Ah, the news. It used to be so simple. There was just TV, radio and newspapers. It was all regulated by the government. And it had to be fair, unbiased, and truthful.
So, what happened?
Well, let’s roll back to those times-of-old, and see how things have changed…
Back in the days of newspapers, the newspaper companies would get their money from people buying their actual papers (duh, really?). So, to sell papers, they would have to make content that people wanted to buy. Now, there were laws in place so you couldn’t just make shi up and call it news.
Usually reporters would seek to reveal information that would affect or at least interest its readers. Often that would be revealing scandals or info about corruption at the highest levels of government, or large corporations etc. Oh and tits, page 3. You must have tits to soothe the anger from reading about all those bad people.
Fast forward to today. Now, people use the internet, and they don’t pay for visiting the ‘news’ sites. Ok.
But, wait a minute!… how can those news sites run on thin air? They must have customers or they can’t run. So who is the customer? Why, they get their money from advertising of course. Ah ok, makes sense. So everythings just the same as before then right? Well, not quite.
Let’s imagine for a minute there was a town, and in that town there was a town crier. Every day, the town crier would ring a bell and shout the news to everyone. Useful service. But then lets imagine the TC was very poor, so poor he didnt have enough money to eat. He was in danger of dying it was so bad.
Then someone came along. A very kind man. Lets call him Mr Bigcorp. Mr Bigcorp was kind, and he gave money to the town crier every day, the town crier was so grateful that he could eat again. Then one day, the town crier heard about some corruption that Mr Bigcorp was involved in that was affecting everyone in the town. Everyone was suffering because of this activity of Mr Bigcorp and his friends. Oh no! As the town crier arived for work the next day and lifted his bell, about to tell everyone the important news, he stopped. “Hmm, hang on”, he said to himself. If I tell everyone then Mr Bigcorp will be angry and will stop giving me money. Should I do this? What do you think he did.. lets have a look at the options…
Would he:
a. tell everyone the news, then go back to starving?
b. not mention it and continue collecting the money
Well, I think we all know the answer. It doesn’t mean the town crier is bad. Well he kind of is, as he’s pretending to be unbiased while being biased. What I mean is he’s not evil, it’s just self preservation on his part, albeit at the peoples expense. You see, they think they’re getting the news but they’re not.
And the moral of this story is that all mainstream media companies out there who rely on advertising revenue (which is basically all of them), are heavily biased to push the preferred narrative of their advertisers.
So, next time you are getting your “news” from mainstream media outlets, just consider who is pulling their strings. Oh and if you want to find out which of these so called ‘unbiased’ news outlets are dependent on advertising (hint: they all are!), just try installing an adblocker on your browser and visit those sites. See how far you get before a message comes up blocking you or at least complaining. Then think again if you are getting the real ‘news’!
But, but… “I get my news from Facebook” I hear you say. And they’re not biased. No, they’re not biased of course.
Ha ha, just kidding! what’s this… oh it’s a bunch of advertisers who got together to boycott Facebook in 2020. “Stop hate for profit” they said. To cut a long story short, those companies were sooo concerned about stories people (you) were posting on Facebook, that they told Facebook unless they censored stories they didn’t like, they would withdraw advertising! You see, those big companies have just got your best interests at heart. They stay awake at night in total angst, thinking how they can make the world a better place, didn’t you know that?
Ho ho, back to reality now. That boycott was basically a reminder to Zuckerberg of who pulls Facebooks’ strings, and a reminder that advertising money can and will be taken away unless he does as he’s told, and sells you out to Mr. Bigcorps wishes, by censoring what you can say. So that they can push THEIR preferred narrative, not yours. They’ve got more power than you, so they decide what you can and can’t say. That’s fair isn’t it? But rest assured, they have only got your best interests at heart!
To be fair to Zuckerberg, he did try to resist, but the shareholders looking for profit saw to it that he had to buckle in the end. Go search for “facebook 2020 advertiser boycott”. The advertisers were brazen enough to put their names on the list, hilarious if you ask me. Not exactly master criminals are they, but there you go.
So no, Facebook is not unbiased, not in the least.
I guess what it comes down to is censorship. Do you think that :
a. sites should carry warnings about their content, and YOU decide to view it or not, or
b. content is just hidden away by a helpful grandma-like unseen being, who is for sale to the highest bidder.
I prefer option a, but thats just me!
Right, just off to check the news….