Comment by parkingrift
4 years ago
Not sure I agree. I live in New York City and my family is scattered in suburban towns all over the south. They constantly ask me about the “violence in NYC” and whether it’s safe.
The important issue here isn’t whether NYC is safe or violent. The issue is why are they reading about NYC? That’s the question we should be asking.
Why and where is my mother finding out about a random act of subway violence? Social media. Why is this content being pushed to her? Why do social media companies get to decide the type of content you see and also skirt publisher laws?
The problem isn’t a lack of local news. The problem is the nationalization of local news and algorithm driven 24/7 fear mongering on social media.
Take a 30 day break from social media and the news and the world feels safer. Gee, I wonder why. Did the world change?
They are subject to an intense propaganda campaign. NYC is viewed as democratic, and so the propaganda attacks it by amplifying any problem or just fabricating them.
You can see the top stories your parents are exposed to on FB, https://twitter.com/facebookstop10?lang=en
The top ones are often propaganda outlets who feed them the lies.
Exactly, what divide are we talking about? Divide me (please!) from para-military loons.
Of much greater importance--why would media from NYC become absolutely obsessed with a trivial event in, say, Ferguson, Missouri? Why not concern themselves with the incredible violence of places like...NYC? Why not look deep into the actual statistics around violence, rather than amplifying particular incidents from irrelevant places? Bad faith question, of course. They do it because they have to travel far and wide to find things that match the narrative. Outside their window, in the streets which their own politicians control, the narrative is a little different.
To answer your own question for the sake of contrast, it's not strange that provincials would know about the events in NYC. It is a large, important city.
You’re asking the same question, but in a leading way. I’m not even sure what you’re trying to imply here.
>To answer your own question for the sake of contrast, it's not strange that provincials would know about the events in NYC. It is a large, important city.
NYC is the financial capital of the US so of course important news out of NYC may be important elsewhere. However, a random act of subway violence is not important national news. Given the volume of subway riders I would argue that it is not even important local news.
Ferguson was publicized heavily because of massive demonstrations because police everywhere should know that their brother in blue makes their jobs more dangerous. Police killings undermine trust in police which is crucial for their safety.
John Oliver did a good "writeup" about Ferguson and why it mattered back in 2014. You should watch it, and see if you think it wasn't notable: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUdHIatS36A
> Why do social media companies get to decide the type of content you see and also skirt publisher laws?
There should be laws telling media companies what to publish? So people don't read FUDy articles that people always seem to seek out and demand? And these laws exist for other mediums?
When I was a kid our nightly news broadcast was full of crime and moral-panics news clips, people eat that stuff up always. I doubt it was much different in terms of gossip and social conversations.
We don’t need any new laws. We just need to apply existing publisher laws to social media companies which are outright acting as publishers.