Daily Mail vs X

Amongst the STW collective there appears to be a general hatred for the Daily Mail, so much so that many can’t mention its name. Personally I believe it’s a vile pedlar of false news affecting the narrative of our nation. I think to use information from the Mail is still banned by Wikipedia.

However, here on STW we continue to post excerpts and clips from X, thus fuelling an algorithmic fire of false information, lies and hatred.

I don’t buy the Mail and don’t subscribe to X because I think they’re both providers of very false news. I don’t open posted clips on this site from X and I think neither Rothermere nor Musk deserve my attention.

So why do we continue to have a self imposed ban on the newspaper and not the `Social Media site?

Better newspapers are available.

Twitter has the market cornered.

Spot on.

ive never been a regular user of X/twitter, but decided to take a look during the riots, and jeeeeeeeeessssuuuuusss… what an absolute mess.

fortunately my account is blocked (must have got hacked at some point). I won’t be back there anytime soon.

Twitter’s descent into toxicity is relatively recent whereas the DM has been a rag for many decades. But yeah, they can both get in the sea.

Twitter *had* the market cornered. Increasingly it doesn’t. It’s not going to be replaced by one unified platform though, which will make social media in general less attractive.

Came on hear hoping for a battle to the death

A pox on both of them .  I am in the process of deactivating my twitter account 30 days of Twitter abstinence and it is gone  odd that Mr Musk can delete my account instantly with no comeback at all.

For a second I lived in hope that a court case was looming to decide which toxic dump was worse, but alas…

Simply put, content on X is still user-created so it’s not as biased an institution as the Mail has become. That’s not to say that with an imminent exodus apparently underway, X won’t become a wasteland for right-wing bile propagated by it’s owner.

I won’t link to X, but there are still recognisable and trustworthy sources on there. so it seems a bit counter productive to blanket the whole site, but increasingly I think folks are beginning to realise its beyond hope. I think folks abandoning it is going to follow the same path as the Ernest Hemingway guide to bankruptcy “gradually at first, then all of a sudden”

and yet you decide to reference both in the thread title.

and then i bump the thread back up the page

is there no end to the insanity or the pile of ironing

I have no problem reading the Daily Mail even if I don’t like much of what they write. In fact I find reading the Daily Mail quite beneficial.

Avoiding it sounds like an exercise in burying your head in the sand.  Reactionary right-wing propaganda won’t disappear because lefties decide to boycott a newspaper.

I have a similar attitude towards twitter, although I am happy that people should find alternatives.

And the generating money argument doesn’t really sway me. I live in a capitalist society where all manner of unpleasant individuals make money out of my activities, I am not going to get hung up or become guilt stricken over that.

I don’t buy the Mail and don’t subscribe to X because I think they’re both providers of very false news. I don’t open posted clips on this site from X and I think neither Rothermere nor Musk deserve my attention.

So why do we continue to have a self imposed ban on the newspaper and not the `Social Media site?

I don’t subscribe to X, I just have a free account. The trick with it is to stay in the “Following” tab so you only see stuff posted by people you have chosen to follow and ruthlessly block anyone who posts garbage. If you do that, it’s still a useful way to keep up to date with events. If you just let the algorithm choose what you see, you’ll get a torrent of misinformation and filth.

The only news worth reading comes from Viz or The Framley Examiner.

I recently deleted Twitter. All I was using it for was to engage in battles of ‘wits’ with unarmed racists/xenophobes/bigots.

Ultimately pointless, unfulfilling and probably led to a partner of said moron getting a slap – so knocked it on the head. I can’t say I’ve missed it.

The Mail is often a good source for news stories. The editorial and other opinion bits are awful.

Twitter I never have any issue with. I never post, and just use it to get info – it shows me what I look for. Am I doing something wrong?

I used to read The Guardian religiously, but now I regard it as less trustworthy than the Mail.

The choice to share hate is down to the sharer.

I recently deleted Twitter. All I was using it for was to engage in battles of ‘wits’ with unarmed racists/xenophobes/bigots.

There’s a block button, just block and move on. Arguing with idiots on Twitter is worse than pointless, it just encourages them.

the-muffin-manFull Member
The choice to share hate is down to the sharer.

Bingo. And actually they’re kinda similar in some ways – the HateMail gives a platform to hateful people who spew bile and lies; Twitter gives a platform to people who share lies.

The difference is that normal everyday people have always spread lies and rumours and racism – you might be amazed to know that race riots happened before Twitter existed (I know! Isn’t history mad!), and slander and libel existed before Twitter (what what?!). It’s just a big megaphone, and most people know there’s no trust attached to the platform itself.

Whereas the Daily HateMail has made – and continues to make, every day – a decision to actively hire and pay people who spew racist lies, and a decision to pursue race-based campaigns; and as a newspaper it has a degree of implicit trust.

The Mail is often a good source for news stories

TBH I think that is the principle reason for its success. The quantity of information, detail, and photographs, covering a particular news story can be astonishing imo. I have also seen a lot of very informative and useful health-related articles in the DM. I reckon that non-news articles probably attracts a lot of their readers.

There was a time when links to the DM here sent you to a hold page, explaining that it was a bag of shite but if you really wanted to go there, here’s the button. I like that – it let STW overloads say what they thought about it but didn’t prevent you actually going there. Not sure why it was got rid of.

I’d be in favour something similar returning and used for both the DM and X

As forum users I think it was be rather good if people who like to go on to X to find what people of note have to say, they just copied and pasted the quote into here, maybe with a reference to say that’s where is come from.

A thank you to those STWers who over the last couple of years have announced they’re giving up linking Twitter/X and have stuck to it.

As for the Daily Mail, we all know what it stands for and how seriously (not) to take it. With Twitter/X you never know which perhaps makes it even more subversive.

 I like that – it let STW overloads say what they thought about it but didn’t prevent you actually going there. Not sure why it was got rid of.

It may have been down to the trust rating of DM. DM for a while (maybe still does) have a terrible google reputation* for being untrue, meaning linking directly to their content would also mean you get your rankings tarnished by the same brush. I imaging STW bounced you through a proxy of sorts to avoid directly linking to it.

* As in google deemed it a non-trustworthy information source.

Ok, here’s an example where I think the Mail has done a reasonable job. Can someone tell me what is wrong with the reporting here?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13750327/Find-Police-issue-new-pictures-riot-suspects-mob-attacked-Holiday-Inn-Express-housing-migrants-Rotherham.html

Maybe not such high quality news, but if you don’t look at the Mail you might miss this. I saw the story on Twitter, by the way.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13749603/Russian-tourist-tried-rape-cow-gored-animal.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490&ito=social-twitter_mailonline

I’ve never interacted with anyone/anything on Twitter and only read the following tab with my 100 or so folk so “idiots/arseholes” aren’t an issue.

Maybe not such high quality news, but if you don’t look at the Mail you might miss this. I saw the story on Twitter, by the way.

That is some quality reporting. Thank God someone had a camera handy to document it.

So the Daily Mail is now accurately reporting on the violence its decades long anti-regugee agenda has helped to provoke, Easily.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13107707/Fury-plans-house-asylum-seekers-tiny-Cumbrian-town-grips-homes-shortage-Bid-migrants-eight-rundown-properties-sparks-anger-police-increasing-patrols-accommodation-vandalised.html

It’s got all the classic anti-immigrant nonsense in there if you can be bothered to read it:

They point out that residents already struggle to book GP appointments, there are no dentists, the nearest fully manned police station is 45 minutes away in Whitehaven, hospitals are at least 40 minutes away and 112 local families are on the waiting list for rented accommodation.

One local said: ‘It’s already virtually impossible to get a dental appointment in Millom. The only dentist in town isn’t taking new NHS patients and has a long waiting for private patients.

‘It’s also a struggle to get an appointment at the GP, you have to be quick to get in and it’s a case of queuing on the phone and hoping you’ll be able to see a doctor that date and often you can’t.

The Newspaper That Cried Wolf.

I’m not on X but I reckon theres a lot of good things and good people on it.

The daily mail has had the same rhetoric as far back as anyone can remember. The people who spout the hate on X will more than likely read the DM.

I’m not a DM or Twitter user/subscriber.

I kind of feel.like I don’t need to be, on the odd occasion something of note pops up on either site it gets re-reported on another platform and sometimes linked on here, I can still practise my own filter and ignore the links.

I do sort of feel like part of the whole “free speech” “freedom of expression” thing in a functioning democracy has to be allowing objectionable platforms and the people that put objectionable content on them to post and share their views (and or course in doing so ‘out‘ themselves)…

Links to either platform should be fine (IMO) it’s the content and the context that often lend some nuance. For instance someone linking to a SYL post from the ongoing ‘Southport RW shit-stirers‘ thread, to illustrate what a shitbag he is rather than as an act of admiration is probably accepted as a choice. Obviously someone linking the same SYL shite and telling us how wonderful his views are is just outting themself as a RW bellend. In either instance we’ve all learned something about the wider world and the views of a fellow STWist…

There may yet be a tipping point with twitter, but AIUI anyone on any point along the political spectrum can have an account and post on there (right?).

All of that said ST is a business and can have whatever policy they like for posting and linking on this forum (with the assistance/cooperation of the voluntary Mods), I’m pretty comfortable with their choices so far TBH…

The Daily Mail actively promotes far-right propaganda and lies.  Twitter merely permits its users to post far-right propaganda and lies.

In the case of the latter it’s possible to curate my feed to provide content I’m interested in.  In the former, there is no content I’m interested in.

Yeah, I don’t have a twitter account, mainly as I want less unregulated crap rather than more.

“space Karen” is doing quite an effective job though… most companies think they need to have a twitter presence for PR reasons. Because they are told to.

My parents love the DM and won’t hear a bad word said against it (by me) as it set them up for life financially as they followed some of its advice once and it came in mega quids in. It has however brain washed them into its bile which gets my dad stuttering and stammering when I point out their youngest son is also an economic migrant and ‘took the job’ of a local when he moved to Australia.

I still can’t believe musk paid over $40bn for twitter

i got it free with my phone…

The Daily Mail actively promotes far-right propaganda and lies.  Twitter merely permits its users to post far-right propaganda and lies.

If you honestly believe that Twitter is not now actively promoting far-right propaganda and lies, please look into it some more.

Does anyone know about web development?

I was just wondering if when a twitter post is embedded in a STW post, would that count as a view on twitter whenever the embedded post is loaded in STW?

edit, a quick google suggests that since 2022 they do count it in the view count, so an excellent reason for not allowing embedded twitter posts IMO, provide a link rather than embedding the post so those that want to choose to actively engage with twitter can do, and the rest of us don’t end up supporting the far right propaganda machine just by loading a STW forum page.

If you honestly believe that Twitter is not now actively promoting far-right propaganda and lies, please look into it some more.

I curate my feed.  They can promote what they like, I won’t see it.

I live in an little village in suburban Germany, I don’t experience the negative aspects of congestion and the localised pollution it creates in my daily life therefore I can dismiss the wider damage it does to society?

It really is the epitome of right wing tory rhetoric to keep  saying “I’m all right jack” and dismiss the wider problems created by what twitter has become.

I can’t believe they were proposing to house people in Millom. Sadistic monsters.

I don’t get the hate for Twitter, as others have said, you can control what you get in your feed, only follow stuff you are interested in, my case is cycling and all forms of motor racing, I dont see anything else as I’m not looking for it. It is a bit like saying you’ll never use a library as they have books in you don’t agree with, just move along to the stuff that interests you and follow that. The Daily Mail though, is a different kettle of fish……