The Media Cold War has Gone Hot

Recently things have been shaken up a bit in the media.Last year we saw Roger Ailes forced out at Fox and now longtime Fox star Bill O’reilly is the latest victim.But those two are only part of the story,what else is going on runs much deeper and may have much broader implications.

O’reilly was forced out primarily because advertisers in his time slot pulled their adverts which began costing Fox millions of dollars in revenue.Obviously no business can continue to sustain such losses indefinitely,so O’reilly had to go.Or at least that’s part of the story.In reality a sea change in management occurred at Fox,namely Rupert’s two sons are now calling the shots, both of which are reportedly further left leaning than their father ,infact any further left and they would likely fall over.

Normally O’reilly and FNC would have fought off the allegations made against him by his female accusers,but this time Fox rolled over on him partly from convenience and partly from desire.His replacement is Tucker Carlson,who by all accounts had been doing a bang up job in his new show which was on tap filling out the time slots after Meygn Kelly left.His style was much more in depth and IMO anyway,harder hitting than either O’reilly or Kelly,that is to say-was.

His first interview roll out was with Caitlyn Jenner aka Bruce Jenner.Yes,that’s right,with the world on the brink of a hot war in Asia,terrorist attacks and turmoil on several fronts as well as all the domestic issues facing America.Tucker’s first interview is with Caitlyn Jenner,aka Bruce Jenner,former athlete,turned reality star,turned pseudo woman.

Doesn’t make much sense does it?Ya,me too,unless you look past it and realize this is just another virtue signal from mainstream media to SJW’s everywhere.”Fox news,we hear you and we agree-look for changes” is the signal.I think big changes are coming to Fox,and they won’t be good.

But it’s not just Fox,the even bigger news in the media arena and the more with what I believe carries broader reaching implications for conservatives and for that matter libertarians,is what’s been happening in social media and Youtube.

A new leftwing puritanical movement has been steadily growing.Think PC culture on steroids.It was kicked off as Trump first announced his candidacy and has steadily gotten worse.Not only can one get in trouble for saying the wrong thing,which has always been a PC staple,but now if they sense a ideological bent or even a slight perceived deviation from the liberal hive mind ideology,one can expect losing their very right to speak at all.

Let’s take Youtube for example,not only have conservative commentators come under fire,but even culturally neutral,non-political characters have come under fire,such as the case of Pewdiepie.For those of you who aren’t familiar,he is a young fellow from Scandinavia that does video gaming commentary and review and occasionally some of that dry often,odd Scandinavian humor.His is no hick channel,his videos routinely break 5-6 million views per and his rumored income from his channel is on the six figures range-per month-ya,nice work if you can get it huh?

A few months back,he did a short skit in one of his videos,wherein allegedly he gave a Nazi salute.I saw it,don’t think that really is the case and in any rate even if it was,it wasn’t meant in any  form of malice.Didn’t matter,Youtube pulled his channel and pulled his revenue.His fan base came to his rescue and eventually his channel was reinstated,but I think they are still fighting over lost income.

Some said at the time that Youtube,which is owned by Google was testing the waters for a wider crackdown,it appears they were right.For the record,I support free speech without reservation,I might be offended by another opinion,but as long as no laws are being broken and no one is being realistically harmed by that speech it’s anything goes as far as I am concerned.I draw the exception at physical harm.

It was found from time to time in recent years that Youtube was being misused as a propaganda platform for Isis and several other terrorist groups.In that regard those channels should have been and were taken down.Of course the way Youtube operates there is no site verification,meaning anyone can start a channel and begin uploading,even if they have been banned before.As far as content goes,the only real monitoring is done by the viewers and some loose algorithms.With millions of videos being uploaded weekly,there simply is no way to monitor all of it physically in real time.

The way  advert revenue is handled on Youtube,the uploader can choose to turn on monetization and after their video receives x-number of views,their video may attract corporate advertising and after that based on certain criteria,every time someone views the video and the accompanying advert they receive payment per view ranging from a few tenths of a cent to a few cents.If it’s a popular channel as in the case of Pewdiepie this can add up to millions of dollars per year,so it can be quite lucrative,or at least offset the cost of producing the content,camera equipment,etc.

Last month it was revealed that Al Qaeda and Isis both had started new channels and both had begun receiving advert revenue from various advertisers.This was not Youtube or Google’s direct fault,the advert system as mentioned before is nearly totally automated and no one had any idea this was happening until some journalists including some at the Wall Street Journal pointed it out,for once they did their job.

Of course the advertisers that saw their product was being pitched in terrorist propaganda videos featuring beheadings  were needless to say horrified and demanded that Youtube and Adsense (Google’s advert arm) do something immediately to put a stop t this.The first time this happened,Youtube just shutdown all the channels in question and handed over to authorities all the information they had on the posters.However when it happened again,Google stepped in and went full retard draconian.

They unleashed a set of algorithms that looked for keywords in posts and the keyword sample they used featured some pretty wide nets being cast.The end result was that channels,many of which were conservative or Christian in nature were also shutdown or demonetized.

Nearly all of the gun and outdoors channels,many political commentary channels such as Paul Joseph Watson and even Wranglerstar which is as benign a channel as one can get, either had their channels suspended or demonetized. A number of liberal leaning channels were also either by purpose or by accident shutdown.

Google it seems  took the same tack as the Murdoch bothers,using the opportunity to go a step or three farther than they could have gone otherwise.Remember-“never let a crisis go to waste”?

Enter Facebook,Twitter and Snapchat.Those platforms are quite a bit different than Youtube as the content there is posted in real time by the uploader. Like any tool,these can be used for good as well as evil.In recent months,rapes,kidnappings even murders have been live streamed over FaceBook  and horrifying images have been posted on Instagram,with very little means of tracing them back to and apprehending the violators.Public outrage is understandable and warranted here I believe.

However as in the previous case mentioned above,it also presents an opportunity for those with ulterior motives in mind.I have a hunch that shortly pressure will build for user verification before anyone is allowed to post anything online.They will want physical location and ID information verified before allowing anyone to have an account on Youtube,Twitter,Snapchat………or a lowly internet blog.

I believe that the decade old media cold war has gone hot and the final push from Big Brother has begun.Soon a system will be unveiled I believe that will allow them to silence free speech on a global,personal,individual level.In the public sphere,it’s already here and has been for awhile.It’s been lately ineffective however,so now they see the need to broaden their sphere of censorship to the digital world and the airwaves.

I have long maintained that our basic human rights have been balanced on a razor’s edge.Humankind and our freedom of thought and expression could either thrive and flourish,or it could descend into a thousand years of darkness and tyranny.

Hitler and Goebbels would be jealous.