My last actual gig prior to venturing out and founding Less Government – was at the Media Research Center (MRC).
I described MRCs toil as: “We work to expose and catalogue Leftist media bias.” And then always added “We’re understaffed.”
But I have always held what I know was a minority perspective at the MRC. On the media – and perhaps all humans everywhere.
MRC’s Mission Statement:
“To create a media culture in America where truth and liberty flourish.”
The MRC at least used to want to get back to the alleged halcyon days of unbiased journalism.
Except there was never any such thing as “unbiased journalism.” Because human nature. Humans – are biased.
CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite – was “The Most Trusted Man in America.” And, we know now, a pronounced Leftist liar.
Because media culture is human culture – truth and liberty will never, ever flourish. Personal perspectives on things – always will.
The Leftist perspective – has nigh always dominated the news media.
Right now, the Leftist perspective dominates the entertainment media and Hollywood. But ’twas not always so – at least amongst the actors.
Before there was the heinousness of Rob Reiner and the beautiful ignorance of Alyssa Milano – there was the Golden Era of Tinsel Town. When Ronald Reagan and John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart and Bob Hope – and many, many others – were huge stars…and conservative as the day is long.
But in all of this: One word you would never, ever use to describe any of these people – is “unbiased.”
Because humans – are biased. Because human nature.
Humans do media – so media has been, is, and always will be biased.
When robots start doing journalism – they will reflect the biases of their programmers.
Speaking of media, Hollywood, Big Tech and pronounced bias….
Rotten Tomatoes Gives Dave Chappelle Special Zero Percent Rating
Dave Chappelle – is absolutely one of the funniest people alive. Even if he simply came on stage and Bill Burr-style extruded a profanity-laced insult-fest of the city in which he was appearing – it would get something higher than…zero.
But you see – Chappelle’s “Sticks and Stones” special – is an actually funny thing. (I know – I’ve watched it.)
Which means it draws humor from and pokes fun at – everyone. And everyone – includes Leftists.
Rotten Tomatoes couldn’t let that go unchecked. So Rotten Tomatoes – rigged their Chappelle rating:
“Chappelle’s latest hour-long stand-up set for Netflix received an extremely rare 0 percent Rotten Tomatoes rating from five professional critics….”
Wait – only “five professional critics?” Rotten Tomatoes’ business model is – per their website:
“(T)he leading online aggregator of movie and TV show reviews from critics, we provide fans with a comprehensive guide to what’s Fresh – and what’s Rotten – in theaters and at home….
“The Tomatometer score – based on the opinions of hundreds of film and television critics – is a trusted measurement of critical recommendation for millions of fans.”
“Hundreds of…critics….” So why was the entirety of the Chappelle review – limited to five obviously Leftist, pre-selected-by-Rotten-Tomatoes reviewers?
Because Rotten Tomatoes – is biased. Because Rotten Tomatoes – is made up of humans. In modern Hollywood and Big Tech – that means Leftist humans.
An important part of Rotten Tomatoes and its success – is serving as a place where We the Viewing Public can also rate what the “experts” rate.
When Rotten Tomatoes finally published the ratings of We the Viewing Public….:
“Rotten Tomatoes unveiled Chappelle’s special has received an equally rare 99 percent audience score.
“The high audience rating was the cumulative score from at least 3,753 casual reviewers who praised the comedian for daring to broach controversial topics that most comic stars have avoided in the era of ‘cancel culture.’
“Such a stark contrast among critics and regular viewers is almost unheard of and illustrates the wide cultural divide among the general public and media elites.”
This is…oh, I don’t know…about the nine millionth instance of Leftist Big Tech abusing their nigh-monopoly online platforms to screw anyone not in lockstep with their hard Leftism.
Of course, anecdotes of Big Tech Leftist bias – no matter if they number in the infinities – do not add up to data.
So one particular Leftist – delivered us the data on one particularly influential Leftist Big Tech function: Web Search. How you get answers – when you ask the Internet questions.
Rotten Tomatoes rigging entertainment ratings is…bad. But not fundamentally transformational of our politics – and thus our nation.
Leftist Big Tech rigging Web searches…is exceedingly awful. In a great many ways – including politically.
And in 2018, 87.3% of all Web searches in the United States – took place via uber-Left, uber-huge Google (Market Cap: $851 billion).
So when you want to search the Web – you “Google” something. Both rhetorically – and literally.
So when Google rigs things – they’re rigging nigh everything Americans see on the Web.
We all by our onesies have documented dozens and dozens of instances of Google (and other Big Tech joints) screwing conservatives.
But again, let’s get scientific. Meet Dr. Robert Epstein – a self-avowed man of the Left. I would not call him a Leftist – because he’s actually honest.
He’s been studying Big Tech’s political bias – for quite a while:
“Regarding elections, Dr. Epstein has found in multiple studies that search rankings that favor a political candidate drive the votes of undecided voters toward that candidate, an effect he calls SEME (“seem”), the Search Engine Manipulation Effect….
“(B)iased search rankings exercise undue influence over voter’s opinions – influence that cannot be counteracted by individual candidates but that can easily determine who will win a close election.”
Before Dr. Epstein did an in-depth study of Google manipulating voters and potential voters in the lead-up to the 2016 election – he called his shot:
How Google Could Rig the 2016 Election – August 19, 2015
Shocker – Google did.
In fact, Dr. Epstein’s study reveals – the election doesn’t even have to be close…to be transformationally affected by Google’s Leftist bias.
“In 2016, I set up the first-ever monitoring system that allowed me to look over the shoulders of a diverse group of American voters — there were 95 people in 24 states,” (Epstein) said….
“The study looked into ‘politically oriented searches’ from a ‘diverse group of American voters,’….
“‘I looked at politically oriented searches that these people were conducting on Google, Bing and Yahoo. I was able to preserve more than 13,000 searches and 98,000 web pages, and I found very dramatic bias in Google’s search results… favoring Hillary Clinton — whom I supported strongly.”
Again: The election doesn’t have to be close – to be won by Google:
“‘That level of bias was sufficient, I calculated, to have shifted over time somewhere between 2.6 and 10.4 million votes to Hillary without anyone knowing that this had occurred….’”
We have heard INCESSANTLY since Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton – that she won the popular vote by about three million votes. That popular-vote-Clinton-victory – has re-ginned-up the Left’s push to end the electoral college.
And it turns out that if 90%-of-US-Search Google hadn’t uber-rigged their results for Clinton – Trump most likely would have also won the popular vote. Maybe by a lot.
And how did Google get so uber-huge? So as to wield such huge, Leftist, stealth political power?
Government cronyism.
“Section 230 of the (1996) Communications Decency Act immunizes online platforms for their users’ defamatory, fraudulent, or otherwise unlawful content. Congress granted this extraordinary benefit to facilitate ‘forum[s] for a true diversity of political discourse.’
“This exemption from standard libel law is extremely valuable to the companies that enjoy its protection, such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter, but they only got it because it was assumed that they would operate as impartial, open channels of communication—not curators of acceptable opinion.”
Get that? Google and the rest of Big Tech get this massive cronyism – so long as they do not act as “curators of acceptable opinion.”
But Google – and the rest of Big Tech – have done exactly that. Trillions and trillions of times.
The accumulated tonnage of anecdotes – proves it.
Dr. Epstein’s in-depth study – documents it.
Big Tech is biased – because they’re human. And human nature…trumps…all.
Thus legislation dependent upon humans not behaving like humans – is folly.
Thus Section 230 – has gots to go.
This first appeared in Red State.