LauraLeeAZ21
Dave JohnsonOne way to understand Musk's takeover of Twitter is ask how many OTHER media outlets are now owned by right-wing billionaires.
THEN you start to see what's happening.
Laffy@dcjohnson I should just dedicate an account to boosting you and @emptywheel
Jane Shull@dcjohnson Rightwing billionaires and wannabe billionaires are big into control, sacrificing adventure, learning, expanding their horizons. How f*g dull!!
PoeticLicenseDK@dcjohnson 🛎🛎🛎🎯
Exactly the right point. #DingDong is the personification of monopoly media ownership.
Exactly the right point. #DingDong is the personification of monopoly media ownership.
Rev. GothAlice@dcjohnson Control the discourse and you control the populace.
I don't often don the foil hat; but when I do…
Denver Lake@dcjohnson Bloomberg Hearst , Murdoch.. it’s not new, but there are more billionaires and Media Sites as well… it’s very difficult to deliver news without involving capitalism or a particular slant. Writers, advertisers and publishers are always gonna be guilty of this. Or at least accused of being slanted.
Peter Principle@Denver @dcjohnson It's an extension of an underlying problem: failure of classical market theory.
Markets (including media markets) are SUPPOSED to be self-regulating as competition curbs market power. But in reality they tend towards oligopoly, if not monopoly.
New tech - like social media - can shake things up for a bit, but eventually oligopoly wins out.
And the most aggressive media oligopolists now either lean fascist (Murdoch, Elon) or are willing to cooperate with them (Zuckerberg).
Mike@dcjohnson Musk is just the most visible.
Joel@dcjohnson @mikee442 right. And the dark money funders like Koch, Federalist assholes et al are just as bad. They must be very thankful for Musk taking all this attn.
Shelby Wynne@dcjohnson It's all strategic and yet so disturbing.
Terry the Fat Shark 🦈@dcjohnson The fascist mind virus needs to be stopped 💉🦠
TyrannocasterQuibbling point, but there are no left-wing billionaires. The posession of that much money makes it impossible since you have to hire people to handle it for you. More importantly, it reduces your empathy to a pinhead:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-wealth-reduces-compassion/
Zuri@Tyrannocaster @dcjohnson Also every interaction they have there's an unhealthy power differential and it means they have no friends, no therapists, and no help they're living their lives with only other billionaires (people who need a billion dollars to validate themselves) on even footing with them.
Miragee
Yes, I thought of her b4 posting that. But afaic, the jury's still out on her. I think that the unique circumstances of her acquisition of that money make everything, including her motives, kind of murky. I would like to think well of her, but you know the old saying "the exception that proves the rule" really means "that proofs [tests] the rule".
"Forbes reported, 'the unrestricted and ultimately more trusting nature of Scott's philanthropy is the exception, not the norm in their world.'"
author_is_ShrikeTron🔠💉x5@dcjohnson @GottaLaff Just look at when an Autocrat takes over a Democratic State: Cultural Revolution, Hong Kong, Afghanistan, Florida, etc.
@ShrikeTron @dcjohnson @GottaLaff
Pretty sure none of the above -- including Florida -- counted as a small-d "democratic state" before the takeover.
John CarlsenUS media ownership by the billionaire class is probably worse than many think.
Harvard has a neat study, but keep scrolling to see more parts of each big fish.
https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/futureofmedia/index-us-mainstream-media-ownership
Index of US Mainstream Media Ownership
Our goal is to provide radical transparency and a better grasp of the U.S. Mainstream Media by listing publishers (owners, majority voting shareholders, and donors of titles) considered major US daily news sources. We have time-stamped this index – May 11, 2021. To give the index structure, we have chosen to use third-party tracking of monthly views, unless reported at the source. In the case of cable TV, we combined daily prime-time audiences with monthly views. Our ranking of traffic is by no means a perfect science. Our focus was on ownership.
MillyMac@dcjohnson
That ... and the little man's inability to think for himself. It's terrifying 😱
That ... and the little man's inability to think for himself. It's terrifying 😱
Don@dcjohnson The right has always claimed a liberal bias in the media. It looks like that’s no longer the case. We need to label these outlets as right wing propaganda tools.
Richard McClurg@Pomba @dcjohnson Ironically, it has been right-leaning wealthy families that have historically owned major media properties, yet the “the media leans left” argument still persists.
midwesterner 🦬@rmcclurg @Pomba @dcjohnson Well, from those families' perspectives that's probably true 😉 But not for the rest of us.
Statmonkey 🙊@dcjohnson Well most of us have seen it since it started as so well explained here https://hartmannreport.com/p/what-the-final-stage-of-reaganism?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email No matter what we need to make substantive changes now before we completely lose independent journalism.
DinCA 🏳️🌈 🎾 🐶 🖖🥄@dcjohnson They want to control the narrative. What we need to do: 
R.E. Fractalbean@dcjohnson Yeah, well, media platforms being infested by the 1% is not a new thing. It's just that they are rarely as clumsy and messy about it as Musk has been. Taking over a social media platform is not as useful if you run it into the ground on year one.
Peter Brown@dcjohnson
Also have to remember these elements in society have a fair degree of power over the political processes at all levels of government. Hence , we see regulations legislated that assist them greatly to dominate market share. They also push hard with severe criticism against public broadcasting. Our experience with Murdoch in particular in Australia. They have crafted the media landscape to suit their interests. They are not even citizens anymore in spite of this power.
Also have to remember these elements in society have a fair degree of power over the political processes at all levels of government. Hence , we see regulations legislated that assist them greatly to dominate market share. They also push hard with severe criticism against public broadcasting. Our experience with Murdoch in particular in Australia. They have crafted the media landscape to suit their interests. They are not even citizens anymore in spite of this power.
rmabennett@dcjohnson past tense, happened, while everyone was watching. Hopefully, its eyes wide open now
LPS@dcjohnson they were running out of influence machines to buy;)
Basisforbart🎄👽🎄@dcjohnson I noticed this when they started buying local newspapers and then bleeding them dry. If you control the information, you control the narrative.
CosmicJellyfish@dcjohnson And these same fuckers whine "LIBERAL BIAS!" about everything.
Aseko@dcjohnson
The ultraright believe that by controlling the media, they'll be able to manipulate the elections in 2024 and beyond, via Trumpism.
The ultraright believe that by controlling the media, they'll be able to manipulate the elections in 2024 and beyond, via Trumpism.
Mike 🍁
@dcjohnson Are there many left-wing billionaires?
@ravensview George Soros donates a lot to organizations that promote democracy.
I guess that's the definition of left-wing. It certainly is to the right.
Dwight Williams (💉 x9)+😷🇨🇦@dcjohnson In #Canada, we look at #ChathamAssetManagement and their control of the #Postmedia newspapers for starters. Other bad actors in play here too.
Tony “Abolish ICE” Arcieri🌹🦀@dcjohnson remember when Rupert Murdoch bought MySpace? And then MySpace began a tailspin into obscurity
@bascule I also remember that Murdoch hired a bunch of specialists in Social Network Analysis after buying Myspace.
Joy Denebeim@dcjohnson which makes Macedon succeeding so much more important. It's the best way to fight this. Because it doesn't take money. In fact, it's the opposite of taking money
mechtild jdCNN's new righty owner has ruined #CNN on the one day at a time plan.
That Republican who was part of the Bush administration in his blah blah blah about today's Jan 6th Committee criminal referral of Trump, slipped in "the crimes committed by the President", referring to Biden. Quickly continued his blah blah blah. Whoever was the host did not call him on it. Let him get away with this Fox news style lie/propaganda.