CNN tracks down random reddit meme poster and threatens to release his information

marcus001 wrote: »

False. What is "horizontal application"?

perhaps you should read it before posting.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

marcus001 wrote: »

False. What is "horizontal application"?



Maybe that's because you haven't studied American constitutional law.

clearly you havent even read the thing.

wes wrote: »

As pointed out above, the first amendment is pretty clear.....

If the law was as simple as reading words on a page there would be no need for lawyers.

A lot of people seem to equate 'freedom of speech' with 'freedom of speech without consequences'.

Which doesn't exist.

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

This is not about right vs left, it's about corporatism vs populism.

It's concerning that CNN is considered 'left wing' in the US and just plain stupid for people in Ireland to describe it as such.

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

so we agree he is a racist then?

seamus wrote: »

Well I fairly disagree on that one.

No-one has a right to put whatever they want on the Internet and have their identity protected.

I wouldn't say people have the right to anonymity. But the ramifications for a normal person being trust into the Trump/Media war would be huge. If it turned out he was an active racist in the real world and people really suffered from his actions I'd say there's reason to oust him. But just for saying nasty things, not so much.

I always worked under the assumption that people like this guy were the price we pay for free speech. What scares me about ousting a nobody like him and holding him up to ridicule for being obnoxious is that it will take one step further the next time and eventually we end up with a comic like Louis CK, who says a lot of racist things in a constructive way, being muzzled.

The problem with the average opinion of these kind of people is they're anger is based on something real, it's just overblown and polarised. I couldn't say for sure how real his racism is based on internet postings. He could only sort of believe it but pushes it for attention thinking there are no consequences to saying these things to those people. People can build an online persona that's nothing like them in the same way a teenager acts differently to fit in with the cool kids.

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

They're not even 'the left' in the US, as Hatrickpatrick pointed out they're corporatist and that's a kind description in my estimation. CNN weighed in behind the warmonger and bought-and-paid-for Hillary Clinton.

They're not "the left" but they admit appealing to a leftist audience in a video which was posted earlier. Leftist in this context being the liberal progressive de facto coalition.

marcus001 wrote: »

They're not "the left" but they admit appealing to a leftist audience in a video which was posted earlier. Leftist in this context being the liberal progressive de facto coalition.

To explain this, what America calls "the left" we in Ireland would call centrist or even centre-right. Clinton's ideology and the ideology being pushed by the establishment DNC is not a million miles from FG policy - although it is in fact further right than that. What we in Ireland call "the left", in America they describe as "far left" or derogatorily as "communist", which is what Bernie Sanders, who would be centre-left by EU standards and certainly by Irish standards, was routinely smeared with. The "mid-point", or overton window, in America is very far to the right by international standards, which is why even moderate social democratic ideals are routinely smeared as "communist" by the Republicans.

CNN is most certainly not left wing, nor is it right wing. It supports the centre-right corporatism of the Democratic Party establishment. I would imagine that it would also have been very friendly towards a Jeb Bush presidency, which would probably have been the closest thing after a Clinton presidency to the sort of crony-capitalist agenda CNN does such a poor job at hiding from the public.

We are absolutely blessed in Ireland to have the BAI and ruled demanding absolute impartiality by the media. Remember a couple of years ago when everyone was b!tching about the Iona Institute and their compatriots being legally entitled to equal airtime on the Gay Marriage issue? I may even have been part of that myself. I certainly didn't fully appreciate, until taking such an interest in the US election from 2015 to 2016, how sh!tty it would be to have a media not legally bound to be unbiased. Our system might allow radicals and downright nutjobs to spout their BS on national television, but the alternative is that we would only hear what the media wants us to hear.

Fine Gael members attacked RTE last year, for giving too much coverage to the water charges protests the year before - a thinly veiled implication that the media should not facilitate anti-establishment activists in getting their message heard. This, to me at least, was an appalling thing to read coming from members of the ruling party.

It's in the context of all this that I am attacking CNN for what they have done here. I couldn't give a rat's bollocks about the meme guy, but America's current situation with regard to the non-existent impartial news media is truly terrifying.

Jelle1880 wrote: »

A lot of people seem to equate 'freedom of speech' with 'freedom of speech without consequences'.

Which doesn't exist.

I don't think anyone believes that it currently exists as a legal concept, just many who believe that it should exist and that it's still ok to regard a company as scummy for not respecting it. I'd argue that it goes against the spirit of free speech if someone's life can be ruined by third parties because of what they've said.

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

America's current situation with regard to the non-existent impartial news media is truly terrifying.

We have it here and in Britain too to a lesser extent - I think impartiality is nigh on impossible more of an ideal.

The British press universally shat itself trying to prevent Corbyn/LAB getting anywhere and the so-called 'looney-leftist' Guardian was complicit.

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

We have it here and in Britain too to a lesser extent - I think impartiality is nigh on impossible more of an ideal.

The British press universally shat itself trying to prevent Corbyn/LAB getting anywhere and the so-called 'looney-leftist' Guardian was complicit.

Media personalities can have subtle biases in Ireland but the BAI has been known to come down incredibly hard on presenters who display obvious bias. The Guardian is one of the worst examples of partisan media in my view, and I say that as somebody who used to admire them. They now, along with the Huffington Post, seem to churn out pages upon pages of articles attacking anyone who has one or more of the characteristics "straight", "white", or "male" for starters. I could be wrong here, but wasn't it the Guardian who coined the term "Bernie Bros" to dismiss Sanders' supporters on the basis of gender?

In Ireland, the BAI only applies to TV and Radio, not print media, but it does ensure that you can't hold a TV debate and be openly hostile to a particular ideology. Compare this with CNN, slipping Hillary Clinton the debate questions ahead of time. In fact, you can go further than this - the woman who did it is Donna Brazile, who was a high ranking member of the DNC at the time. Now in my view, any media organisation which employs a paid staff member of a political party in any capacity other than a clearly labelled spokesperson for that party, has absolutely no credibility whatsoever. Would you be comfortable, for instance, if RTE employed a high ranking member of Sinn Fein as a reporter or editor?

CNN fired her once Wikileaks exposed her involvement in rigging the debates against Sanders, but they should never have employed her to begin with. These are the kinds of ethical lines I believe CNN crosses which legitimate, broadsheet news outlets should simply never cross to begin with.

You won't have anything to apologise for if you stop engaging in dodgy behaviour...

InTheTrees wrote: »

Sorry but some scummy idiot who goes after CNN and then gets exposed for it deserves little sympathy.

If he feels so hard done by why doesn't he sue them?

It's not about him, it's about the principle. F*ck him as a person, but I don't believe it should be acceptable to retaliate with anything other than words against a person whose speech you disagree with. I'm not alone in this, there are quite a lot of digital libertarians who believe that internet discourse should not have constraints.

This is all a bit irrelevant though. It's not about whether it's ok for him to be silenced, it's specifically about a journalistic outfit engaging in silencing of that kind. Journalistic outfits should not engage in anything other than journalism and commentary. Trying to directly influence events in the world through choosing to release / not release information as a quid pro quo for somebody else doing something as requested is corruption.

I still don't see how this isn't obvious. Is it for a commentator at a football match to demand that the referee or the players behave in a certain way, lest he or she leak information about them? No, that's not a commentator's role. Their job is to observe, not influence, events. The exact same is true of the news media.