks that drive these or if there are other actors behind the scenes encouraging the deluge of anti-FB, anti-Goog, anti-Twitter, etc articles. Maybe I'm viewing this too broadly, but I get an icky feeling of intentional furor construction.
3 comments

> the deluge of anti-FB, anti-Goog, anti-Twitter, etc articles. Maybe I'm viewing this too broadly, but I get an icky feeling of intentional furor construction.

Those companies are enabling the criminals. German law defines the users as criminals and it is this pre-internet law that is being upgraded and enforced, because profiting from enabling illegal activity is clearly wrong.

FB employs 1200 people to deal with this... why is that? It isn't their fault that the world has so many fucktards in it, but is their problem when they give a platform to their illegality

furor over the failings of the "city state" that FB are trying to establish. Good

Ok...I mean you see it that way and I don't really agree, but that is unrelated to my comment. Mine is a general comment about the flow of "news" concerning large web companies. It feels like this article was just the next one on the weekend assembly line. I'm not really a fan of manipulation even if I agree w/ the manipulators. Granted, my observations are my own based on the news cycles and my limited empirical evidence leaves my suspicions in the realm of conspiracy theory. Just a comment on the patterns I see.
Could you be a bit more specific about your criticism of the article. I found it interesting. I don't really see how it is anti-FB. It seems to describe the current situation by anecdotes instead of statistics/scientific analysis. I can understand some not liking that style (especially considering information per time), but it seems highly effective at describing issues to most people (probably the thing you call media narrative control). I've got no problem with that.

But your "There is nothing substantive here" is worrying me, since it probably means you'd like more that a somewhat mundane description of the situation without judgment. Did you expect a strong position, probably in favor of US free speech values? It to be a hit piece for or against NetzDG? Strong policy recommendations with big impacts? I don't want that! I like our current society and want marginal fixes for its countless little flaws. But responding to the current hot issue (lets say school shootings) with extremist positions (arm everyone vs take all guns away) seems highly unproductive in improving our lives.

Legacy media is threatened by social media. So they focus on the bad parts and use what power they have remaining to shame and try to shut down social media.

When in reality, I believe, social media has done more to connect people and show them more possible lives than anything in history.

Journalism in its best form is first-hand. Meaning, those images and videos of events you see are most likely coming from an eyewitness on the ground, who happened to be there. Legacy journalism will have to evolve to survive. So far its devolved

It doesn't even mention the actual name of the law.