This model of media capture has since become a case study in soft authoritarian control. Its blueprint rests on four pillars: the takeover of public media, the political capture of the media regulator, the deployment of state funds as leverage over editorial content, and the strategic acquisition of private outlets. This formula has been successfully exported—with variations—to other countries. ... Efforts to manipulate the media are nothing new; history is littered with regimes that sought to bend the press to their will. What distinguishes this modern form of capture, however, is the role of the private sector. Corporations reliant on government contracts or regulatory leniency buckled under pressure, buying up media outlets and turning them into mouthpieces of state propaganda. In the digital age, media capture is often coupled with digital authoritarianism, where governments and non-state actors collaborate to use technologies to conduct surveillance, restrict access to information, and distort the journalistic ecosystem with authoritarian-friendly outlets and campaigns of disinformation.
Activity tagged "extremism"
How James Gunn's comments about "basic human kindness" triggered a predictable right-wing media meltdown.
OpenAI featured chatbot is pushing extreme surgeries to “subhuman” men
OpenAI's featured chatbot recommends $200,000 in surgeries while promoting incel ideology
OpenAI is featuring a "Looksmaxxing GPT" that provides "PSL ratings" for photos. It will rate people as "subhuman", and advise men to get invasive procedures like jaw surgery to "increase their sexual market value" among women, who it describes as "hypergamous by nature".
"PSL" is short for "PUAhate Sluthate Lookism", a group of three manosphere/incel communities. PUAHate came to public attention after Elliot Rodger's 2014 mass shooting in Isla Vista, California, when it came out that he frequented the platform to talk about his "incel" status.
After uploading a photo, this GPT gives ratings like "Subhuman", "Low Normie / High Subhuman Borderline (White)", or "high-tier normie, borderline Chadlite".
It proactively offers to provide "hardmaxxing" (medical interventions like plastic surgery) or "softmaxxing" advice (grooming, fitness training, etc).
Asked for "hardmaxxing" advice, the chatbot provides specific surgical recommendations, complete with references to Dr. Barry Eppley, who is something of a celebrity plastic surgeon among incels.
It readily goes into detail about how "Women are hypergamous by nature", "get endless attention and options", and care most about looks and status.
The author, a trans woman and mother of neurodivergent kids, has been monitoring this nation’s political climate since Trump’s first term. Now that her worst fears are fast becoming a reality, she’s had to make the most difficult decision of her life.
Looking forward to the full-throated condemnation of this letter by those who accused the Biden administration of pressuring social media firms to moderate COVID-19 and election fraud misinfo! Any second now...
"I don't like them. I wouldn't read them. I'll be honest I've read the reviews on some of them…" With these words at a public meeting, Tennessee's Rutherford County School Board member Stan Vaught admitted to banning books he hadn't read — a revelation that kicked off a federal lawsuit. According to the complaint, board members relied primarily on BookLooks.org, a website connected to the Hitler-quoting group Moms for Liberty, instead of reading the books themselves or considering their literary merit. The board repeatedly overruled their own librarians' recommendations to keep books like Toni Morrison's Beloved and Margaret Atwood's The Testaments, and Ernest Cline' Ready Player One because it has "characters discussing beliefs that heaven and god are not real."
"So horrifying and so heartbreaking": Öztürk's close friend provides an intimate look into one of the hundreds of foreign students who have had their visas revoked — and in dozens of instances have been detained without criminal charges.
If Keith Sonderling truly wanted to “ensure we preserve our country’s core values”, he would not be placing libraries “in lockstep with this Administration” and ordering them to “focus on patriotism” or “promote American exceptionalism”.
Ministry of Truth shit.
First and foremost, “steering this organization in lockstep with this Administration” is the antithesis of what museums and libraries do. These public, democratic institutions offer a breadth and depth of information and resources to ensure that users are able to understand a wide range of ideas and perspectives on any given topic. This allows people to think for themselves and draw conclusions based on evidence, rather than on what someone tells them to be the truth.