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Saturday 14 May 2016

Guido Fawkes Pwns Faux Libertarians

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I mean, the BBC is so left-wing ... look at the kinds of people they invite on, for a start

The idea of protesting at perceived political bias in social media platforms is absurd. But that is exactly what two supposed libertarians are now doing - bleating that social media is in the hands of rotten lefties, who are shutting them out from inclusion in so-called “trending topics”. Step forward self-promotion specialist and amateur human being Milo Yiannopoulos, and (thankfully) former Tory MP Louise Mensch.

In support of their joining the paranoid tradition in US politics is an exercise by Steve Hilton which claims Facebook, Twitter, Google and Yahoo must all be left-biased, as those associated with them have donated to Democrat, rather than Republican, politicians. But this analysis is in itself biased - Hilton is a former advisor to David Cameron and a director of a right-leaning think tank. It is a highly subjective exercise.

Besides, the political leanings of executives cannot be directly extrapolated onto their employees. But this has not stopped the Mensch and Milo protest bandwagon, with the former MP appearing on BBC Newsnight last night to denounce the Corporation as “left-wing” and rant patronisingly at Dina Rickman, Emily Maitlis, and anyone else who happened to be in the vicinity at the time.
Milo Yiannopoulos, before the snowflake Barnet makeover

And it’s totally pointless: Yiannopoulos’ crowd at Breitbart and Ms Mensch’s merry band at Heat Street trend, or more often do not trend, on the basis of their own merit - or the lack of it. This is nothing more that another lame exercise in self-publicity. And for once, the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog agree.

They have looked at the issue and observed “So what if Facebook is left-of-centre? Are lefties entitled to a meeting with Rupert Murdoch to complain that the Wall Street Journal is right-of-centre?” (Yiannopoulos and Ms Mensch are demanding a meeting with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg). The Fawkes conclusion also matches mine.

A free press is not required to meet up to some illusory measure of ‘objectivity’. Milo and Mensch should stop whining like snowflakes about how unfair it is. Winners compete, not whine”. In any case, there is no credible metric that Yiannopoulos and Ms Mensch can cite which would back up their claims. And it’s not as if Breitbart and Heat Street are short of resources to push their presence. They’re not doing very well. So they’re moaning.

And, as if to demonstrate the point, after Ms Mensch’s late-night tantrum on Newsnight, she briefly trended. That’s because there was some interest generated by her appearance. That’s how it works. Pity most of that interest was folks laughing at her idiocy, mind.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Seeing her wibble on newsnight last night, whilst raising a smile, spolit what had been a good day for me! I suppose she saw it as ten minutes to self promote her failing venture, but her arguments were the rants of someone trying to work out what the point of their existence is.

Anonymous said...

The great thing about social media is how it gives the lie to mainstream media propaganda that anything MSM jobsworths says is trustworthy or in the majority or more valid or even better said than a reasonably informed citizen.

In other words, far right propagandists like UnterMensch and Hilton have been found out and exposed for what they are: untalented, mediocre tenth-raters and ur fascists.

For instance, hardly anybody of common sense is fooled by bullshit like "...the Wall Street Journal is right-of-centre.” That kind of language is Winston Smith in full pelt wheedling mode. Believe that muck and you'll believe Murdoch and Rothermere are honest instead of Nazi-evil. Djalmar Schact would have fitted right in at the WSJ......so much for its "right-of-centredness."

All of which explains why total nutjobs like UnterMensch and Hilton get more froth mouthed by the day. I wouldn't be at all surprised to hear they and their type are chewing carpets......bought on "expenses" of course.

And it's all going to get much worse as we get nearer to the next economic collapse or war. Mark my words.

hatty said...


I think if left wing trends more it's because of the right wings obsession with the left. They all read/click the Guardian and use it as citation. Perhaps lefties just don't click on right wing hashtags/links. The Right spend all their time getting outraged over the Left so it trends. The only thing I ever get out of a right winger is "look at those terrible lefties" but they never back it up with what their opinion actually is. Anyone would think that their opinions on issues such as refugee children and marginalised people were something to be ashamed of.

Mensch spent her evening re-tweeting people who aggressively expressed that Mensch had "won" the debate, "rekt" and "savaged" Dina, calling Dina a moron and other slurs. Whatever arguments, even if reasonable, Mensch put forward were devalued by endorsing this hostility.



pete c said...

Must be so hard being her.

Were it not for that brief stint as an MP, no one in the world would be paying her the slightest bit of attention.

How that must hurt.

I suppose these muppets would consider anything this side of John Major as being left-wing.

pete c said...

Pulled it up on IPlayer.
Not what I'd call 'winning'. Floundering more like.
And as for the opening punt "Facebook brings the world its news" what nonsense.
Most folk I know using Facebook are consumed by drivel, gossip, and bad pictures.

And please, what's Pwns.

Darren said...

I thought Mensch operated a 'no safe spaces' policy? What she's seeking sounds quite similar. Unless she thinks Facebook etc. are safe spaces because their free of her fact-free, hysteria-packed duh-nalism.

Anonymous said...

'Pwns' is a spelling error for 'Owns' which stuck!

Unknown said...

Milo has been on LBC with Stig Abel moaning about Facebook all I can say is that the rot continues