Because technically they are in fact reporting news, just badly biased? I don't know, honestly.

I mean if Breitbart can exist I wouldn't be surprised Fox is still going strong. not helped when as the election demonstrated, there is strong support for racists and fascism

because there'd be a whole lot of impermissible policing of journalism, and first-amendment infringement otherwise.

they do have legit news segments, though badly biased, but the majority of "Fox News" is actually opinion segments, technically speaking.

if they tried passing legislation to define what can call itself "news", there'll always be people

who skirt those rules and argue that they're teeeechnically correct. and it's possible that smaller publications - honest ones, even - or individual journalists/bloggers would somehow manage to fall outside those definitions, if they're really poorly written. so it may actually be preferable, imho, to just have people roast them mercilessly when they don't

do a good job. one of the major "serious" news publications... I think it was the New York Times, though I could be mis-remembering... asked and received an overwhelming YES, to which they were all SURPRISED PIKACHU FACE somehow, as to whether their readers expected them to fact-check things, not just report exactly what was said.

so rather than trying to implement and enforce rules as to who can call themselves a "news" organization (because, again, depending on how the definition is written, maybe TYT or Philip DeFranco wouldn't fall within it? or Seth Meyers, John Oliver, etc... because they do also give opinions... which would be BS, right?) they just get a bad reputation.

but that doesn't do anything for the peopl already believing them or sucked into believing those shows are the truth

no, it does not.

but it would also get into the dangerous territory of letting the government decide/dictate what gets to be labeled as "real news"

in a perfect world, that wouldn't be too huge an issue. but then if someone like Von Clownstick is in charge... would any sane person trust his administration to decide what counts as actual news?

hm

You have a great point

This reinforces my belief that the USA really really really fucking need strong laws against hate speech, tho

I'm tempted to agree that some of it needs to be curbed - but then it would run into the slippery slope arguments. and I have little trust in any "oh, that'd never happen" sorts of breaches of basic decency, after the last four years.

honestly, I think the answer is actually proper education. I see this stupidity as a systemic issue, rather than anything that can be legislated away...

that makes sense

I'm also sure that legislating away "hate speech" is only trying to treat a symptom rather than the root of the problem - and would run into a lot of the same pitfalls as deciding what is and isn't a "valid" news organization.

again, take the not-so-strawman, scarily-non-hypothetical reign of Herr Cheeto into consideration: if one were to outlaw, say,

white supremacist/anti-minority rhetoric, even just the most offensive of it... I would not put it past a white supremacist scumbag to un-outlaw it, claiming it's "based on science" and thus not a matter of "hate speech" but of "facts" or some such nonsense.

which is complete bunk, of course. but. again, I have zero trust for certain administrations.

after what we've seen, I will never again say something is too far out of the bounds of common sense or common decency to be believed, or to happen. (I mean, we are in the Onion Cinematic Universe, right?)

worse: should they decide that it's "hate speech" to speak up against literal goddamn nazis?

at best, it may simply be ineffective, on account of all the exemptions that'd surely be carved out due to "sincerely held religious beliefs" or whatever bullshit excuses they may come up with.

I personally feel that a lot of people need to shut the fuck up and perhaps get some sense beaten into them with a clue-by-four (literally or figuratively, I won't say, lmfao), but as a matter of simply watching how things have unfolded, and re-evaluating how much I trust that rules put in place to curtail criticism and speech won't be abused?

as much as I'd love to outlaw hate speech in general, I think that the more effective, fairer path is to let the assholes run their mouths - to give them all the rope they want, with which to hang themselves in the court of public opinion. if one outlaws the expression of repugnant things, it just means horrible people won't out themselves as easily/quickly.

it's a double edged sword, but I'd rather be offended and know who to crucify, than for anyone's ability to criticize the government or anyone else in positions of authority/power/influence be curtailed. because it isn't just the underdogs that would be inevitably (eventually) protected by even what might seem like common-sense restrictions.

trust me, this is a long, ongoing debate. and I wish the scum weren't scummy. or even present.

but the problem is, public opinion for at least half of the country says that racism is great.

(...I feel I should also maybe express that the position I'm taking here is in no way shape or form a criticism of you or any of your views. I have a ton of respect for you.)

nah nah, its all important

Canada does meanwhile have laws against hate speach, and it's illegal for the news to lie

I don't know that I'd agree that it's "at least half of the country" - Trump lost the popular vote, and I know that a fair chunk of those voting for him aren't expressing that racism is great, but rather supporting his dumbass shit on other topics, like delusional head-in-sand ecomonic and health policies in spite of evidence, because they're scared.

or because they've been believing the lies.

ah, yeah, that's another sticky point. as craptastic as the culture here is, saturated with malignant idiots trying to get their way, someone is going to scream "fake" at any fact they don't want to believe.

as much as I'd like to require news outlets to only report truth, that's when you realistically would run into news outlets going under financially

after said tantrum-throwers bury them in legal fees via SLAPP suits long before they can properly defend themselves. (the price of lawyers, the time that court cases take...)

overall, it'd have a chilling effect on journalism: do you report the breaking news, at the risk of being incorrect about a thing, or wait until it's verified enough that you'd-

absolutely, definitely win in court? what's "safe" enough to report that it doesn't jeopardize your future?

but anti-defamation laws tend to cover at least a fair bit of that already, so there's that.

honestly, I think anti-SLAPP legislation needs to be implemented far and wide before trying to police news organizations....

if anything, I'd also like to see a more civil route be taken, regarding news sources, like the BBB or something. "how much fact-checking does this organization do? well, over the last month, we can only give them a B-..." types of things.

no worries, I'm not taking any of this as a criticism against me or my views

I have Ideas but not a lot of Civic Knowledge so

which... lbr here, you know the idiot section of the populace will come up with their own ratings system, and basically grade everyone on how well-aligned the news outlets are with their biases, rather than how factually accurate they are, and claim otherwise. but...

I'm reading all of it, I just feel differently but I don't really have arguments lol

I haven't taken a lot of classes on this stuff, but I've done a fair bit of research.

yeah - but you're also in a culture where I suspect stuff like that would work better.

... it just feels like the USA is very specifically suseptible to grifters.

your lunatic fringe isn't quite as big as ours, or quite so likely to burn the house down if they tantrum hard enough....

imho

its too fucking cold to go out to blow shit up

yeah, it really is. but I suspect that that's largely an issue of lack of real education (critical thinking, notably) and a cultural/attitude problem, which... again, in my mind, traces back to a lack of education and critical thinking skills.

the more I see of the shit-stirring, the more sure I am that a lot of it comes from people wanting to feel righteous, vindicated/validated, and supported, without putting in any of the work to deserve getting there. be raised in a bigoted backwater little community that's heavy on a religious flavor that's twisted to suit its leads' own ends? they're

likely to feed into the problem - but education shoving them out of their comfortable little bubble of ignorance could help alleviate, if not solve, that!

....did you know that the majority of the US's textbooks are dictated by people in Texas? that should explain a few things....

ah, there's another issue I just thought of, regarding criminalizing hate speech: how it's applied. if you get a judge who's fairly bigoted, they may excuse a lot.

I LEARNED THAT A WHILE BACK AND I DIED INSIDE

YEAH it's pretty awful.

honestly, I'd like if someone were to fund new companies to take over that industry in somewhere like California or Seattle or New York... you know, not so deep red of places.... /)_(\

further thought on outlawing hate speech: idk if you could excise the "apply sense" aspect, to get around unfair leniency. say you outlaw the use of "N-" as it's a slur, right?

nazi yells it at a black person? obviously, guilty.

black rapper uses it in a song? ......... well......

I think... coming back to the education aspect, a big part of the problem is that power lets corrupt people get away with corrupt behavior more easily. when opportunities present itself to be self-interested, a lot of people go with that...

and it snowballs from there. power attracts the corrupt, who make the system easier for them to take advantage of.

so wealthy assholes have used it to undermine education and spread idiocy... really, there needs to be a more grassroots push against it.

...I hope I didn't kill things here, though; I'd like to hear more about a Canadian perspective on this madness, lol.

like we can't ignore the shitty rise of crazies here in Canada

but like, Fox tried to get in on Canada with Sun med-- okay actually

lemme look this up

okay, it wasn't fox, but it was 'like' fox and run by a lot of RIGHT leaning tabloids

Sun News Network - Wikipedia

Faith Goldy - Wikipedia they also had this lovely person as a reporter!! so obviously it was a bastion of great news

but more or less the CRTC refused to get them put with the rest of the channels because, more or less, the content was shit.

Sun News Network hit the airwaves in April 2011 with...

lol, nice