Europe submits voluntarily

[whichphilosophy]

I clicked your link. And then I clicked your link's link.

In October 2016, the SPLC published a list of "anti-Muslim extremists", including British activist Maajid Nawaz and ex-Muslim activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Poverty_Law_Center

The SPLC appears to be unable to tell the difference between (anti-Muslim) extremists and anti-(Muslim extremists). I'm not claiming Horowitz isn't an extremist, but do you have any particular reason we should trust the SPLC to make that assessment for us?

Meh. I don't know much about the SPLC; I quoted Wikipedia, which is a 'quick and dirty' source for determining what other sources are both safe and worthy of clicks.

My quote from Wiki consists of two lines - one quotes both SPLC and Horowitz's pal Spencer; The other (from a wiki editor whose identity I can't be bothered to pursue) simply says 'The website has been described as "right-wing", "far-right", "Islamophobic" and "anti-Islam"' FrontPage Magazine doesn't appear to be worthy of a click; particularly in the light of angelo's previous choices of 'sources', such as JihadWatch.

But Wikipedia doesn't do its own research. It's a quick and dirty source for determining what other sources are saying about other sources; and even Donald Trump can tell you what he's heard other people saying. Seeing as how lots of leftists describe people like Maajid Nawaz and Ayaan Hirsi Ali as "right-wing", "far-right", "Islamophobic" and "anti-Islam" too, if finding out that leftists have called somebody those things is all it takes to convince you he isn't worth a click, then you're allowing one extreme point of view to put a limit on your reading. Now, given that Wikipedia is trustworthy, if Wikipedia had told you that a selection of mostly factual moderate articles had called Horowitz "right-wing", "far-right", "Islamophobic" and "anti-Islam", that would make a better case for not clicking; but Wikipedia isn't really in the business of passing judgment on which of its sources are moderate. They'll just tell you who said it, and leave it up to you to have learned whether that's someone not to trust.

People are entitled to their own opinions; But they are not entitled to their own facts.

Quite so. So can you tell whether somebody is trying to have his own facts by checking whether a leftist called him an "anti-Muslim extremist"?

No, I can't; Which might be why I said:

In the 'good old days', governments simply told the press what they could or couldn't publish, and all you got was the government approved point of view. Then the idea of the 'free press' came about, and we got the views of anyone who had the resources and intelligence to establish, produce, print and market a newspaper. This was a significant improvement; a single biased source was replaced by a diverse range of sources, most of which couldn't be too biased for fear of losing readers and going broke.

But now we have the Internet - no matter how marginal, counter-factual, or unpopular your ideas are, you can publish them to the world at almost no cost. And the revenue stream from this is not from sales, but from an advertising model that rewards clicks.

By simply going to look at a website, one is funding its publisher. So as a citizen, you have the duty to be wary about what sites you visit - quite aside from the fact that there are so many news (and 'news') sites that some kind of filter is required.

The Internet encourages extremists (on all sides), and this is not a good thing. Reading two opposing but equally counter-factual and extreme points of view is not equivalent to reading a selection of mostly factual moderate articles; Such reading actually makes people less well informed than they were before they started. The only thing worse is to limit your reading to only one extreme point of view - as it would appear angelo does on this topic.

The sum of all the things that make me disinclined to click that link is far too large to explicitly provide here. Hence my resorting to a quick and dirty heuristic. I am not surprised that that doesn't satisfy everybody - that's pretty solidly implied by 'quick and dirty'; I make no pretense of rigor, and it seems rather odd that you feel the need to criticize it's lack.

Unless you (or angelo, or anyone) presents a good reason why I should donate my click to angelo's choice of website, I shall continue not to do so. Because (and forgive my lack of rigor in this further explanation) it looks as dodgy as fuck.

Even some of the worst websites can sometimes hold valuable information especially as a result of cutting and pasting from elsewhere.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Even some of the worst websites can sometimes hold valuable information especially as a result of cutting and pasting from elsewhere.

Ehe? The worst web-sites make stuff up that then spreads. There's a lot of them. It's reached the point where most people have no clue what information is true or not or what information can be trusted. This thread is ample evidence of that.

No, everything on the worst websites is nonsense. You've got to climb quite high up on the news ladder to reach a point where there's anything of value printed. But you only need one bullshit story in a magazine to make all the content questionable. What's the point with a believable story in a sea of bullshit? That's the problem with tabloids.

The news media landscape has become so bizarre and twisted that your comment is not middle-of the road. With your attitude you've made yourself a prime target for click-bait articles.

 

[angelo]

Many news items are biased in the eyes of the beholder.

 

[whichphilosophy]

Even some of the worst websites can sometimes hold valuable information especially as a result of cutting and pasting from elsewhere.

Ehe? The worst web-sites make stuff up that then spreads. There's a lot of them. It's reached the point where most people have no clue what information is true or not or what information can be trusted. This thread is ample evidence of that.

No, everything on the worst websites is nonsense. You've got to climb quite high up on the news ladder to reach a point where there's anything of value printed. But you only need one bullshit story in a magazine to make all the content questionable. What's the point with a believable story in a sea of bullshit? That's the problem with tabloids.

The news media landscape has become so bizarre and twisted that your comment is not middle-of the road. With your attitude you've made yourself a prime target for click-bait articles.

I mean quite an article as-is. If extremists provide opinions on the article then there are sometimes problems of generalisation. This applies in politics to the right and left.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Many news items are biased in the eyes of the beholder.

I am happy you've started feeling that way. Perhaps this means you will start to fact check articles before sharing them?

No offence, but you've been one of the worst offenders when it comes to spreading fake news on this site. I would welcome the change.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Ehe? The worst web-sites make stuff up that then spreads. There's a lot of them. It's reached the point where most people have no clue what information is true or not or what information can be trusted. This thread is ample evidence of that.

No, everything on the worst websites is nonsense. You've got to climb quite high up on the news ladder to reach a point where there's anything of value printed. But you only need one bullshit story in a magazine to make all the content questionable. What's the point with a believable story in a sea of bullshit? That's the problem with tabloids.

The news media landscape has become so bizarre and twisted that your comment is not middle-of the road. With your attitude you've made yourself a prime target for click-bait articles.

I mean quite an article as-is. If extremists provide opinions on the article then there are sometimes problems of generalisation. This applies in politics to the right and left.

The problem is how we consume media. Liberals read news from a greater variety of sources. They fact check more. Conservatives typically get all their news from one or a couple of sources. It's two completely different styles of gathering information.

Here's a recent study in numbers:

http://news.stanford.edu/2017/01/18/stanford-study-examines-fake-news-2016-presidential-election/

For the 2016 US presidential election fake news sites created about as many fake Republican news stories as Democrat. The fake news sites don't have any allegiance or political agenda. Their goal wasn't to impact the election. It was just to get clicks for the adds on their pages. So what was the result?

Conservatives shared fake news stories about Democrats 30 million times on social media. Liberals shared 7 million fake news stories about Republicans.

Liberals just fact check more. So these groups are not comparable. Conservatives will be harder to influence, since they aren't as open and curious about the world.

There's been loads of studies on this. They're not the same kind of people. Which should be pretty obvious since they don't share values.

 

[Warpoet]

The SPLC appears to be unable to tell the difference between (anti-Muslim) extremists and anti-(Muslim extremists).

Says who? They gave their reasoning for both designations you quoted. Did you bother looking them up? The cited statements from AHA are unequivocally both anti-Muslim and extremist; their case against Nawaz is a bit weak to warrant calling him an extremist, but certainly damaging to his credibility as some kind of well-meaning "reformer."

I'm not claiming Horowitz isn't an extremist, but do you have any particular reason we should trust the SPLC to make that assessment for us?

He didn't need to cite anything at all, so it's not terribly important either way. There is overwhelming evidence, accessible through a simple google search, that Spencer and Jihadwatch are not trustworthy or credible sources. This shouldn't need to be pointed out, but the fact that you have nothing to say when people like angelo post such utterly shit sources in this thread over and over again, but immediately start busting bilby's balls over citing the SPLC, really says it all.

 

[whichphilosophy]

I mean quite an article as-is. If extremists provide opinions on the article then there are sometimes problems of generalisation. This applies in politics to the right and left.

The problem is how we consume media. Liberals read news from a greater variety of sources. They fact check more. Conservatives typically get all their news from one or a couple of sources. It's two completely different styles of gathering information.

Here's a recent study in numbers:

http://news.stanford.edu/2017/01/18/stanford-study-examines-fake-news-2016-presidential-election/

For the 2016 US presidential election fake news sites created about as many fake Republican news stories as Democrat. The fake news sites don't have any allegiance or political agenda. Their goal wasn't to impact the election. It was just to get clicks for the adds on their pages. So what was the result?

Conservatives shared fake news stories about Democrats 30 million times on social media. Liberals shared 7 million fake news stories about Republicans.

Liberals just fact check more. So these groups are not comparable. Conservatives will be harder to influence, since they aren't as open and curious about the world.

There's been loads of studies on this. They're not the same kind of people. Which should be pretty obvious since they don't share values.

From personal experience there is little difference except extremists will rely more on restricted sources.
I'm not sure about shared values. A Marxist in China may seem like a bible belt conservative on certain moral issues.

There are also studies which show that a left wing brain is different than a right wing brain etc. However it is not clear how these were done and there is yet to be some level of replication.

 

[whichphilosophy]

Says who? They gave their reasoning for both designations you quoted. Did you bother looking them up? The cited statements from AHA are unequivocally both anti-Muslim and extremist; their case against Nawaz is a bit weak to warrant calling him an extremist, but certainly damaging to his credibility as some kind of well-meaning "reformer."

I'm not claiming Horowitz isn't an extremist, but do you have any particular reason we should trust the SPLC to make that assessment for us?

He didn't need to cite anything at all, so it's not terribly important either way. There is overwhelming evidence, accessible through a simple google search, that Spencer and Jihadwatch are not trustworthy or credible sources. This shouldn't need to be pointed out, but the fact that you have nothing to say when people like angelo post such utterly shit sources in this thread over and over again, but immediately start busting bilby's balls over citing the SPLC, really says it all.

The issue I raised is whether the content quoted by Jihadwatch which came from an imported source was factual. In this instance an unreliable publication can still carry factual information. Extreme publications tend to generalise by magnifying a situation or missing out information.

 

[DrZoidberg]

From personal experience there is little difference except extremists will rely more on restricted sources.
I'm not sure about shared values. A Marxist in China may seem like a bible belt conservative on certain moral issues.

There are also studies which show that a left wing brain is different than a right wing brain etc. However it is not clear how these were done and there is yet to be some level of replication.

Did you click the link I posted? This is a kind of study that is highly reproducible. This is a meta analysis of freely available, and shared data on social networking sites. Anybody can at any time check the data. Just build a bot that collects the data you want. Super simple to do.

Yes, the brains of liberals and conservatives show measurable and statistically significant differences when scanned in a brain scanner. But nobody knows what that means. We don't know enough about the brain to make conclusions. At this point its a research dead-end on the level of phrenology. Phrenologists spent decades cataloguing bumps on people's skulls. We still have no idea what kind of conclusions can be drawn from it.

At this point measuring brains is a waste of time. While measuring what people actually does isn't. Which is what this study is about.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Says who? They gave their reasoning for both designations you quoted. Did you bother looking them up? The cited statements from AHA are unequivocally both anti-Muslim and extremist; their case against Nawaz is a bit weak to warrant calling him an extremist, but certainly damaging to his credibility as some kind of well-meaning "reformer."



He didn't need to cite anything at all, so it's not terribly important either way. There is overwhelming evidence, accessible through a simple google search, that Spencer and Jihadwatch are not trustworthy or credible sources. This shouldn't need to be pointed out, but the fact that you have nothing to say when people like angelo post such utterly shit sources in this thread over and over again, but immediately start busting bilby's balls over citing the SPLC, really says it all.

The issue I raised is whether the content quoted by Jihadwatch which came from an imported source was factual. In this instance an unreliable publication can still carry factual information. Extreme publications tend to generalise by magnifying a situation or missing out information.

A news site sells trustworthiness. People are pulled in because they trust the people saying stuff on the site. It's the site that matters, not the source. If people have to check the source, then the news site has failed to generate trustworthiness. It doesn't matter that you can find something true on a news site. What matters is if you can find anything false.

Jihadwatch preys on people who don't have the time or energy to fact check. All fake news sites do. Jihadwatch is just a cynical attempt to generate ad-revenue for minimum effort. I wouldn't be surprised if all content on that site is generated by bots that Robert Spencer touch up a bit before publishing.

Jihadwatch is just one guy. Quality magazines have large staffs of people, most of which work with fact checking. Fact checking is expensive. Jihadwatch doesn't have the manpower to fact check anything they publish. They couldn't, even hypothetically do it.

As a business model it's genius. He's generating masses amounts of ad revenue by posing as a serious publication, without having to pay any staff. For a serious magazine it's hard making ends meet. Jihadwatch has barely any costs at all. I'm sure he's laughing all the way to the bank.

 

[Warpoet]

The issue I raised is whether the content quoted by Jihadwatch which came from an imported source was factual. In this instance an unreliable publication can still carry factual information. Extreme publications tend to generalise by magnifying a situation or missing out information.

If the information is factual, it should be no trouble finding credible sources bearing this out. Jihadwatch is utter garbage, and should never be cited as a source under any circumstances, nor those citing it be taken seriously. In the case of information being imported from a reliable source, the reliable source itself should be linked to, not Jihadwatch. Nobody is under any obligation to go to Jihadwatch at all, far less separate the factual information from the agenda-driven bullshit.

 

[whichphilosophy]

The issue I raised is whether the content quoted by Jihadwatch which came from an imported source was factual. In this instance an unreliable publication can still carry factual information. Extreme publications tend to generalise by magnifying a situation or missing out information.

If the information is factual, it should be no trouble finding credible sources bearing this out. Jihadwatch is utter garbage, and should never be cited as a source under any circumstances, nor those citing it be taken seriously. In the case of information being imported from a reliable source, the reliable source itself should be linked to, not Jihadwatch. Nobody is under any obligation to go to Jihadwatch at all, far less separate the factual information from the agenda-driven bullshit.

I did this from a different angle. I didn't check whether Jihadwatch comments themselves were credible, as this was not what I was checking; I checked a couple of the cut and pastes which it took from other sources.

If a news media prints the proceedings in a court which are as they occurred and Jihadwatch cut and pastes it, that portion if unaltered will be just as factual.

Whether Jihadwatch is garbage or not there's a lot of garbage about.

 

[angelo]

Many news items are biased in the eyes of the beholder.

I am happy you've started feeling that way. Perhaps this means you will start to fact check articles before sharing them?

No offence, but you've been one of the worst offenders when it comes to spreading fake news on this site. I would welcome the change.

Show me exactly where Robert Spencer, or any other links I've provided are fake news! Aren't you also falling in the same hole as the shoot the messengers brigades here and elsewhere?

 

[whichphilosophy]

I am happy you've started feeling that way. Perhaps this means you will start to fact check articles before sharing them?

No offence, but you've been one of the worst offenders when it comes to spreading fake news on this site. I would welcome the change.

Show me exactly where Robert Spencer, or any other links I've provided are fake news! Aren't you also falling in the same hole as the shoot the messengers brigades here and elsewhere?

It's hard to find any media that is fully accurate, true or not biased. In the UK we have the British Brainwashing Corporation (BBC) in the USA, the Clinton News Network (CNN) or Faux News. Finding the facts is a matter of wading through different reports and trying to make an assessment. The truth is we do have a problem with terrorism in the West who were wet-nursed by the US war machines in the Middle East.

 

[angelo]

Here in Australia, we have the ABC, SBS, and their digital affiliates. In fact in a survey done some time ago it was found that most of the ABC's staff were left leaning either towards the Greens or the Labor parties.

 

[angelo]

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/nat...s/news-story/4b36bb728fa752f563182f69208eb03d

 

[DrZoidberg]

Show me exactly where Robert Spencer, or any other links I've provided are fake news! Aren't you also falling in the same hole as the shoot the messengers brigades here and elsewhere?

It's hard to find any media that is fully accurate, true or not biased. In the UK we have the British Brainwashing Corporation (BBC) in the USA, the Clinton News Network (CNN) or Faux News. Finding the facts is a matter of wading through different reports and trying to make an assessment.

Are you therefore making a claim that all media as exactly as untruthful? Because that's what it looks like to me. You can't compare BBC with Jihadwatch. Jihadwatch isn't even trying. The BBC try very very hard to get it right. The BBC rarely get it wrong. Jihadwatch rarely get it right.

I think your attitude is incredibly dangerous. And is the kind of attitude that led to Trump and Brexit.

The truth is we do have a problem with terrorism in the West who were wet-nursed by the US war machines in the Middle East.

Nobody is disputing that. The disagreement is about what the causes are. Reading Jihadwatch isn't going to help you figure it out.

 

[angelo]

It's hard to find any media that is fully accurate, true or not biased. In the UK we have the British Brainwashing Corporation (BBC) in the USA, the Clinton News Network (CNN) or Faux News. Finding the facts is a matter of wading through different reports and trying to make an assessment.

Are you therefore making a claim that all media as exactly as untruthful? Because that's what it looks like to me. You can't compare BBC with Jihadwatch. Jihadwatch isn't even trying. The BBC try very very hard to get it right. The BBC rarely get it wrong. Jihadwatch rarely get it right.

I think your attitude is incredibly dangerous. And is the kind of attitude that led to Trump and Brexit.

The truth is we do have a problem with terrorism in the West who were wet-nursed by the US war machines in the Middle East.

Nobody is disputing that. The disagreement is about what the causes are. Reading Jihadwatch isn't going to help you figure it out.

You're kidding right!!!! The fucking causes are ISLAM!!!!

 

[DrZoidberg]

Here in Australia, we have the ABC, SBS, and their digital affiliates. In fact in a survey done some time ago it was found that most of the ABC's staff were left leaning either towards the Greens or the Labor parties.

It's a red herring. It doesn't matter what way a journalist is leaning when they're getting fact checked. Wrong is wrong no matter the colour of your socks.

Yes, journalists are more likely to be left since they're humanities graduates. That's just the type of people who are attracted to that type of job. Conservatives are more into jobs that are lucrative. Journalism doesn't pay shit.

That doesn't make left leaning journalists liars. A good journalist can write from any angle. Journalism is mostly a craft. And all journalists will go through their career having to whore out their skills to all manner of publications leaning all manner of ways.

Here's a good example. The guy who founded the Denver Guardian, (the biggest fake news site ever) Jestin Coler, mostly produced fake news stories about Democrats. He's a liberal. He spent most of his career writing about luxury yacht, ie for a conservative audience. I think he still does. Being a journalist is just a job. If they're professional about it, they'll leave their personal opinions out of it. And if they're not... well... they'll get fired.

In every magazine there's typically only a single page in the magazine, (the op ed piece) where journalists are allowed to have an opinion.

Unless you're writing for Jihadwatch, in which case every piece is an opinion piece.