Precisely! This is all the incessant media attacks on Substack are about. This petty envy, and the fact that they have no power or control to police what people can say there or how we can report.
Media outlets turning themselves into non-stop Trump #Resistance outlets gave them a temporary sugar high at the expense of their long-term credibility & profit.
WPost: “Traffic to the nation’s most popular mainstream news sites, including The Washington Post, plummeted in February....Barely two months into the post-Trump era, news outlets are indeed losing much of the audience and readership they gained during his chaotic presidency.“
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Thank you for this thread: it's always disorienting to watch some on Twitter -- who care more about posturing than affecting anything -- create an image of you that's only about venting their own displaced rage and that's totally unrecognizable from the reality of your life:
In terms of people who prioritize vapid, cheap social media posturing over real-life conduct, see also this thread (and note how a couple hundred angry loudmouths are outnumbered by thousands of quiet supporters there: how Twitter creates misperceptions):
The replies to this tweet illustrate the same dynamic: a certain kind of leftist whose "politics" is confined to pointless online larping at the expense of anything that might actually change society for the better:
These are the groups -- HRC, GLAAD, etc. -- that continue to perpetrate the myth that the PULSE massacre was motivated by anti-LGBT animus when everyone who reported on it knows it's false: same reason they added Jesse to their bigot list. This is what generates $ that pays them.
Still, three years later, every time I point out that the PULSE massacre was not motivated by anti-LGBT animus, large numbers are shocked/confused, showing how easily & widely people are misled by media. Here's my article with @MazMHussain on this:
Good @charlescwcooke article on what's really behind the attacks on Substack: “Traditional media figures seem to be horrified by the mere existence of venues over which they are unable to exert control.“
I also can't help but notice that the Substack writers they seem most angry about just so happen to be ones in marginalized groups: LGBTs & women (Sullivan, Katie Herzog, Bari Weiss, myself).
They're claim it's just about “ethics in journalism“ but it seems clear it's nefarious.
I also can't help but notice the Substack writers they want deplatformed or declare problematic are overwhelmingly Jews (Jesse Singal, Bari Weiss, myself, Yglesias, etc.). The “ethics in journalism“ banner seems designed to mask some very ugly impulses propelling these attacks.
One of the most viral videos in the country on the day of the Atlanta shootings was one completely doctored in meaning through dishonest editing by @atrupar -- something he has been caught doing so many times. See for yourself. How many did this deceive?
No liberal journalist in corporate media will object to the serial distortions and disinformation from @atrupar's doctored videos because he has the right ideology.
He routinely deceives millions, but they'll only denounce 4Chan teenagers & Facebook boomers who spread memes.
The Vox Video Dunce Disinformation Machine, @atrupar, strikes again. The favorite video dunce of the media people claiming to hate disinformation is the person on Twitter who spreads disinformation the most:
The years-long smear campaign against @jessesingal by a good chunk of the left-liberal media -- fabricating claims that he's a harasser and stalker of transwomen -- is one of the most repulsive things I've seen, yet illustrative of their tactics. Glad to see it getting attention:
Amazing how these obviously false smears from a known fabricator -- who just became LGBT like 4 seconds ago and now uses it to attack life-long LGBT writers -- get printed in every digital media article on the Substack controversy with no questioning:
This is what Brooklyn-based media outlets do: print any accusation against their enemies without the slightest need for evidence or even responses from the accused.
Then if you object to the lies, the journalists who do it cry "harassment," & then wonder why their outlets fail.
Any rules of political discourse that subordinate the merit of an argument to the identity of the person advocating it is inherently unhealthy.
The recent demands that LGBT writers be deplatformed from Substack -- in the name of LGBT equality -- illustrates this perversion.
At first glance, this discussion may seem relevant only to a limited audience. But I would like to invite readers to consider that these dynamics, far from being a niche discussion, has broad, even universal, relevance to how our political discourse is being conducted.