This is actually really interesting. Footage has gone viral of some Yale Law School students disrupting a panel on free speech. Some judges have refused to take clerks from Yale after this. Fox invited an Indian Yale law grad called Vivek Ramaswamy to comment.
Now, if judges refuse to take such students as law clerks, this is gonna lead to a big controversy. Can judges take such a stance? Conversely, do cancel culture kids forfeit their right to do clerkships?
This also raises questions in the Indian context !!!
Another warning, Fox News reports are often BS so please try to be 'fair and balanced' when posting their content - please try and dive a little deeper into the subjects.
If an interesting debate was intended by the OP (as opposed to a debate / clutching of pearls on how 'cancel culture' - which is perceived by a few on the 'right' as the greatest evil of our times - is bad), there are other more useful resources than a Fox News 'debate' (besides the obvious polarisaiton / politicisation of US society / culture).
All TV organisations have flaws and political biases, but some like Fox barely even pretend to peddle anything except outright propaganda and have very scant regard for facts.
If you're talking about the other end of the spectrum, CNN, MSNBC, etc are almost as bad on some topics but from the other side of the political spectrum.
Sure, CNN & MSNBC are sometimes a bit more subtle and inconsistent in their propaganda, which arguably makes them even more dangerous as it makes it even harder to spot the lies, whereas on Fox News it's usually pretty obvious when they're lying if you're somewhat clued in and can listen between the lines.
Therefore, neither of these should be relied on as primary sources of information but you should make up your own opinions, perhaps by pitching various media-organisations' versions of the truth against each other and trying to figure out what's the most realistic version of events without the hyperbole and spin.
Hi R, I completely agree with you. That's why I trust only the Washington Post and NYT, which have correctly described Al Baghdadi as an "austere religious scholar" and censored fake news such as Hunter Biden owned a laptop, Covid leaked from a lab, Anthony Fauci funded Peter Daszak etc.
(Not R): Sarcasm noted and amidst it also the point that the NYT and Washington Post make mistakes and are biased, particularly more so during the recent Trump years and when it comes to US foreign policy.
That said, the vast majority of what they publish does have journalistic merit and is important. Just take respective yardsticks such as the WaPo's Watergate reporting and NYT's Pentagon Papers, or things more recently like the Snowden leaks. Or on a more mundane level, the thousands of stories about daily governance and events that they get right.
But yes, the editors and reporters are people too and sometimes make mistakes, or buy propaganda from the wrong quarters, or get destabilised by professional bullshitters like Trump or politicians like him, who routinely tell so many lies and half-truths it becomes very hard for journalists to do their job covering what they say without their own biases beginning to creep in after a while.
Take Covid lab leak, which you cite.
1. Trump did not know for sure that it was a lab leak but very quickly claimed he knew, no doubt for political mileage.
2. NYT, WaPo etc did not know for sure it wasn't a lab leak either, but at the time there was no evidence other than Trump's statement and speculation, and reporting it as fact would have been the wrong thing to do.
3. The 'lab leak as fake news' very quickly took on an orthodoxy of its own amongst the anti-Trump media, where coverage of it was long derided as conspiracy theory, whereas the right basically claimed to know for sure that it was a lab leak. But conclusive evidence for either side does not (and may never) really exist, and until then claiming you know one or the other as fact, is passing off opinion as fact.
This Woke and Cancel culture is ruining us! It is far far more fascist than fascism itself. They are the most intolerant lot. A bunch of whiny freeloaders. And sadly everyone is trying to please them.
I am amused by the sea of baseless assumptions this rant is based upon. Also my friend, Fascism pe aapka understanding toh kamaal ka hai bhai! I mean, wow. Now, this might seem Cancel Culture to you coming from a woke. But my friend, your statements itself are a reflection of your ignorance towards the academic meanings of these terms. Go, cover your bases first. With this being said I can only recommend you to read a bit about political ideologies. Not from media references, but from some actual 101 textbooks.
You sound rather more whiny yourself than the 'wokes' you profess to hate so much, but in the slim case you're not a troll, please explain the following about why you think cancel culture is worse than fascism:
1. What do you think fascism is? How about authoritarianism?
2. Would you prefer to live under a fascist or authoriatarian government or a broadly liberally-democratic government?
3. Why do you think that people being 'cancelled' online by 'wokes' on Twitter or being occasionally shouted at by wokes is a worse problem than a fascist government (or modern-day fascist-playbook / authoriarian / less-democratic governments such as in China, Russia, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Turkey) persecuting minorities or political opponents or others they disagree with, by throwing them in jail or sending them to 're-education' camps, or in some cases, just murdering them?
Counting: still zero comments answering the 3 very reasonable questions asked above trying to put a factual or at least bona fide backing to the claim that 'woke and cancel culture is worse than fascism itself'.
If we receive no answers that even try on a postcard or a comment (and instead more rants like #3 and #4 below), then that will be taken as a good signal that future comments in a similar vein will just be marked trollish and not published at all, since they apparently lack factual backing and/or reasonably held-beliefs supported by evidence.
We can understand woke and cancel culture is annoying to some and has arguably gone too far. But much of this hyperbole is, frankly, bullshit.
Since when Legally India became all about 'answers'? The purpose is to have an informal discussion, as you've said before in a thread that "Legally India is not a query solving platform rather a discussion based platform." If you would censor comments for the sole purpose of not getting your '3 answers' then it would defeat the purpose of the platform. In addition to what I've said, being a moderator gives a good amount of authority over what get's published and what doesn't, so I don't think it's fair to those who might not agree to your school of thought. As you're openly criticizing any contrasting remarks on the basis that they lack factual evidence, it is ironically proving your fascist approach in moderation.
Asking commentators whether their claims lack factual evidence is actually part of the moderator's job description. It is not as if both the sides are lacking such evidence yet the moderator is only asking one side to be out with it. Moreover, discussion includes answering questions asked as part of the discussion, and not merely monologuing rants. What I do have a problem with is the moderator's open declaration of personal stance using the website handle. If they need to declare that, then they should comment using their own name or an alias like others do.
Everyone has personal views, and we can hopefully also agree that moderators (and human beings) should hold personal views that do not accept hate speech or fake news or encouraging propaganda. But first and foremost the moderator's job should be that if claims or statements are questioned or appear to be without factual basis, to question those claims.
We are happy to try and fact check all claims, whether we personally agree with them or not, and even at the risk of feeding the trolls.
It just so happens that in our moderation experience the vast majority of dog-whistle and disingenuous comments tend to come from the right of the spectrum (or from people who get pleasure out of trolling so-called 'wokes').
So, what happened to right-wing intellectuals interested to debate and where are they?
Unfortunately discussion without any moderation, as the internet has unfortunately shown, tends to bring out a lot of discussion that is not bona fide but hijacked by spreaders of fake news, propagandists and trolls.
LI should definitely be a space for those on both sides of the political spectrum to air genuinely held views. But if it becomes dog whistle calls for hate or blatant attempts to troll that are not based on fact, then those are not genuine actors who are interested in having an honest informal discussion but have ulterior motives (OP's Fox video was an example thereof, as it was a distortion of facts based on the speech of one publicity-hungry lower court judge / politician to feed into a popular propaganda narrative that, to paraphrase another comment 'wokeism is worse than fascism').
Happy to see the moderator getting downvoted. Any comment attacking wokeism is automatically marked as trollish/contested. This type of liberal arrogance and intolerance is why Hilary Clinton lost.
Media consumption needs to be about being intelligent and critical, and not consuming your news mindlessly like junk food (as Fox News or the MSNBCs might like to encourage you to).
About Al Jazeera, don't read /watch it often enough to have strong opinions, but we understand they have some good documentaries sometimes and, for example, deeper and wider Africa coverage than most international news channels. They also probably have many reliable news items and others that are less so, and ultimately every reader / viewer should also be aware / will hopefully be aware that they are the soft-propaganda / soft-power arm of the Qatari government.
Why don't you share a few good and bad Al Jazeera articles and we can all decide whether to trust each of them or not on their own merits?
If we receive no answers that even try on a postcard or a comment (and instead more rants like #3 and #4 below), then that will be taken as a good signal that future comments in a similar vein will just be marked trollish and not published at all, since they apparently lack factual backing and/or reasonably held-beliefs supported by evidence.
Someone not answering a query and putting forward his opinion-->Criticizing it for being factually unsound-->Threaten to not publish it His bias might come into play if he is deciding which comment should be published since he said Quote:
It just so happens that in our moderation experience the vast majority of dog-whistle and disingenuous comments tend to come from the right of the spectrum
Fascist approach: a system of authority led by an individual who typically rules by forcefully and often violently suppressing opposition and criticism. (It is just a mere comparison, not that I'm saying he is a fascist :) I'm in neither side of the spectrum, just hoping free speech to prevail over any query solving.
Once again, it is quite clear from his comments that you have quoted that he never said anything about not publishing anything from any particular side of the spectrum, but instead said that comments lacking factual basis or even logical argument may not be published, which is fairly reasonable. You cannot pass off your personal opinion under the guise of legitimacy if it lacks any factual basis. If that standard is not adopted, then technically all abuses should also be published, because freedom of speech + opinion . His second statement is a product of his personal experience as a moderator on this forum, and should not be conflated with his first one. Your definition about fascism itself shows that he cannot be compared or even analogously portrayed with one, because the comments that he considers not to publish are not those that oppose or criticise him (as is evident from the fact that he is allowing your own comments criticising him to be published unmoderated, because so far you have made a sensible and logical argument).
Please get to the works that I assigned you people for god sake! You are all clowns pretending to think of yourselves as if you are really capable to bring in a political change. Ek anpadh MLA tum logo se zyada powerful hai. Toh ye "Mai padha Likha hoon, I'll debate and this would bring a social change" waali bakwaas apne paas hi rakho toh behtar. The majority doesn't give a shit about academic spirit anymore, they are happy with their 5 PM TV debates.
Now, if judges refuse to take such students as law clerks, this is gonna lead to a big controversy. Can judges take such a stance? Conversely, do cancel culture kids forfeit their right to do clerkships?
This also raises questions in the Indian context !!!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VuIqfHO6FEo
If an interesting debate was intended by the OP (as opposed to a debate / clutching of pearls on how 'cancel culture' - which is perceived by a few on the 'right' as the greatest evil of our times - is bad), there are other more useful resources than a Fox News 'debate' (besides the obvious polarisaiton / politicisation of US society / culture).
Here something from the conservative National Review, which broke the story, and thinks the judge's approach is 'misguided':
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/judge-hos-misguided-answer-to-illiberalism-at-yale/
Here's the left Mother Jones making fun of the judge:
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/10/james-ho-yale-law-school-boycott/
And here's Above The Law with its always-amusing take:
https://abovethelaw.com/2022/10/after-james-ho-boycott-another-conservative-judge-responds-great-more-yale-clerks-for-me/
Over to you.
If you're talking about the other end of the spectrum, CNN, MSNBC, etc are almost as bad on some topics but from the other side of the political spectrum.
Sure, CNN & MSNBC are sometimes a bit more subtle and inconsistent in their propaganda, which arguably makes them even more dangerous as it makes it even harder to spot the lies, whereas on Fox News it's usually pretty obvious when they're lying if you're somewhat clued in and can listen between the lines.
Therefore, neither of these should be relied on as primary sources of information but you should make up your own opinions, perhaps by pitching various media-organisations' versions of the truth against each other and trying to figure out what's the most realistic version of events without the hyperbole and spin.
That said, the vast majority of what they publish does have journalistic merit and is important. Just take respective yardsticks such as the WaPo's Watergate reporting and NYT's Pentagon Papers, or things more recently like the Snowden leaks. Or on a more mundane level, the thousands of stories about daily governance and events that they get right.
But yes, the editors and reporters are people too and sometimes make mistakes, or buy propaganda from the wrong quarters, or get destabilised by professional bullshitters like Trump or politicians like him, who routinely tell so many lies and half-truths it becomes very hard for journalists to do their job covering what they say without their own biases beginning to creep in after a while.
Take Covid lab leak, which you cite.
1. Trump did not know for sure that it was a lab leak but very quickly claimed he knew, no doubt for political mileage.
2. NYT, WaPo etc did not know for sure it wasn't a lab leak either, but at the time there was no evidence other than Trump's statement and speculation, and reporting it as fact would have been the wrong thing to do.
3. The 'lab leak as fake news' very quickly took on an orthodoxy of its own amongst the anti-Trump media, where coverage of it was long derided as conspiracy theory, whereas the right basically claimed to know for sure that it was a lab leak. But conclusive evidence for either side does not (and may never) really exist, and until then claiming you know one or the other as fact, is passing off opinion as fact.
Also my friend, Fascism pe aapka understanding toh kamaal ka hai bhai! I mean, wow. Now, this might seem Cancel Culture to you coming from a woke. But my friend, your statements itself are a reflection of your ignorance towards the academic meanings of these terms. Go, cover your bases first. With this being said I can only recommend you to read a bit about political ideologies. Not from media references, but from some actual 101 textbooks.
1. What do you think fascism is? How about authoritarianism?
2. Would you prefer to live under a fascist or authoriatarian government or a broadly liberally-democratic government?
3. Why do you think that people being 'cancelled' online by 'wokes' on Twitter or being occasionally shouted at by wokes is a worse problem than a fascist government (or modern-day fascist-playbook / authoriarian / less-democratic governments such as in China, Russia, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Turkey) persecuting minorities or political opponents or others they disagree with, by throwing them in jail or sending them to 're-education' camps, or in some cases, just murdering them?
https://www.legallyindia.com/convos/topic/190605-Ghosted
Tread carefully new mod :)
If we receive no answers that even try on a postcard or a comment (and instead more rants like #3 and #4 below), then that will be taken as a good signal that future comments in a similar vein will just be marked trollish and not published at all, since they apparently lack factual backing and/or reasonably held-beliefs supported by evidence.
We can understand woke and cancel culture is annoying to some and has arguably gone too far. But much of this hyperbole is, frankly, bullshit.
The purpose is to have an informal discussion, as you've said before in a thread that "Legally India is not a query solving platform rather a discussion based platform."
If you would censor comments for the sole purpose of not getting your '3 answers' then it would defeat the purpose of the platform.
In addition to what I've said, being a moderator gives a good amount of authority over what get's published and what doesn't, so I don't think it's fair to those who might not agree to your school of thought. As you're openly criticizing any contrasting remarks on the basis that they lack factual evidence, it is ironically proving your fascist approach in moderation.
We are happy to try and fact check all claims, whether we personally agree with them or not, and even at the risk of feeding the trolls.
It just so happens that in our moderation experience the vast majority of dog-whistle and disingenuous comments tend to come from the right of the spectrum (or from people who get pleasure out of trolling so-called 'wokes').
So, what happened to right-wing intellectuals interested to debate and where are they?
LI should definitely be a space for those on both sides of the political spectrum to air genuinely held views. But if it becomes dog whistle calls for hate or blatant attempts to troll that are not based on fact, then those are not genuine actors who are interested in having an honest informal discussion but have ulterior motives (OP's Fox video was an example thereof, as it was a distortion of facts based on the speech of one publicity-hungry lower court judge / politician to feed into a popular propaganda narrative that, to paraphrase another comment 'wokeism is worse than fascism').
About Al Jazeera, don't read /watch it often enough to have strong opinions, but we understand they have some good documentaries sometimes and, for example, deeper and wider Africa coverage than most international news channels. They also probably have many reliable news items and others that are less so, and ultimately every reader / viewer should also be aware / will hopefully be aware that they are the soft-propaganda / soft-power arm of the Qatari government.
Why don't you share a few good and bad Al Jazeera articles and we can all decide whether to trust each of them or not on their own merits?
His bias might come into play if he is deciding which comment should be published since he said Quote: Fascist approach: a system of authority led by an individual who typically rules by forcefully and often violently suppressing opposition and criticism. (It is just a mere comparison, not that I'm saying he is a fascist :)
I'm in neither side of the spectrum, just hoping free speech to prevail over any query solving.
Your definition about fascism itself shows that he cannot be compared or even analogously portrayed with one, because the comments that he considers not to publish are not those that oppose or criticise him (as is evident from the fact that he is allowing your own comments criticising him to be published unmoderated, because so far you have made a sensible and logical argument).