One of the biggest & most urgent problems that Britain faces - which politicians, the press, and the national broadcast media rarely, if ever, discuss - is the constant amplification of extreme and divisive voices, in an increasingly polarising national media.
The space for intelligent, measured, nuanced, rational, respectful and reasonable debate, between people who represent the views of the vast majority of British people, has been squeezed out by a tiny pool of contrarian and deliberately provocative voices, chasing viral content.
Instead of qualified, intelligent and nuanced experts - who represent the consensus on important issues from climate change to crime, and from COVID to the economy - we get a constant stream of the same tiny number of professional contrarians, who hold marginal & divisive views.
Take Joe Rogan. There are millions of scientists & health experts who share the view that vaccines are safe & effective & significantly reduce the risk of hospitalisation & death, but it's Robert Malone who is given Rogan's massive platform, which amplifies his outlier opinions.
Similarly, there are millions of intelligent academics who have devoted their lives to researching & thinking about every subject under the sun, but we rarely hear from any of them, while Jordan Peterson is constantly on every platform, sharing his controversial outlier opinions.
The print & broadcast media is becoming like social media: people are funneled into brands which act as echo-chambers, with content that platforms THE most controversial & outlandish voices, giving a false impression that they are in any way representative of the majority view.
The 'Foxification' of broadcast media, on top of our partisan press, results in providers chasing limited (ad) revenue by going for the easy option - producing viral content which appeals to the base emotions of anger & outrage, rather than encouraging nuance & reflection.
The relentlessly confrontational style which is now impossible to avoid - especially on what should be dispassionate news/politics shows - models awful behaviour, & bypasses or diminishes audience's critical thinking capacity by provoking emotional rather than rational responses.
We need more dispassionate, intelligent & nuanced media debate. Currently, THE most controversial/contrarian voices dominate. They're not being "silenced" - quite the opposite. Imo, we need a much wider range of expert voices, instead of constantly amplifying THE most polarising.
Finland may be the nation most resistant to propaganda: media literacy is taught in primary school & since 2016 multi-platform information literacy & strong critical thinking are a core, cross-subject component of the secondary school national curriculum.
Politicians often benefit from taking outrageous stances, capitalising on #disinformation in order to antagonise certain groups & encourage loyal voters.
Finnish authorities understood this too, so education is focused on important universal values upheld by Finnish society.
Finnish values include fairness, the rule of law, respect for others’ differences, openness, & freedom.
Together, these are a powerful lens to exercise their critical thinking – students are called to make sense of information with these values in mind.
Americans who care about democracy, justice & the planet have to come together to prevent another Trump administration, which would attempt to introduce the regressive, antidemocratic & dangerously irresponsible policies laid out in the Heritage Foundation's #Project2025
Biden has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to replace him as the nominee.
Before outlining some essential information about Harris, I'll quickly summarise the process be for choosing the Democratic nominee as described by Newsweek.
In a statement emailed to Newsweek, Democratic National Committee (DNC) chair Jaime Harrison said that the party would "undertake a transparent and orderly process to move forward as a united Democratic Party with a candidate who can defeat Donald Trump in November."
Professor of History & Public Policy at Duke University & author of the terrifying award-winning bestseller 'Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America', Nancy MacLean, recently discussed #Project2025.
Law professor & social critic Kimberlé Crenshaw interviewed MacLean about what the prescriptions in the Heritage Foundation’s #Project2025 mean for parents, public schools, & for multiracial democracy.
CRENSHAW: These wars on curricula are not new, of course; they go far back in our history. What folks might not know is that the Heritage Foundation, the main convenor of #Project2025, cut its teeth on curricular wars in the 1970s.
'The Republican blueprint for power contains the seeds of its own demise. It is not too late to stop the descent of the American political order into tyranny, oligarchy or anarchy', writes Timothy Snyder.
Pete Buttigieg is an American politician and former naval officer who is serving as the 19th United States secretary of transportation. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the 32nd mayor of South Bend, Indiana, from 2012 to 2020, which earned him the nickname "Mayor Pete".
Buttigieg is a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Oxford, attending the latter on a Rhodes Scholarship. From 2009 to 2017, he was an intelligence officer in the United States Navy Reserve, attaining the rank of lieutenant.
Hitler survived assassination attempts. We know what that led to. Reagan & Thatcher survived assassination attempts. They gave us neoliberalism. Trump survived. He's chosen JD Vance as his running mate. If elected, America will become a dystopian free-market kleptocracy.
The 0.01% is gearing up to all but destroy US democracy.
Leading the charge & donating tens of millions of dollars to Trump's campaign are Silicon Valley's libertarian Tech billionaire extremists, led by Peter Thiel & Elon Musk - two of the most dangerous men on earth.
What's unfolding right now is like something from a dystopian sci-fi novel.
Except it's not fiction - it's real.
And it's a fucking nightmare assault on truth, fairness, equality, minorities, women's right, the environment & humanity, which democracy will struggle to survive.
"What first made Reform UK's white, privately educated multimillionaires Farage, Tice & Rupert Lowe oppose DEI?"
'Diversity Equity Inclusion' is a framework which promotes the fair treatment & full participation of ALL people, but particularly underrepresented groups...
Many people know that the term ‘DEI’ is being weaponized as a racist dog whistle (a coded, deniable bit of language that allows people to communicate ideas that would be too offensive if done explicitly).
There’s nothing new about using racist dog whistles. But the way DEI is used to play into racist sentiments is uniquely powerful, & may well be much more potent than other culture war terms.