'The most striking thing about GB News is not how original it is, but how familiar it feels. For a supposedly “fresh approach", the only novelty lies in the fact that it’s on TV - it's a mix of tabloid sensationalism & ill-tempered phone-in radio.'
Like Fox News, GB News is a grievance-culture amplification system: from Brexit-based resentment against the EU to "anti-wokeness” & everything in-between: hostility to immigration, racial equality movements, “cancel culture” & lockdowns. an inexhaustible source of cheap content.
"GB News is a natural extension of the increasing popularity of a sort of conservative grievance politics, more concerned about what pictures students have on their walls than how the economy works or the outcomes of public policy."
Wootton claims it's a “broadcasting revolution in the UK, where presenters like me are honest about what we believe”. One of his first acts in that revolution was to quote the Sun, which asked if there's "a link between lockdown & the Govt’s drastic zero-emissions green agenda”.
GB News is planted in a soil already tilled by the rightwing press. In power is a govt that is only too happy to comment on & nourish culture-war confections... the audience will be slowly radicalised, helping to push Boris Johnson’s post-Brexit England even further to the right.
"We won’t be like Fox (News) in that they come from a hard right disinformation fake news conspiracy agenda." - Andrew Neil. 🤥
Epidemiologists are "DOOMSDAY SCIENTISTS ADDICTED TO POWER! WE MUST FIGHT BACK AGAINST THIS MADNESS!" - Dan Wootton. 🤪
Andrew Neil is GB "News" Chair, & Tom Harwood its Political Correspondent. There isn't a serious, credible news channel *on earth* that would allow its tea-maker to tweet dangerously inflammatory shit like this about a female journalist - never mind its "Political Correspondent."
Without a decent, credible news media, democracies cease to function. Disaster capitalists, libertarians & free market fundamentalists invest heavily in news media, & this process is well under way in Britain, America, Brazil, Hungary & other countries.
Echoing objections to social-media fuelled violence from the government of the UK & others, the Chamber of Progress, a tech business advocacy group, is urging delusional adolescent billionaire Musk to take his leadership role at @X more seriously - or resign if he cannot do so.
Since July 29 when right-wing influencers made false claims on Twitter/@X & other social media platforms that falsely blamed the murder of three children on Muslims & asylum-seeking immigrants, dozens of far-right #FarageRiots erupted around the nation.
The #FarageRiots started with a lie – a fake name and false information that suggested the teenager alleged to have killed three young girls in #Southport was a Muslim asylum seeker. He was neither.
There is an uncomfortable hypocrisy at the heart of this story, which is that people didn’t react the same way when, earlier this year, a white man killed a 14-year-old black boy, Daniel Anjorin, with a sword.
While that perpetrator was treated as a horrific anomaly, the Southport attacker was viewed by racist rioters as representative of migrants & Muslims, despite being neither.
A psychologist explains the cognitive biases and psychological responses behind this disparate treatment.
Researchers have developed & articulated the concept of “everyday extremism” to acknowledge that extreme narratives derived from non-mainstream sources can become a part of mainstream political discourse via social media.
As usual, @elonmusk takes a half-truth, removes important context, then selectively presents a misleading claim implying something about contemporary society, in this case mobilising a 'white victimhood' racist dog whistle narrative to fuel anger, division, & engagement.
Musk presents the claim that the etymological origins of the word word slave derives solely from the exploitation of 'white people', rather than, say, emphasising how religious texts from Judaism, Islam & Christianity all recognise slaves as a separate class of people in society.
Before examining Musk's misleading claim, it's worth knowing that the word 'Slav' refers to a member of the most numerous ethnic & linguistic body of peoples in Europe, residing chiefly in eastern & southeastern Europe but extending also across northern Asia to the Pacific Ocean.
#NEW opinion poll: "73% of the British public say that the riots are shaming rather than standing up for Britain, & the public overwhelmingly believe that those helping clear up after the riots (87%) represent British values." - @Moreincommon_ 🇬🇧
Rather than attitudes to the riots sitting in two contrasting pro- & anti-riots camps, public opinion is akin to Russian Dolls: small groups are willing to condone the riots but much bigger groups with opinions cited as motivation for the violence condemn it without hesitation.
The smallest group are those who express support for the unrest: 7% of the public say they are ashamed Britain is a multi-ethnic country; 8% think violent demonstrations outside asylum seeker accommodation are acceptable; & the 11% who have a positive opinion of Tommy Robinson.