#if the big media outlets aren't going to do actual reporting

[reasonsforhope]

Do you have any advice for dealing with election anxiety?

I think/hope so!

First, a couple caveats:

I'm from the US, so US perspective, and about US 2024 elections

I know more about politics/follow them more than like, at least 85% of US Americans? But I am not an expert.

Environment/climate news and climate hope are science-based and can be measured/predicted empirically wayyyyy more than politics can, because People

I'm not getting into the trenches around Democrats vs. the Left vs. Liberals vs. Progressives. In this post, we're all in one big venn diagram of mostly interchangeable terms

So, first off, maybe my biggest piece of advice is this: The antidote to anxiety is action.

Find something you can do to help - anything. Anxiety is like fear - it's part of your brain's alarm system. It's part of your brain's mechanism for telling you that you need to do something

So if you listen to that alarm and do something, your brain won't feel the same need to desperately escalate the alarm system

You can look up and sign up for actions, protests, petitions, letter-writing campaigns, phone banking, canvassing, and more for candidates near you at Mobilize.us (no Repubs on here I promise). They also work with Swing Left a lot - a group that helps voters look up and focus on helping the nearest race that is actually competitive (because most of them aren't!)

Again, that's Mobilize.us and Swing Left as two of the best places to find out how and where to help, and sign up to do so

Other than that, I don't have advice specifically so much as I have "some useful and more hopeful ways to think about the coming US election" and to a lesser extent democracy in general

1. The media is going to underreport how well the Left and/or Democrats are doing, basically no matter what.

So, although we can't get cocky about it, this is something absolutely worth remembering when you see just about any polling or predictions about the 2024 elections.

Here's why:

Poling is weird and often inaccurate and skews in a lot of ways and is inherently biased, and it's less accurate the further you are from an election. Also, the electoral college is a huge complication here

This skewing is built into both the interpretation of the poll and the design of the poll itself - how many people do they sample? Demographic spread? Polls try to go for "likely voters," but how well can you predict that, especially as voting rates for young people and marginalized groups are rising, often dramatically?

Right now, those biases are all skewing most to all polls and predictions to the right. Including from basically all pollsters, as well as left-wing media and news outlets.

Now, THAT'S NOT INHERENTLY A BAD THING. It's not because they don't want the Left to win. It's because in 2016, basically all mainstream media, including left-leaning media, said that there was a very low chance Trump was going to win. They said that Hillary Clinton had it in the bag. So they're all correcting for the huge inaccuracy in the 2016 (and 2020 and 2022 tbh) elections

Not only were they catastrophically and humiliatingly wrong about that, they then had to deal with the fact that that very reporting was part of why Clinton lost in 2016 - voters heard she was probably going to win, so they felt safe staying home instead of voting

And then the 2020 election polls were also super wrong, mostly in the other direction

Polling as a field is undergoing a massive shakeup around this, trying to figure out how to not fuck up that badly again, but they haven't figured it out yet, so right now they're skewing things to compensate

That's for the sake of both their own credibility and, you know, the part where just about no one in either left-wing or mainstream media or mainstream polling orgs wants Trump to win

So they're going to underreport Democratic chances on purpose to a) compensate for the bias skewing things toward Democrats in their models, and b) to make sure that they don't accidentally help Trump win again

Sources: x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x

Reasons the Republicans are in more trouble than a lot of people think

Democrats are largely closing ranks hard around Biden, because no matter what they think of Biden, they know a Repub victory would be a thousand times worse

Republicans, however, are absolutely NOT unifying around a candidate. And they're also the ones who go around saying a ton of awful and offensive and wildly untrue things about their opponents. Meaning that the Republican primary is about to get fucking messy, and probably all of their candidates will be tarred in the process

So, basically, the Republican candidates are all going to be busy smearing the fuck out of each other - while Biden mostly doesn't have to deal with that level of negative campaigning against him for months and months

As studies show, in politics, "a negative frame is much more persistent, or “stickier,” than a positive one. If you come at an issue negatively, but are later reminded of the policy's positive aspects, you will still think it's a bust."

Also, Biden is gonna get basically all presidential-race left-wing big-name donor money, while the Right will have that money split a bunch of ways and blow through it hard on infighting, creating a probable funding gap

Trump's campaign contributions are all going to pay his legal fees. Like, to the extent that last month, his main PAC had just $4 million in cash on hand - because they siphoned over $101 million to pay his legal fees (muahahaha)

Sources: x, x, x, x, x, x, x

Other hopeful things to consider

Yes, Trump's indictments and trials are, unfortunately, boosting his numbers among his supporters. However, that's only with the hard right wing - and you can't win a general election with just the far right. He needs to appeal to independent voters and moderate Repubs - and every indictment and trial hurts his chances with them. x, x

In 2022, literally everyone was predicting a "red tsunami." And they were wrong: it never happened. Instead, Democrats picked up a seat in the senate, lost a third or less of the seats in the House that they were expected to, and won a number of statewide races. x, x, x, x, x

DeSantis's decision to go to war with Disney stands to do him a lot of fucking hard. Disney isn't just powerful in general - it's an unbelievably powerful force and employer in DeSantis's home state of Florida. Disney has already pulled a $1 billion project from Florida due to the feud, is responsible for "half" of FL's tourism industry, and and is branding DeSantis as "anti-corporation" and "anti-business" - dangerous charges in the right wing. x, x, x, x, x, x

Abortion is an issue that gets voters to the polls. This is an issue on which politicians are wildly out of step with voters: Numbers change depending on how you break it down, but generally 60% to 70% of Americans think abortion should be legal - which is, in election terms, is a landslide. For years, that momentum has been with Republicans. Well, now it's with us, and so far pro-choice candidates and ballot propositions have done way better than expected. To quote Vox, in 2022, "abortion rights won in all six states with abortion ballot measures, including in red states like Kentucky and Montana that otherwise elected Republican lawmakers." x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x

[brandwhorestarscream]

Tfa rodimags

You said the reveal was public, how is the media of tfa cybertron reacting? what is the level of uproar?And what are the reactions of the other autobots (the prime team must have resigned after that)?

It's a pretty massive scandal. The guy who rules the entire planet was just found out to not only have a secret identity, but also 5 illegitimate children that he sired with one of his employees, under guise of said secret identity. Rumors of falsehoods and coercions are the least of his problems--there's scattered talk among the elite guard of making a move for his seat of power. I can't imagine that every single member of the EG operates under a hivemind. In an organization that big, there's bound to be mini factions, cutthroat plotting and scheming, that kinda thing, as there is within any government body. There's rumors flying that Magnus specifically tricked Rodimus into giving him sparklings for him to groom into the perfect Magnus successor, which, even if it's not true, is a serious hit to his reputation. There are probably at least 2 Primes under him now scheming to usurp him with enough public support.

And speaking of the public, hot damn, they are having a field day with this. Every news outlet on the planet, and even throughout the commonwealth, is reporting on it. The unshakeable, perfect Magnus, caught in a scandal with one of his poor, unaware Primes. That's exactly the kind of dramatic gossip that would instantly go viral. Ofc, there's plenty of speculation that Rodimus actually seduced him, and this is all one big power play, or that the whole thing was orchestrated publicity. There's dozens of theories and none of them are correct. Every social media site is talking about it, it gets brought up in literally every conversation at least once.

As for the earthbound team (we... should give them a name. Team Earth? Team Terran?? Team Optimist? Idk), it takes awhile for it to reach them just cuz. Ya know. Out in the unexplored corner of the universe without access to direct communication to Cybertron. Plus they've got the decepticons to deal with, they aren't exactly stalking the gossip columns for the latest scoop.

But when they do find out?? Optimus is shellshocked. He and Rodimus were in the academy together, maybe a year apart? To think that the S-class archer had gotten himself into so much trouble is insane. He honestly doesn't know what to think about Magnus in this situation. It's not like he's had much interaction with him lately; even when he was on earth they didn't speak much at all.

Everyone else on earth is definitely like 😮 except Ratchet, who rolls his optics and shakes his helm, muttering about "old hornbots that can't keep their servos to themselves"

[mysmorgasbordoffantabulosa]

So tae and jennie have another couple item. Honestly, at this point, I believe tae could be using jennie as a beard.

I just don't see any other explanation. Taekook has so many moments where it's undeniable that there's something going on. Tae and jennie, on the other hand, have photos (not all are edited), matching clothing pieces, and trips. I truly believe that tae and jungkook love each other, but I don't see them ever coming out, and I feel like it'll continue being under wraps. I can see jungkook also getting in dating rumors soon because it works.

The harry styles concert is a great example, all the news media outlets picked up on taennie and left taekook alone when we all know the truth. Especially after how taekook acted in LA. It's sad, but they're big celebrities and they won't ruin their reputation by coming out as lgbt especially in korea. I feel like they'll be like a lot of American celebrities/athletes who have mlm relationships on the dl.

"photos (not all are edited)"

Firstly, all anyone has ever said is that any photo claiming to have both of them in is clearly either edited from other photos, or staged using lookalikes.

Of course, any photos they themselves share, would not be edited.

Technically, Jennie is not Tae's beard, considering they aren't actually fake dating each other. That's what a proper beard is... case in point Taylor Swift and literally any man she's been with, or Camila Cabello & Shawn Mendes.

I do think the whole series of "leaks" and any subsequent and coincidental examples of sort-of-matching clothes/items, helps Tae present as not queer as a form of cover, but I wouldn't say bearding per say.

The Taennie/Harry Styles SK concert/Media thing is slightly overblown, I think only one reported featured Taennie the rest merely reported who attended. On social media, there was a push on Taennie, though I'm still suspicious about how popular the ship actually is, whether it's getting some support from certain antis/solo stans/other shippers, all just to one up Taekookers.

[melody-magic]

I think there's something a lot of people don't understand still and its this: the Democrat and Republican parties are not enemies. They are not adversaries, or rivals. They are coworkers, partners in their one true goal: the maintenance and expansion of US Imperial Hegemony. Everything else is almost always posturing*.

The role of the so called "Democratic" party in the USA is very simple and clear: to capture progressive energy, channel it into electoralism and fundraising, and ultimately disperse it by transforming it into acceptance of the status quo set by the last Republican administration.

Let's look at the 2020 election for an example: there was a genuine mass movement against the militarized and overfunded police forces that murder minorities, especially black people, indiscriminately. There was cheering, popular, genuine cheering for the burning of a police precinct! And the Democrats came in, took advantage of the opportunity, said "elect us and we'll change things!", and then proceeded with expanding those very police forces! And now many people that were extremely angry in 2020 are only getting worried again because it won't be the Democrats in charge anymore, even though things in that area have literally stayed in the same exact trajectory. Capture, redirect, disperse, transform.

Another example more directly tied to this years election: immigration. When Trump was last president, the concentration camps at the border** were daily conversation and were soundly condemned. There were multiple investigations into the conditions, reports were constantly coming out on CNN and other liberal media outlets, AOC went and did her stupid little photo ops, everyone was pissed when Melania went to visit with a "Dont care, Do U" jacket. The second, and it really was astounding the speed at which it happened, the second Joe Biden came in they stopped being "migrant camps" and became "ethical detention facilities" and they became totally acceptable, to the point where one of Harris few actual proposals was to be EVEN MORE AGGRESSIVE on the border! Capture, redirect, disperse, transform.

Lastly but not leastly, is of course the Palestinian genocide. The Democrats could not even half heartedly promise anything except continued full throttle support for it because that is their role. They are not actually a progressive party in any sense of the word. So they had to sit on their hands, wait it out, and lose so the genocide could keep going. I will guarantee you right now though that once midterm season starts (because you always have a goddamn election) many democrats will come out with promises to lessen it in some way (minor as they will be) that will, as if by magic, never actually materialize.

I am sure there are even more historical examples to pull from but that's just off the top of my head. So, now that we understand the role of the Democrats in the system, we can have our conclusion:

Democrats are not saving you. They are not going to fix climate change, or healthcare, or anything else. The best you might be able to get from them are increasingly minor concessions that, if you ask me, aren't even really worth the trouble of dealing with the Democrats in the first place.

The only people that can save us are ourselves. By organising amongst the working mass. By building a vanguard movement. And yes, by stopping spending all this energy and time worrying about liberal electoralism that is, DEMONSTRABLY, not helping us.

*some Republicans are genuinely nuts like MTG and some Democrats are genuinely hated like Tlaib and Ohmar but they're exceptional examples

**the camps were started by Obama and not Trump but it didn't really become a big deal publicly until he was in office, but if anything this reinforces the point that they are not progressive

[mitigatedchaos]

"After the Trump Bump, There's Now the Bezos Ditch" (New York magazine, 2024)

...the big question is, as one of the TV execs put it, “If half the country has decided that Trump is qualified to be president, that means they’re not reading any of this media, and we’ve lost this audience completely. A Trump victory means mainstream media is dead in its current form. And the question is what does it look like after.”

"Jeff Bezos, other billionaire media owners losing 'a fortune' on struggling news outlets" (Fox Business, 2024)

In 2023, a decade after Bezos’ purchase, The Washington Post was on track to lose $100 million, according to a New York Times report that cited "two people with knowledge of the company’s finances."

Jeff Bezos may not have made the right call when he allowed Amazon to get filled with garbage, but he did make the right call in altering the direction of the Washington Post.

If your goal is to "Save America," you can't do that unless a good chunk of the opposing coalition are listening to you. They aren't.

If your goal is to make money by selling news coverage to #resistance Democrats, well, the Post is apparently not making money, either.

I'll try to keep my explanation brief.

a

In the United States, there are two political parties, each of which wins about half the time. A policy can go into effect if it has a majority of support from one of the two political parties.

If you want to stall a policy, you have to convince about one third of the Other Party, enough that they can't get a majority in the legislature on this issue without getting a (very unlikely) supermajority.

If you want a policy taken off the game board, so it's no longer an issue of national political import, you have to convince half of the Other Party, so that they can't get a majority within the Other Party.

Again, each party loses elections about half the time. "We'll just never lose an election again," is not a good answer.

To put it another way, an institution that contains a 100% range of Democrats likely will not have cross-partisan traction unless it is at least one quarter Republican, and likely will not have supermajority support unless it is at least one third Republican.

The version of the Washington Post that can actually get traction on Donald Trump has eight hundred thousand paying Republican subscribers.

b

"Misinformation" is the default state of information. It can be generated anywhere, at any time.

Overcoming misinformation is therefore not about censorship. That is a wrong understanding of information - any error in transmission turns information into misinformation. Overcoming misinformation is about connecting people to a high-quality information network.

If the goal is not merely to seek private political advantage, then the objective must be to establish a shared set of facts and understanding, and thus reduce the space occupied by misinformation.

There will still be disagreement. There will still be crazy people. This is about reducing the number and talent of the pool of people acting on misinformation.

The Washington Post has been rocked by a tidal wave of cancellations from digital subscribers and a series of resignations from columnists, as the paper grapples with the fallout of owner Jeff Bezos’s decision to block an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris for president.

More than 200,000 people had canceled their digital subscriptions by midday Monday, according to two people at the paper with knowledge of internal matters. Not all cancellations take effect immediately. Still, the figure represents about 8% of the paper’s paid circulation of 2.5 million subscribers, which includes print as well. The number of cancellations continued to grow Monday afternoon.

lol

[abigailhobbsgallobamaedu]

In addition to the sharing and reporting of constant abuse and harassment, many Targets report being used for experimental purposes in the unlawful testing of non-lethal weapons.

These weapons do clearly exist, but can victims of such test campaigns actually prove that they are being targeted?

That they are being procured, purchased and sold, for such testing by these Perpetrator Groups? For other revenue generating activities?

When members of the Perpetrator Groups are questioned, they will laugh, joke, clearly making a mockery of the legal process.

They will say that this is "nothing" and that they are "just having some fun". A joke, and so on.

An honest answer. Torturing and abusing women is of course how they do have fun, that it is just a joke, and it really is nothing to them, because the women that they target and taunt are of course nothing, even less than nothing.

An intervention is long past due.

This is a career making case and these people more than deserve it. They did it, (over and over again) they bragged about it, and now they need to go.

This is a case that needs to be focussed on the Perpetrators, unlike most cases of assault and battery, torture and abuse, where the focus is on the victim(s).

Make it public in a big way and make it about what they did and who they did it to in general (meaning women and young girls, the elderly, other marginalized people ) and all about the Heroes of the story, their Saviors.

These groups contract and direct people of color, immigrants, those they have extorted with false narratives, and children. They offer them money and favors. They lie to them and exploit their innocence.

These men and women are also their victims and should also demand justice. They should also be viewed as such when telling their truth. They made a mistake and can make it right, they are not the same as "those people".

Social media, Mainstream media (all outlets, from conservative to liberal outlets, to daytime talkshows, to advertising spots on streaming services, (they all have commercials now) People, In touch, and so on. And of course social media. Publicity tour?

You will be a Super Star.

Smear campaign? Those people know all about what a real Smear campaign is. Trying to Frame someone for a crime that they didn't commit? Those people know all about that too.

What they neglect to remember, is that when they make up vile and disgusting stories about Targeted Women and spread them throughout the community, that the illegal bugging and camera-ing of their homes, their constant "surveillance " can surprisingly work against such lies and in favor of their victim.

There is a penalty for lying and it's called US18 Code 241.

Only it's so much better, because it's all true. Due to the fact that they feel so entitled, so untouchable, so protected, they will continue to laugh as their victims suffer and claim that this is all just a sick joke.

Something else that they know all about.

Until it isn't. It's more than simple, a Plea Bargain in a word file, insert name and number of years.

Even these people aren't stupid enough to try and fight this in court, nor could they afford to. No one could. It's un-winnable.

It's a done deal. No trial necessary. Saving the taxpayers, an angle everyone appreciates. SuperHero status once again.

Should it happen now before the election, and could this influence the outcome?

A Pre-October Surprise?

Everyone is beyond bored with both election campaigns.

Make it last until the end of the year.

Reintroduce it over and over again.

The American public has a very short attention span.

This true "story" like any other, is competition for anything else in the media that might hold the public's interest.

It can be "played" in the same manner.

Not ready to release the full and final chapter?

Control the narratives. Determine the direction.

Need some help to carry out such an extensive and long-lasting media campaign? Any Hollywood publicist would love this job.

[the-phantom-otaku]

Hiya! First off, I gotta say, I really enjoy reading your snippets of writing and headcannons.

Second, for the actual ask, what are some of your thoughts or headcannons about social media in the Ben 10 universe? We know that there are some media outlets, like some news stations, who don't like Ben and aliens in general. But what do you think the internet would have to say about Ben, aliens, and the sudden craziness of the world? What about the externet?

Aww, thank you so much! I’m really flattered and glad that you’re enjoying them! I want to get something out soon so you can enjoy the full thing.

And this is a good one! I imagine there’s equivalents to all our main social networks just probably named differently. They function the same tho and people use them for the same type of stuff. Ben probably has social media where he interacts with fans occasionally and talks about Sumo Slammers. More importantly, Kevin has a Tik Tok acc, and every video is him terrorizing Ben in some form or fashion. He can't upload that as much anymore due to him moving, but they get plenty of Zed content now.

As for Ben and his aliens, I think it would be divided. Like, there’d be those who are open minded about it all, maybe even those who travel to Bellwood to meet aliens for the experience. And then there’d be people like the Forever Knights and Will Harangue, the people who want aliens off the planet, regardless of their intent. People in Bellwood are the most open to aliens after the invasion forced them to work together, so they also fight the hardest for the rest of the world to accept aliens. They know first hand that aliens are just like them.

I think a lot of people see Ben as a superhero, but he has critics like anyone. There are plenty of people willing to defend him, particularly from Will. I like to think they see Harangue like we see Alex Jones lmao. Tho there is one thing that everyone criticizes him for: That one video of him as Big Chill eating metal. No matter how many people ask him what he was doing, he refuses to tell anyone what was going on in the video. This has made the clip a favorite of Harangue's, but many online still throw around ideas as to what was going on that doesn't involve Ben being malicious. He's never spoken on it and when approached by reporters about it, he turns into XLR8 and leaves.

There’s also the less serious side of the internet where people rate his aliens, make memes of them, so on so forth. Somewhere out there, someone has made a Stinkfly version of the Cockroach meme. I think he enjoys this side a lot more tbh bc it’s less serious and sometimes, people are actually funny.

There's also definitely fanfiction of him since he's a celebrity. Ben acts like this doesn't exist, tho, bc what's written is usually something that makes him really uncomfortable.

Aliens aren't just incredibly wide spread. The biggest concentration in the US is Undertown. I think most people think it's wild that aliens actually were living among us, but with Ben being around as an alien-based superhero, I think the blow was softened. People didn't have to deal with the shock of realizing aliens were real AND that there was a whole town of them in Belwood.

And, finally, the extranet! It seems like the extranet knew about Ben's identity long before Earth did. The extranet probably doesn't care much about Earth or humans since it's made clear that Earth is a pretty primitive planet compared to others, so I like to think Ben acted as many aliens' introduction to Earth and humans. We know the extranet took his identity and adventures for a TV show, so I think that's what most imagine him to be like. The extranet practically broke when someone finally revealed what Ben actually looked like.

Alright, I think that's about all I got. Sorry this took me so long and if it seems like a mess, I had a lot of thoughts. Thanks for the ask! I enjoyed answering!

[ms-demeanor]

Hi Ms Demeanor. I read your recent news post and was wondering if you knew any websites/newspapers that have generally reliable stories, but aren't super overwhelming? I know I should be better informed on what's going on in the world and my own country (I'm American) in ways that aren't looking at what people on social media are mad about, but a lot of news outlets I've heard about have just so much stuff. Hopefully this source would be a stepping stone to later feel less lost. Thanks a lot

1 - Whatever your local basically unaffiliated news provider is. This might be a local paper, it might be a local radio station, it might be a local TV station, but it is NOT the local alternative weekly or the local talk radio station.

This is difficult because a lot of local media is actually owned by bigger, biased distributors (in the US this is Sinclair Media with broadcast TV, for example).

Start super local, as local as possible - there is probably a weekly local newspaper that prints three thousand copies that get distributed at grocery stores and your closest library. Start with that, whatever that is. That is going to be the place where you actually learn about what's going on with your specific city council.

From there, branch out to whatever free, good-ish quality websites are local. I'm in LA so look at KTLA5. I'll also read the Las Vegas Review-Journal and the San Jose Mercury News. Generally you're looking for something that isn't screamingly biased, full of talking heads, 24-hours, or paywalled.

2 - READ. Even if I'm looking at KTLA, which is a TV station, I do not watch the stories I read the headlines, click the links to the stories, and will investigate further. Usually TV stories are sourced from newspapers or stringers so sometimes this means clicking over the AP to read 500 words of a story that only got 200 words on the broadcast. But READ. Broadcast news, ALL BROADCAST NEWS, has a time limit. These days there is less of a restriction on story length in print because it's all online, so you will get more news by reading it.

3 - Go regional. Look at the big regional paper's headlines or maybe even get a subscription. For me this is the LA Times, for you it might be the Chicago Tribune or the New York Times.

4 - Go national. READ (do not watch) the headlines on a national news station. CNN or Fox is actually better than the New York Times for this. You just wanna see if there's anything huge that you're missing that's being reported on by a national outlet. Read the World headlines and the US headlines, and hopefully everything big has been covered by another one of the things you've looked at.

5 - Go international. Go to a news source from in a language you speak that is not specifically produced in your country and look at the "US News" section. I like BBC, Al Jazeera, ABC.Net.AU, SCMP, and AP News for this. It is fucking BONKERS how isolated the US is in our news when it comes to looking at things from an international perspective. Go look up some of the coverage of the 2020 election from the BBC. It's so incredibly useful to see how other countries are describing your country AND it's also useful to see how other countries prioritize and organize world news.

6 - Find someplace that publishes in-depth investigative pieces and read at least a couple of them a month. I'm talking LONG investigative pieces. Five thousand words minimum. Buzzfeed on FinCen or Mother Jones reporting on prisons or the DailyBeast covering Qanon kind of long. DEEP investigations. Read OLD investigations. Read new investigations. Read about people who went undercover at Amazon.

Break this up into little chunks. If you get overwhelmed by the news in general (i can relate!) just look at the headlines and a couple stories in your local area and then check out US headlines on the BBC.

You don't have to read everything, it's impossible for everyone to be informed about everything, but start by at least checking local headlines and then check US headlines from a source outside the US.

Honestly, really, seriously, Buzzfeed News is a pretty okay way to get started looking at the news. They have a good mix of very short, superficial stories and in-depth coverage and they usually don't have so many stories in a day that you'll get buried just refreshing the page.

I'm hesitant to endorse all of their coverage because a lot of it is inane celebrity shit, even on their news page, and they do some stuff that I cannot fucking stand (the editorial decision to perpetually refer to Qanon as "the quanon mass delusion" makes me want to tear my hair out) but overall they aren't bad. Maybe check headlines on Buzzfeed and then search the headlines that you're interested in from Buzzfeed on the AP site.

Anyway, I don't do this all every single day. I will usually read headlines on one or two sites every day and probably find three long-ish stories to dig into, but I try to rotate through a lot of sources and if something from one source sounds weird I will check it against at least three other sources with different perspectives. It is actually, genuinely extremely useful to see how Fox-the-news-channel is reporting on immigration compared to how Fox-the-entertainment-channel is reporting on it compared to how Al Jazeera is reporting on it compared to how the LA Weekly is reporting on it.

But yeah, if at all possible you should be reading news from a variety of local, regional, national, and international sources. Once you get into the habit of reading news it is actually pretty easy to stick with, and the more news you read from a wide variety of sources the better you'll get at spotting inconsistencies, editorializing, and the absolute fucking crime that is headline writing.

(I have been a person who writes headlines, but not in this utterly toxic online media environment and I do not envy modern headline writers but I also cannot forgive them; knock that shit off dudes that shit is an ethics violation)

Anyway, that's probably a lot. Good luck.

[hikyleharris]

I'm quadruple verified. What up tWitTeR 🤴

[peekbackstage]

Thanks so much for sharing your perspective. I've found your posts very informative and appreciate your time and effort. I saw you mention something about XZ's team not doing a great job responding to the situation, though of course they aren't to blame for it. If you don't mind, would you share your thoughts on what a better response might have looked like, and what impact it might've had if they'd done things differently?

One of the things that stands out most to me is how unprepared XZ Studio was when dealing with a PR crisis. It seems to me like they most likely did not have a strong social media team at the time who would have been tracking any trends or conversations associated with XZ. (By the point at which 227 happened, XZ Studio had already been established for about five months.)

It is pretty standard to track your artist’s name and keep an eye on trending topics, especially to get in front any major issues. As 227 began to develop, had XZ Studio been tracking the development on social media, they could have potentially defused the situation very quickly when the big call to action first emerged from XZ fans to report a fanfic to the government. It was so out of hand, and there was no statement from either the company or the artist that it seemed as though both were complicit in allowing it to continue, which is precisely why so many antis emerged, incensed against XZ’s apparent lack of action to rein in his fans and guide them appropriately. 

Much of the backlash that occurred against XZ and his fans is because there was no initial response when the call to action first appeared - they could have essentially stopped it before it got too far and prevented AO3 and Lofter from getting banned. A simple statement from the artist and the management company to defuse everything could have potentially stopped the movement in its tracks, with the amount of influence XZ does have over his fans.

When things did go sideways, there still was no statement or even an apology from management or XZ, who was being criticized for the actions of his fans. Though it wasn’t his fault (technically), the ways in which his fans behave reflected poorly upon him as an artist and an influencer. Had he taken “responsibility” immediately and apologized, it might not have gone so far as a boycott against him that resulted in so many brands dropping him. 

What I think a better response would have looked like once 227 occurred would have been this:

1. Immediately issue a PR statement condemning the actions of the fans and take responsibility for not initially “guiding” fans properly. Apologize on behalf of the company, the fans, and the artist. Statement should also include a note that states the offending content is merely fiction and that there is no truth to the story. There is no reason to be upset over something that is not true or defamatory, as it is imaginary. (This would essentially be a coded statement denying a certain relationship to begin the process of dissociating and creating a different narrative.) 

2. Artist should issue a statement condemning the actions of the fans and apologizing as well. Call to action for any fans who might continue to act out to behave appropriately. Remind fans that fiction is not real, and to stop acting out against something that is imaginary. 

3. Meet with Weibo privately. Ask them to help with community management to ban accounts that are breaking their TOS. Do this very early on in the process. Also, invest a good deal of money to hire an entire social media management team or a company to heavily monitor Weibo and aggressively report accounts that are engaging in defamatory behavior and potentially breaking Weibo’s TOS. Take legal action against anyone who is actively breaking the law. 

4. Book an interview with a large media outlet or a well-known media personality. Allow and even encourage questions about the incident. Artist should condemn the actions of the fans who caused the incident and apologize to the public for their behavior. Artist should also say something like, “The story is fake/imaginary/fiction/not real.” (Saying something like that more or less demonstrates how dumb all of this is.) I am assuming that questions won’t be asked about AO3/Lofter being placed behind the Great Firewall due to China censorship. 

5. Dissociate from anything and everything that might allow others to continue associating the artist with the incident. In XZ’s case, that means dissociating from WYB, because he’s associated with said incident given the fact that this was all caused by a fanfic. Put a moratorium on kadians and any other potential “interactions” that would allow fans to continue to have “content” to discuss on Weibo. The point here is to change the narrative - this way antis won’t also have content they can use to criticize XZ.

6. While this is happening, call all brands and schedule meetings. Attempt to rescue the brand deals. For brands who are very unhappy, offer a contract revision to suspend the contract terms for a set amount of time (such as four months) to see if the issue blows over. (It’s better to put it on hold than it is to have to try and get a new brand deal, especially once the brand’s annual sponsorship monies have already been allocated for the year.)  

Potentially work with third party PR team to circulate rumors among XZ’s fanbase that he is losing brand deals to create urgency for a counter-campaign against antis trying to boycott XZ’s brands. If there are just as many people calling brands to support XZ as there are calling for a boycott, then it would potentially be a 50/50 toss up as to whether or not a brand deal manages to be saved. This might also lead to a surge of sales for all of XZ’s brands, which would then maybe demonstrate to the brands that XZ shouldn’t be dropped.

7. Track sentiment/feedback once all of the above has been completed. If all of the above didn’t help at all, create new action plan which might include withdrawing the artist from all activity for a set amount of time. 

So there you have it. Maybe a response like the above could have potentially ended up with a different outcome for XZ. Maybe it wouldn’t have helped at all and everything would have still been just as bad. We’ll never actually know. 

What I hope is that XZ now has a better team who can handle issues like this in the future, and that he will see a full recovery for his career this new year. If 2020 has proven anything to anyone watching, it’s that XZ’s consumer power is still massive, and that his popularity has not waned at all. The fact that he is still sweeping all the awards that require fans to vote, often winning by millions of votes, and the red sea that fans managed to put on for him during the Tencent awards are undeniable symbols of his enduring popularity.  

This kind of influence is staggeringly powerful - brands and media outlets that previously might have felt uncertain about XZ as an artist most likely will have positive sentiments towards him as a result. 

So, let’s hope that 2021 will be the best year for XZ. 

The future is full of possibilities and the sky above is endless.

Edit: @pepeyee Made it clear to me in the replies that I definitely did not clarify myself or my thoughts on all of the above well enough, so I will be writing a response to all of the above to further clarify some points so that there is no confusion about my stance here. 

[derrickks]

5 Questions To Ask Before Sharing Health Stories On Social Media

When it comes to posting health information on social media, beware before you share. Experts say that's an essential step in battling medical misinformation, an escalating problem as more people turn to social media for news, knowledge and advice about all things health-related.

In the wake of rampant false information about COVID-19, the U.S. Surgeon general's office released an advisory last year titled "Confronting Health Misinformation." The 22-page report singled out social media for rewarding "engagement rather than accuracy" and quoted one study that found false news stories were 70% more likely to be shared on social media than true stories.

The pandemic has lessened in recent months, but health experts say medical misinformation on social media isn't likely to vanish anytime soon. To help battle inaccurate info, here are five questions to ask before you share a health story. See more health story.

Is the source trustworthy?

In the internet age, it's important to do your homework to verify whether an original source is trustworthy. But that's trickier than ever in a web filled with unreliable but official-looking sites. Lisa Fazio, who studies misinformation, said it's best to check a source through "lateral reading," or getting off the site and doing some research to see what other authoritative sources have said about it.

"Open up a new window and find out what other people are saying about the source," said Fazio, an associate professor of psychology and human development at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Dr. Joseph Hill, who co-wrote a 2019 editorial in Circulation about combating medical misinformation, urged social media users to "vet the message" before spreading it. He recommended checking trusted medical sources such as the Mayo Clinic or American Heart Association and government sites such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration.

Is it a personal story?

Fazio said social media users have a natural tendency to "cherry pick" personal medical stories that don't reflect the big picture. "Be wary of anecdotes," she said. "Personal stories are really powerful and persuasive, but they're often one-off events that don't tell you how common something is at a population level."

Also be leery of "people who are promoting their own commercial ventures and have a venal motive," said Hill, a cardiologist and professor at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. "It's reprehensible, but it happens all the time."

Does it make me emotional?

The surgeon general's advisory warned against sharing "emotionally charged information, enabling it to spread quickly and go viral." "That might mean excitement or disgust or any sort of strong emotion," Fazio said. "Things that make you feel a strong emotion are often things that aren't fully true. It's a signal to think and check the facts."

Do I really need to post it right away?

Strong emotions can trigger a sense of urgency. When that happens, experts say it's best to pause, take a deep breath and wait a few hours before sharing. "Waiting even five seconds might help," Fazio said. "Take the time to think about why you're posting. Is it to gain followers? Is it to just entertain people?"

In general, Hill said that instead of instantly clicking the "share" button, it's best "to pause and corroborate what you just read. It takes time, but it's a necessary step." Corroboration might involve looking for published peer-reviewed research that backs it up, or checking if many credible media outlets are reporting the same information.

Might I actually be harming someone?

While social media can feel like a fun, innocuous pastime among friends, Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy said in last year's advisory that sharing medical misinformation "can cause confusion, sow mistrust, harm people's health, and undermine public health efforts." "The way social media algorithms work, decisions you make can affect a lot of people on the platform, not just a few," Fazio said. "Before we share something, we want to think, 'Am I improving the experience for everyone?'"

Hill was more blunt. "Medical misinformation costs lives," he said. "It's available so freely and rapidly now that it has become a new challenge for our species. If we ignore it, we ignore it at our own peril."

This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.

Whether or not Elon Musk ends up acquiring Twitter, his plans have caused consternation because of a simple truth: the owners of social media sites have too much power. Much of the nation’s public discourse is conducted in forums owned by Mark Zuckerberg and a handful of rival billionaires, and is regulated by algorithms concealed from public scrutiny.

The oligarchs of the internet not only command larger audiences than the media barons of earlier eras; they operate under fewer constraints. That is because government has abandoned the principle that mass media companies have special obligations to society, and it has allowed a few big social networks to suffocate competition, leaving users and advertisers without practical choices or leverage.

Better laws could help to revive competition, restrain harmful behaviour and even realise the potential of social media to strengthen democracy, rather than undermine it. In short, policymakers can ensure the question of who owns Twitter, or Instagram, or TikTok doesn’t matter quite so much.

The best way to limit the power of any individual social media network is to make room for new networks and, perhaps even more important, for third-party sites that allow users to customise their online experience: combining content from multiple sites, controlling what kids can see and other features someone has imagined and needs a chance to make real.

Two changes, in particular, would make a big difference: mandating communication among sites, and allowing third-party companies to obtain user data with the users’ permission.

The technical term for these changes is interoperability, and it is not exactly a radical idea. A person with a Gmail account can send messages to a person with a Yahoo account because email systems are interoperable. Forcing companies to work together makes it easier for people to manage their personal information, and it holds companies accountable for the quality of their services. Because anyone can send a message to a Gmail account, Gmail needs to fight for market share.

A 2016 US law imposed interoperability requirements on digital health records, and the Biden administration is pushing the financial industry to move in that direction, too. There’s no special reason the same principle couldn’t be applied to social media. Indeed, the European Union did exactly that this year.

Facebook is popular because Facebook is popular, and that advantage would not disappear. But breaking down the walls that Facebook has built around its empire would make it a little easier for smaller companies to compete, and it would compel Facebook to pay a little more attention to the needs of its users.

Depending on the results of the midterm elections, the Democrats may have only a few more months to do something substantive to check Bit Tech’s power

There’s a bill before the US congress that would impose interoperability requirements on social media companies, but Democratic leaders have shown no real interest in tackling the issue. Several other bills aimed at checking the power of the Big Tech companies also have stalled. One would inhibit tech companies from buying emerging rivals. Another would constrain companies from giving preference to their own products and services, as when a Google search recommends a Google site.

[pabluesman]

The latest rant:

A common picture of the Republican Party is that of a cabal of big-money plutocrats, rubbing their hands gleefully as they kick starving children into the cold and knock retirees over for the Social Security benefits while lighting cigars with $100 bills. And while this is useful as agitprop, it creates a divide in the discussion of serious issues. Granted, there are some on both sides of the aisle who are craven and corrupt, and unfortunately they also make the most noise. It also doesn't help that the top figures in the party -- trump and his staff (Spicer, Conway, et al), Ryan, and McConnell -- further this perception with their words and actions, but such is a topic for another day ... The thing is, though, almost all Republicans are working with the best of intentions. They honestly believe that their proposals and actions are in the best interest of the American people. So why is there such a gulf between Republican and Democrat, liberal and conservative, trump and normal people? My opinion? It comes down to a fundamental difference in how progress is measured. The Republican Party measures everything in terms of dollars and cents. This is fine as far as it goes -- it is a completely objective measure, with no wiggle room for interpretation. Something costs what it costs, and revenue is revenue, and the numbers are going to be the numbers whether you like them or not. As a result, for many things this is fine ... but there are aspects of the things the government does that do not translate well into currency. Things like quality of life for a family that can no longer afford health coverage. Or environmental quality. Or lives lost fighting bullshit wars on false pretenses. The modern Republican Party is, on paper, dedicated to the idea of fiscal responsibility. They believe that deficit spending is fundamentally bad, that social welfare programs impede individual initiative, and (at least, on the far right) that many of the problems faced by marginalized populations -- the poor, people of color, and so on -- are the result of moral failings at the individual level. Proposals presented by the Republicans are centered around the idea of "if ya ain't got the dough, don't spend it." Nowhere is this demonstrated more clearly than in the following statement made by Rep. Mo Brooks on May 1:

“My understanding is that it will allow insurance companies to require people who have higher health care costs to contribute more to the insurance pool. That helps offset all these costs, thereby reducing the cost to those people who lead good lives, they’re healthy, they’ve done the things to keep their bodies healthy. And right now those are the people—who’ve done things the right way—that are seeing their costs skyrocketing.”

On the surface, this seems like a pretty cruel, heartless stance. After all, what Rep. Brooks appears to be saying here is that if someone gets breast cancer, say, then it's their own damned fault for not living a clean life and they deserve to pay more for insurance as a result. Now, everybody knows this is bullshit, and it's a pretty safe bet that's not what Rep. Brooks meant. My guess is that he was speaking more to the apparent fairness of premium amounts, taking a position that people who need more health care should be paying higher premiums. And while this does seem like a reasonable proposition, it misses the point entirely on how insurance is supposed to work (the people who need less subsidize the people who need more, thus spreading the cost more or less evenly ... but diving into the intricacies of health insurance actuary is way beyond the scope of this article). This illustrates a higher point, though. Whether it stems from ideology, or the need to maintain viewership across the basic cable spectrum, or just pure salaciousness, we have been trapped in a cycle of "gotchas" for the past several decades. Barack Obama says "So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion ..." as a statement on small-town America's reaction to steady job losses over the prior twenty years, which is clearly evident when the entire quote is used:

"Our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there's not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

However, the right-wing shriek factory chose to highlight a specific phrase in a manner designed to generate the most outrage, furthering the narrative of Obama as a Kenyan Muslim terrorist atheist communist dictator, hellbent on taking away everyone's guns and forcing them to adhere to Sharia law (which, let's be fair, almost none of the target audience knew anything about except what they had heard from the right-wing shriek factory in the first place ... and not for nothing, but it is impossible to be a Muslim and an atheist. Just sayin'.). To be fair, this sort of nonsense happens on the left as well, but again ... a topic for another article ... The thing is, there are actually very few Republicans who hew strictly to this line. The vast majority of them do not agree with ideological purity at all costs; instead they adopt a stance of "Okay, I have my ideology, you have yours, and there has to be some agreeable middle ground." For example, as you may have guessed, I am a liberal. Very liberal. Not quite to the anarchist extreme of some, but definitely more than most. One of my best friends is a hard-core conservative Republican. We argue about politics all the time, and rare is the occasion when one of us makes a solid enough argument to change the other's position. Despite this obvious mental deficiency on his part (kidding, and he knows it), he is a wonderful stepfather, a good and decent person, and regularly kicks my ass at pool. And this is the fundamental point. Republicans are not, by nature, evil. They are not the sort of cartoonish, sinister villains portrayed in the media, any more than liberals are all a bunch of skinny, stoned, granola-munching whiners with acoustic guitars militantly guarding against trigger words. Republicans just have a different viewpoint from Democrats. That's all. They are both still Americans, they both still love this country, they both still respect the Constitution. Go to any firehouse, police station, military barracks, elementary school, restaurant, grocery store, auto shop. Unless there is only one person there, chances are pretty good that there will be a roughly even split between conservatives and liberals. And I guarantee that the EMT who is driving the ambulance taking you to the hospital doesn't give a hairy rodent's posterior about your political affiliation, the only concern is getting you to the goddam hospital. This is what we, as a society, are losing sight of lately. It is incumbent upon all of us -- right or left, Democrat or Republican, conservative or liberal -- to always remember this, and to accept the fundamental humanity of those with differing views, and to allow the respect that is born from this acceptance to be shown. And it has to start with a decision on which media outlet to frequent. Yes, there are no purely objective sources. Every media outlet has some sort of political leaning. It's only natural, considering they are all people. Where the differences lie is in how this slant is addressed. Some, like Breitbart and the Daily Wire on the right or Occupy Democrats and the Palmer Report on the left, make no bones about their political leanings. Which is fine, as long as people understand that their content is all opinion, not fact. Others, like the New York Times and the Washington Post on the left and the Wall Street Journal and Forbes on the right, acknowledge their political stance but strive to keep it from coloring their reporting. Yes, sometimes they are better at it than others, but they all have one common characteristic: when a mistake is made, they cop to it. Publicly. They issue retractions and correct the erroneous information. If there are enough retractions credited to a specific reporter ... well, that reporter is then out of a job. So I urge everyone reading this -- both of you -- to ask the following questions when considering a news source (not including articles clearly labeled as opinion pieces):

Does this news source use objective language, or are there subjective terms (excluding quotes) used to attempt to sway the reader to a particular way of thinking about an issue? For example, the Daily Wire recently published a story about funding being pulled from a Shakespeare in the Park production of "Julius Caesar" because it depicts the assassination of donald trump. While the story may be true, and it is not at all uncommon for theater companies to adapt Shakespeare to modern settings, the Daily Wire uses language like "objectively despicable contents of this production" to describe the play. Rather than just reporting on the "who, what, where, when" of the issue, the Daily Wire attempts to apply a value judgement to the play, thus robbing the reader of that opportunity.

Can the story be verified by multiple reliable sources? For example, if you see a story in the New York Times, or Forbes, or the BBC, or even the Daily Caller, can you also find reporting on that same topic from another source? This excludes the latest practice in which someone creates content that may or may not be factual and distributes it to like-thinking outlets, who then publish it blindly (basically, what happens here is that the article appears in multiple outlets, with identical or near-identical language).

In the case of erroneous reporting, does the source acknowledge it and issue a retraction? This only applies to factual errors. For example, an article about Ivanka Trump's clothing line that reports on a pair of shoes costing $2,500 when they are actually $250 deserves a correction. An opinion piece stating that they are the butt-ugliest things to come down the pike since the Pontiac Aztek does not.

It is vitally important that we all -- Republican and Democrat alike -- do our due diligence when consuming media. It is only once we emerge from the shriek factories on both the left and right and into the light of day that we can start to find common ground on the issues facing this nation today. Please like and share my page at http://ift.tt/2rkD9UV for more.