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angrysoba · 12th January 2021, 09:27 PM

Has it ever really been that different?

Has there ever been some extreme freedom of the press whereby anyone who wanted could get airtime on any of the networks or write articles in the press?

No. Conspiracy theorists used to have to print their own leaflets and have mailing lists and stand on street corners to deliver their foam-flecked rants about the Illuminati to the tin-foil hatted loons.

Mainstream politicians received campaign funds from arms manufacturers, lobby groups, oil companies etc....

I don't think that any of this divestment or refusal to platform crazy speech is new. What is new is that it had never gained as much attention as it has, until now.

12th January 2021, 09:27 PM	#3
angrysoba Philosophile Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: Osaka, Japan Posts: 29,294	Has it ever really been that different? Has there ever been some extreme freedom of the press whereby anyone who wanted could get airtime on any of the networks or write articles in the press? No. Conspiracy theorists used to have to print their own leaflets and have mailing lists and stand on street corners to deliver their foam-flecked rants about the Illuminati to the tin-foil hatted loons. Mainstream politicians received campaign funds from arms manufacturers, lobby groups, oil companies etc.... I don't think that any of this divestment or refusal to platform crazy speech is new. What is new is that it had never gained as much attention as it has, until now.
	__________________ "The thief and the murderer follow nature just as much as the philanthropist. Cosmic evolution may teach us how the good and the evil tendencies of man may have come about; but, in itself, it is incompetent to furnish any better reason why what we call good is preferable to what we call evil than we had before." "Evolution and Ethics" T.H. Huxley (1893)