Bonum Certa Men Certa

The Internet or the Web as a Platform for News is Dying (If Not Already Dead)

A tabloid snapper



Summary: Partisan hacks have taken over the news cycles, feeding Internet trolls and chronic liars instead of publishing based on merit and accurate, verifiable truths (facts don't sell as much as emotion, including anger/rage)

THE Web is changing. The Internet as a whole is changing. Not for the better...



Once upon a time we had journals, news sites (local and (inter)national corporate media) and various personal pages in sites such as Geocities (yes, I too had a site in Geocities back in the 1990s). But now we have this "Social [Control] Media" nonsense, which is neither social nor media. It's sickening at times.

"But now we have this "Social [Control] Media" nonsense, which is neither social nor media."A lot of remaining 'journalism' is little but a tweet (or cluster of tweets) with a headline. The skills required to compose articles have been significantly lowered. Many so-called 'news' 'reports' nowadays look more or less like Facebook posts. No investigation required. It's all hearsay and claims, no fact-checking needed (it can only restrict the click-bait). The writers know something or nothing about the subject covered. Usually the latter... but their job isn't to study issues but to act as amplifiers of some agenda (company, political party and so on) and people are accordingly agitated, divided (there's no pursuit of truth, just partisan "tribes") and we're left with divided nations that speak more about race than class, more about wings than substance, more about money than human rights. Every time I try to visit the front page of the BBC it seems to serve no purpose other than repeating what Donald Trump and Boris Johnson say. Free pass. Facts-free...

Mouthpieces of governments and corporations... because might makes right and money is power.

An associate of ours, who participates heavily in Daily Links, can see the demise of journalism. "There aren't that high or even medium-yield tech-related sites to check," he told me. "There aren't even that many tech-related sites to check. Yes, there are a handful of crap Microsoft infomercials like Ars, Wired, and PCWorld. NO, there is not much else dedicated to ICT. Although while many of the more mainstream sites cover more ICT than years past, they are all more or less clue-free in regards to policy and strategy issues."

"We've long attempted to dodge all this binary "wing" thing; not being pro-Obama, or anti-Obama, or pro-Trump, or anti-Trump or whatever."A lot of them still blame "computers" for Microsoft Windows issues; this is related to the series we recently did about hospitals.

Where does this leave us? We've long attempted to dodge all this binary "wing" thing; not being pro-Obama, or anti-Obama, or pro-Trump, or anti-Trump or whatever. It's like a two-team sport. Too many sites, such as TechDirt, became just that. You pick a political side and then it's all "good versus evil" (and each side is sure that the other is pure evil on each pertinent issue). Two days ago John Cleese shared this old video of his, which is now three decades old. Have a listen (sorry about the awful file format):



So here we are at the end of a First Wave of a pandemic and there are protests if not riots in the streets. Even here in the UK...

"Because hey, who needs meaningful news anyway? We just need something to get very angry about, right?"People are upset and to be fair many of them have legitimate grievances. But how many news outlet are covering the scandals of the European Patent Office (EPO)? When was Benoît Battistelli last mentioned in the media (not even once this year) and why is corruption of António Campinos and his colleagues being totally ignored? Why are software patents no longer condemned?

No, all that white-collar crime doesn't matter as much as a British author "liking" a tweet about gender. Because hey, who needs meaningful news anyway? We just need something to get very angry about, right? Lynch mobs are a 'thing' now, supported by the media and primarily -- at least initially -- by Social Control Media, where hearsay is better than due process and good facts are superior to real facts. There's only one site we'll never link to and that's Watchtroll; the other day it posted another misleading rant about 35 U.S.C. €§ 101 from a former ('retired') judge of the Federal Circuit, reinforcing the notion that former judges can become malicious lobbyists.

For those of us who still value what's true and what truly matters (and no, tweets don't matter all that much!) the shortlist of Web sites is getting ridiculously small. They might not be good at 'selling' stories, but their heart and art are in the right place.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Disinformation and Marketing Spam From and For OIN (GAFAM's and IBM's Weapon Against Free Software Activists and Reformists Against Software Patents)
All in all, this anniversary is just a PR stunt with revisionism
Google Spreading Misinformation and Lies
Google is in the propaganda business
New Video Report About Microsoft Cancelling Multi-Billion Dollar Projects
direct link to the video
Microsoft is Already Laying Off Lots of Contractors
cost-cutting at Microsoft takes a new "edge"
 
Links 30/04/2025: "Brian Lumley’s Necroscope Series" and "Death In The Afternoon"
Links for the day
Links 29/04/2025: Microsoft Infosys Layoffs, 'Popcorn Lung' With Vapers, Hong Kong Banning Possession of e-cigarettes in Public
Links for the day
Gemini Links 29/04/2025: Hey-Hi (AI) Isn't Your Friend/Lover, Mastodon is a Mess, and Mandelbrot Programming
Links for the day
Just Sending More and More Threats Does Not Change the Fact We Got Abused for Many Years and Women Got Strangled
Wanting a "gag order" - or sometimes injunctions - by sending many threats
Links 29/04/2025: Water Scarcity, LLM Slop Backfiring Again in Legal Documents
Links for the day
statCounter: GNU/Linux Adoption Surging in Switzerland, Windows at All-time Low
What happened?
Gemini Links 28/04/2025: Free Speech and Perfectionism in Design
Links for the day
What Fake News Looks Like (IBM)
IBM told a lie. The media then just blindly repeated this lie.
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, April 28, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, April 28, 2025
China is Already Culling GAFAM (Not Just Microsoft Windows)
OS monoculture or "OS hegemony" may be coming to an end
The "Telephone Operating System in the Vatican" is 95 Years Old, Vatican Moved to GNU/Linux
Maybe Microsoft is down to zero already
If Tesla Shares (and Alleged Value) Fell 55% (From $489 to $222) in a Few Months Maybe It's Not Worth Anything At All (It's Just Gambling)
Tesla swasticars have turned from a "status symbol" into a "public embarrassment" and cause for casual humiliation
Coming Soon: Microsoft Fake Results, Mass Layoffs, and Silence About All the People Microsoft Pressured to "Quit" (So That They Don't Get Counted as Layoffs)
there will be more mass layoffs
Chromebooks' Adoption in Sweden No Longer Depends on Schools
School breaks are when classrooms are shut
No, IBM is Not Investing $150 Billion in the US and It Doesn't Even Have That Kind of Money
Here we go again... media as a vehicle of lobbying and misinformation
Leak: The EPO's General Consultative Committee (GCC) Does Not Consult Staff on Crucial Matters and Bypasses the Administrative Council (AC) to Do Illegal Things
violations against the EPO's very staff
New Leaks Coming Soon, We Maintain 100% Record of Successful Resistance to Censorship
We won't be told what we can and cannot say (especially when it's true)
Central African Republic (CAR): Vista 11 is Only ~0.2% Market Share
99.8% to go!
BSD and GNU/Linux Replaced Microsoft in Secure Servers, All Microsoft Has Left is LLM Slop for Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD)
the FUD machine never rests
Gemini Links 28/04/2025: A Simple Task Tracking and Auto-Prioritization Tool and Other Programs
Links for the day
Links 28/04/2025: Canada's Election, Pakistan-India Conflict
Links for the day
Speed of GNU/Linux
The media seldom speaks of the dangers of "proprietary software"
Glue Inside Your Pizza (or Why People Will Get Fed Up With Slop)
People are given "answers" from non-intelligence word dumpsters
Proprietary Windows Versus "Linux" News (Trying to Keep People on Windows, Never Exploring GNU/Linux)
Good editors know better how to recognise threats and not give them lip service
Ensuring That Every Computer User Anywhere in the World Can Take Control of All His or Her Computers
We must fight the people who attack general-purpose computing, in particular those who push this agenda very aggressively inside Linux
Links 28/04/2025: Cyberattacks Happening, Chatbots Disappointing, and "Free Speech Under Fire"
Links for the day
Phone Adoption Very Low in Vatican, Windows Usage Fell Nonetheless
Even in places where people still use desktops/laptops most of the time (and have access to these) Windows is gradually losing ground
GNU/Linux 9% in Cuba, Vista 11 Waning, Android Dominant
Microsoft has pretty much lost Cuba
Gemini Links 28/04/2025: Autism and Structural Navigation
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, April 27, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, April 27, 2025