Wednesday 14 December 2016

A "Steaming Pile Of Horseshit"

Back in May of this year, J.M. Cole became the chief editor of The News Lens International and wrote on his blog...
"With help from our contributors across the region and all over the world, I intend to turn TNLI into the platform for the exchange of ideas..."
Last Sunday, not yet one year into Cole's tenure as editor in chief, his team republished an article by one Mario Rustan entitled "From Gamergate to Trump: How Misogyny Ruins the World", which received a number of comments as to its' lack of truthfulness (including one such comment from yours truly). That article was indefensible and a surprising number of people came forward to denounce it as such.

Today, all of those comments have been removed as somebody at the News Lens decided to alter the commenting form to Faceborg only, which means there will no longer be any comments except perhaps those the editors can comfortably predict will be complimentary to them*. Which in turn means that, rather than being a "platform for the exchange of ideas", the News Lens International is little more than just another space for google ads** with PC authoritarianism and other assorted shit sandwiched in between.

You can of course argue that online comments are not the ideal place for a rational exchange of views, but then why bother to have a comments section to begin with? People sharing articles on Faceborg will more than likely just lead to the echo chamber effect.

If the Taiwan-centered media has degenerated into vile propaganda and shit-stirring with no checks of any sort whatsoever, then that is one thing. But for it to be presented under pretenses of being a "platform for the exchange of ideas", and other such high-sounding lark is another thing entirely.


* Specifically, this will be the effect of two things; first, anyone who makes a comment the editors dislike can potentially have their Faceborg accounts suspended, and second, all comments must be made from verifiable accounts with no anonymity allowed, not that I ever used anonymity.

**Ironically enough, these are often for the type of games Rustan falsely accused of "misogyny".

4 comments:

  1. No surprises. JMC and his ilk have always silenced dissenting opinions.

    ReplyDelete
  2. May be It's a paltform for exhange of ideas with ...himself only:))

    ReplyDelete
  3. Cole left News Lens in October, but hey, what would you expect from someone who's so out of the loop. Get your facts straight. Years ago you attacked Cole when he was at the Taipei Times. Your post had a photo of him...except that you used a photo of Peter Enav instead. Yeah, you're such an expert, dude.

    ReplyDelete
  4. "Years ago you attacked Cole when he was at the Taipei Times."

    I did indeed. I may have got the photo wrong, but I was spot on in my suspicions about Cole right from the beginning.

    ReplyDelete

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