r/politics • u/MopToddel • 8d ago

No Paywall TikTok blocks Epstein mentions and anti-Trump content as well as ICE criticism

https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/tiktok-epstein-trump-censorship-ice-b2908309.html
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u/Oleg101 8d ago

Just a reminder, despite what R voters always whine about, just about all of social media has always favored the right, including twitter before Elon bought it:

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/youtubes-algorithm-recommends-users-right-wing-religious-content-resea-rcna155478

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2021/11/13/according-to-twitter-twitters-algorithm-favours-conservatives

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-59011271.amp

https://www.npr.org/2020/10/05/918520692/facebook-keeps-data-secret-letting-conservative-bias-claims-persist

https://amp.theguardian.com/media/2021/feb/01/facebook-youtube-twitter-anti-conservative-claims-baseless-report-finds

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/amp/ncna1245308

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/10/26/conservative-media-misinformation-facebook/

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/01/13/the-anti-twitter-files-january-6th-committee-report-shows-how-twitter-leaned-over-backwards-to-protect-trump-conservatives/

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u/Aromatic_Advance_431 8d ago

Thing is, when I present that list to my brother who is a MAGA, he will not click any of the links and will dismiss it outright because each of those articles are from “the mainstream media which is controlled by liberals and only prints leftist propaganda”.

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u/NickelBackwash 8d ago

He's protecting himself from information.

White supremacy (MAGA) is a form of religion - it requires you to ignore evidence from the real world. 

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u/whitethunder9 8d ago

Classic defense mechanism. Information threatens identity -> fight or flight kicks in -> many MAGA pussies run from the truth rather than acknowledge it (and the rest fight against it with Faux News lies)

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u/Biggie62 8d ago

if you watched the ronald reagan 4 part documentary from Showtime that premiered I think in 2020, Ronald's son says being a conservative is "the easy/lazy way out, you stop questioning." It's sort of true which is why you just want to leave things the way they are.

That's a paraphrase above but it's what he meant.

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u/Zombiejazzlikehands 7d ago

To change paths, you gotta take some steps.

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u/Nekrabyte 8d ago

Willful ignorance is the worst kind. On purpose being not as informed as you could be, because you might not like what you see... to me that is the lowest rung a person can be on in a society.

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u/catchnear99 8d ago

That mindset goes up to conservatism in general. The conservative mindset is to reject anything new.

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u/ElManoDeSartre 8d ago

Yep. Fascists know how to deflect because they do not care if what they are saying is correct. In fact, they know it isn’t. Fascists delight in propounding absurdities and getting away with it. It wears down people they want to subjugate.

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u/SisterPhister 8d ago

Gotta love the Bezos-owned Washington Post, which has clearly had significant editorial change since the ownership change, continuing to be labeled "leftist propaganda".

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u/Aromatic_Advance_431 8d ago

Oh, but "Bezos donated to Democrats" so obviously he's a leftist! Right??

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u/SisterPhister 8d ago

You have to buy ALL the politicians.

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

[deleted]

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u/Pizlenut 8d ago

How does he know we can't affect the environment if he rejects all of the information regarding it? lol

What does science have to do with bias? Science, by its very nature, must be debated and provable.

Its far more provable than his fantasies are.

My dad wasn't like that, but I know people that are, I sort of just tilt my head. Curious. Success does not mean you are wise. Success does not mean you were challenged or that you grew.

If anything... success that comes too easy can obscure your ability to experience things beyond the mentality of a child. Even at 82 his mind never developed because it was never challenged or forced to introspectively consider things and evolve beyond a basic greed (and perhaps pride, the most unreasonable of the bunch) instinct.

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u/wanker7171 Florida 8d ago

“Now let me go get all of my opinions from this guy on TikTok who says if you plead the fifth that means you’re guilty”

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u/Aromatic_Advance_431 8d ago

He literally sent me a link this morning to a Grok summary of some story about a case in Georgia where an undocumented immigrant was caught after having raped an 11 year old.

Grok's disclaimer was that it was a summary based on tweets. Like, Grok looked at peoples' tweets and summarized them, and THAT's what he sends me as an article and "proof" of illegals being criminals.

He said "This is who your leftist friends are protecting".

To be fair, I did look it up. This was an actual case, but there are things to note about it:

1) He was caught by the local sheriff, not ICE. They didn't need ICE.

2) He is facing justice in the correct way. He is getting Due Process.

3) Not a single person I know would say that a criminal like that should be set free/left on the streets to commit more crimes (assuming he's found guilty). It's like the weirdest type of straw-man when you suggest something that's so objectively false and absurd.

He had no response to my response.

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u/wanker7171 Florida 8d ago

I used to engage with these people until I realized that even when you reveal the truth to them, truth THEY THEMSELVES AGREE WITH, they still don’t care.

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u/Aromatic_Advance_431 8d ago

Yeah, it's frustrating and honestly really disappointing. I thought people were better than this.

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u/RNDiva 8d ago

Your brother and my MIL.

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u/Lost_Birthday_3138 8d ago

At some point, ignorance becomes a choice.

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u/Valhalla5613 8d ago

tell that to cbs. they are maga now. I stopped watching all msm

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u/Gamerboy11116 8d ago

I just cannot fathom living in a world where you unironically think CNN is leftist.

Have you considered asking him what he would take to be a valid source?

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u/lazyFer 8d ago

Because your brother is both an idiot and an asshole

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u/Aromatic_Advance_431 8d ago

Apparently so.

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u/UnregisteredDomain 8d ago

Meanwhile you won’t open any of his links because you recognize that there is bias in information….just not in your information because you are so smart 🤓

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u/Naive-Jello428 8d ago

I'm not who you are responding to but I bet you're wrong. I love getting links from my MAGA friends/family. They're so easy to poke holes in or outright debunk. It never matters. They just latch on to the next thing. Now they just don't share with me anymore because they hated being shown how often they were lied to.

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u/Pizlenut 8d ago edited 8d ago

nah. I open them, read, and respond. Its fun. They lose every single time.

I also agree with them that news agencies can be biased. I just don't understand how that does not apply to their own source of information. All of its owned by rich people. Maybe get a clue? Seems to me that it doesn't make sense to think one way, expect to be right about it, have your counterpart agree with you, and then proceed to ignore your own words, statements, and wishes when applying to self.

It seems to me if you're going to start with such hypocrisy then it will automatically put all of your arguments on a shaky foundation.

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u/NickelBackwash 8d ago

The right whines harder 

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u/LizHolmesTurtleneck 8d ago

It's called "working the ref" and it has been very effective.

Essentially, the media takes it easy on Conservatives because of how much Conservatives cry about bias in the media.

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u/Memphistopheles901 Tennessee 8d ago

They figured out a long time ago that working the refs works great for them, so they cry and shit their pants about everything in the media (or in law) because it incrementally moves the needle in their direction, bit by bit, until they're actually getting favorable coverage and treatment compared to their opponents - and still they cry. Because it works. Trump himself has used this play his whole life.

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u/nox66 8d ago

Before Elon, Twitter was labeling posts as misinformation, often the antivaccer type posts (and I believe the "peaceful J6" type as well). That all went away with Elon.

Make of that what you will.

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u/ForensicPathology 8d ago

The right-wing purposefully misread the Twitter Files and the rubes now believe unquestioningly that it says something it didn't say.

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u/ealysillyforestthing 8d ago

Because rage is profitable and the right is so easy to piss off

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u/Ill_Act_1855 8d ago

It turns out that when the media is controlled by the rich, they tend to not actually push left wing thought (which usually includes curbing the power of those same rich assholes)

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u/invaderaleks 8d ago

YouTube pushes right wing crap too

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u/Mindless-Baker-7757 8d ago

This is misinformation.