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by heyn05tradamu5 1717 days ago
Wikipedia doesn’t allow for The Grayzone to be used as citations because it’s pro-authoritarian propaganda that launders the worst takes from dictators around the world. You’ve got Syrian regime apologism, Uyghur genocode denialism, and rampant conspiracism. You can package that up as “anti-war” if you want, but I think pro-authoritarian is more accurate.
2 comments

Mint Press News is similarly a deprecated source, for the same sort of reasons. The present article should be read in the light of that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Not...

There's a whole list of "Daily Mail and worse" at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deprecated_sources

This deprecated sources list is an excellent resource. I couldn’t find a similar one on the Portuguese language site. Are there such lists for non English sources?
Every language edition of Wikipedia has their own rules and processes. The Portuguese version appears to have a place to discuss the sources for specific articles, but no blanket list of deprecated sources: https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Fontes_confi%C3...
It's incredible how scant the reasoning given for blacklisting MPN on your link is.

It's all "cesspool" this and "conspiracy non main-stream" that, with fuck-all actual evidence.

expand the "extended discussion" sections for lengthy detailed cites
I don't see an 'extended discussion' section for MPN... There's one for "LifeSiteNews" below it though; are you sure that's not what you're referring to?
Haha. I wonder, what is your preferred anti-war media source?
I reject the framing of The Gray Zone as anti-war. Anti-US imperialism sure, but not anti-war. They have no problem minimizing the suffering of millions at the hands of some of the most brutal regimes on the planet. Calling them anti-war is like calling Alex Jones a scientist.
Their articles are generally really well researched and they actually call for an end to all war in Syria. Thy're consistently anti-war.
They are against the west and the USA waging war. They are not against the Taliban, the Syrian government, Russia (in Eastern Ukraine and other places) waging war. Russia is heavily involved in Syria supplying and supporting the Syrian government, but gets zero criticism for it. They're silent on the conflict in Ethiopia because the west and the US aren't really involved. Go and check, there's a full on conflict with massacres and military intervention from Eritrea, and not a single article on The Grey Zone, they're just not intersted.

On the conflict in Yemen all of their articles are only about criticising or highlighting any US involvement. Iran is up to their eyeballs in it supplying and supporting the Houthis but they never get criticised, just the US. It's the only angle they cover. China is recklessly provoking Taiwan militarily, not a single comment against it. Only criticism of any and every US contact or relationship with Taiwan.

They have a very specific anti-West, anti-US agenda they pursue relentlessly and exclusively, completely regardless of the context.

It looks as if they’re consistently anti-US: not a single word against China, but each shady remark that casts some doubt on US policy gets the floor.
They are certainly left or hard-left and are very critical of US, NATO, and Israel. If they view themselves as activist-journalists, it seems a logical choice to focus their criticism on the US, where (in theory) they have some chance of moving policy through public opinion.

There is approximately zero chance of their reporting swaying Xi, Putin, or Assad. US adversaries get plenty of unfavorable reporting in more mainstream channels.

They're a political pressure group. That's not necessarily a criticism, they can publish whatever they like, but they aren't anti war, and they aren't against a lot of things they report on. They're only against them and only report on them when their political enemies, the US and the west generally do them regardless of context or provocation or any broader circumstances. Outside that, they don't give a crap what anyone does. Pretending otherwise is I'm afraid rather naive. To be fair, they say so quite clearly, check out the editor's profile page on the site itself.
I would prefer an "anti-war" site without a track record of making shit up. That's why Gray Zone is deprecated on Wikipedia, for example. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Not...
It's funny how this level of scrutinization only applies to journalists who are critical of US/NATO foreign policy of neocolonialism and US empire expansionism & hegemony, but never to organizations like BBC, CNN, NYT who have been exposed to churn out some of the biggest lies, especially against US propaganda targets.
It's a remarkably consistent phenomenon, on WP and elsewhere. This page [0] goes some way to showing just how deeply biased Wikipedia has acted against Grayzone and others like it:

[0] https://mronline.org/2020/06/15/wikipedia-formally-censors-t...