Början på ett mediakrig om mångkulturen?

That’s always the thing with these scandals. The media big shots always come off as if they have been insulted about their shenanigans being revealed. In this case, the other major media outfits are rallying to defend Der Spiegel. In the dreaded private sector, competitors are always quick to take advantage of the mistakes of a competitor. In the main stream media, the opposite is always true. They circle the wagons and begin lecturing the hoi polloi about the dangers of questioning the media.

That is the real cause of these scandals. For a long time, the mass media in the West has been a mono-culture. You can’t have a career in the media if you don’t hold all the right opinions. To call the media an echo chamber for the left is to understate the problem. The better analogy is a school of fish. Each individual just reacts to those around him, given the effect of the school having agency as a whole. What looks like collusion is just the result of a uniformity of mind, experience and social class.

That’s why no one at Der Spiegel, or anywhere else in the German media, noticed the fraudulence of Claas Relotius. He was writing the things his coevals and superiors said at luncheons, cocktail parties and in the office. His story about slack-jawed yokels in the American heartland ticked all the boxes popular with the left-wing cultural outlook. He was not sent there to report on the place. He was sent there to confirm what his employers already knew about Middle American and Trump voters.

This is why Western media is something worse than propaganda. The person hired by the state or hired by the corporate marketing department has self-awareness. They know their job is to polish the apple of their superiors. The tricks they employ to do that are done with a knowledge and forethought. The guy telling the public that his employer, the pesticide company, is deeply concerned about the environment does so knowing full well that no one believes him, including his family.

The media is a different thing. They really believe their own nonsense. They think they are part of a special class of human, a priestly class that not only reports facts to the public, but provides moral instruction. The mass media is so intoxicated by their own self-righteousness, they lack the ability to question their own actions. When Claas Relotius came back from the bush, reporting exactly what his bosses knew was the case, they had no reason to question it. It was too good to check.

For a long time, the mass media in the West has been a mono-culture. You can’t have a career in the media if you don’t hold all the right opinions. To call the media an echo chamber for the left is to understate the problem. The better analogy is a school of fish. Each individual just reacts to those around him, given the effect of the school having agency as a whole. What looks like collusion is just the result of a uniformity of mind, experience and social class.

[Media] really believe their own nonsense. They think they are part of a special class of human, a priestly class that not only reports facts to the public, but provides moral instruction. The mass media is so intoxicated by their own self-righteousness, they lack the ability to question their own actions.

Svenska myndigheter vänder sig i allt högre utsträckning till Facebook för att få ut information om svenska användare och konton. Det gäller bland annat den svenska polisen.

Antalet förfrågningar från Sverige till Facebook har ökat stadigt år för år.
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– Låt säga att någon skapat ett Facebook-konto kanske i någon annans namn, i allt från att smutskasta den eller att använda den i bedrägligt syfte,

Allt fler anmäls för hets mot folkgrupp på nätet. Antal åtal fördubblats sedan i fjol. Organisationen Näthatsgranskaren ligger bakom mängder av anmälningar.

Trots att hetsen pågår inför öppen ridå är det bara en bråkdel av domarna som kan härledas till utredningar som startats på rättsväsendets initiativ. Bakom anmälningarna står i stället privatpersoner och ideella föreningar som Juridikfronten och Näthatsgranskaren

Vänsterextrema Expo har i år beviljats nästan fyra miljoner kronor i bidrag av bidragsmyndigheten MUCF. Drygt en miljon är öronmärkt för ett projekt som ska utbilda "utredare, åklagare och domare" i att jaga invandringskritiker på nätet.