Monthly Archives: February 2022

2022 has not started off well for Joe Rogan even before the headline-grabbing Spotify controversy that has made him a perhaps unwitting figurehead for extremist rhetoric. First, hundreds of health experts complained that he was frequently spreading Covid-19 misinformation through his massively popular podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience. Then a jaw-dropping compilation video of Rogan saying the n-word 24 times in his 12 years hosting the podcast surfaced.

These things seem like the hallmarks of a far-right ideologue, but Rogan, who called Barack Obama the best president we have had in our lifetime, cant easily be pigeonholed as racist. He also cant be easily pigeonholed as an anti-science bigot, despite having made misogynistic, anti-feminist, fatphobic, homophobic, transphobic, and anti-vax statements. Its not even easy to peg the podcaster, who famously endorsed progressive candidate Bernie Sanders in the 2020 election (before anti-endorsing Biden), as right-wing.

In fact, one of the things that makes Joe Rogan so popular among his millions of fans is that his politics are so difficult to pin down. Rather than simply and easily slotting into a box labeled conservative, liberal, or even reactionary, he mainly holds both the far right and the far left in contempt; depending on which day you check in, hes either a left-leaning centrist or a right-leaning libertarian. But his contrarian tendencies lead him to embrace and toy with lots of ideas, including those from the fringe.

As his critics are quick to point out, in portraying himself as open-minded, Rogan platforms a lot of people whose ideas are dangerous. And without a background in journalism or seemingly any type of journalistic editorial oversight, Rogan, who has spent most of his podcasting career as a fully independent media host, hasnt always been the best person to critique or fact-check his highly influential guests.

When Rogans more polarizing guests and their unchecked influence join with his own long history of saying offensive things, the results can be grim. Alongside the reasoned political debates and philosophical arguments, his massive audience of primarily mainstream, middle-American men gets dosed with toxicity and extremism. Rogan is always quick to defend his shows content in the name of free speech and preserving the voices of straight white men. But as the New York Times noted in a 2021 profile of Rogan, while his self-deprecating brand of authenticity has made his listeners view him as just another regular guy, his influence has grown hulking, enough to make him one of the most formidable single voices in media to exist maybe ever.

What we have, then, is a problem that is both unique to the internet and reflective of the giant problem of the internet as a whole: Like the internet itself, Rogan and whatever dangerous misinformation, conspiracy theories, jerky bigotry, or offensive views he wants to serve up today are all unstoppable and essentially answerable to no one. He has all of the audience, money, attention, and prestige of a traditional gatekeeper, but with barely any real pressure to assume responsibility for repeatedly making high-profile mistakes on the job.

The publics growing lack of trust in traditional journalism and legacy media outlets a wariness evinced by media throne usurpers like Rogan himself has made it even less likely for him to be effectively held accountable or face real consequences for repeated mistakes. After all, fans who are already prone to distrust the media are hardly going to support the journalism they dislike for trying to call out the podcaster they do like especially not for what they see as foibles rather than serious flaws.

That, too, is a unique problem: If Rogans audience doesnt agree that his guests or his rhetoric are problems to begin with, or that his pattern of platforming bigotry and misinformation is an issue, then whos to say theyre wrong?

Rogans exclusive Spotify deal, announced in May 2020, should have been an easy win for the company, which has been investing heavily in expanding its podcast content across a wide variety of genres and target audiences. The deal, which was initially reported as netting Rogan around $100 million but was recently reported as closer to $200 million, placed the vast majority of Rogans staggering episode vault currently up to nearly 1,800 eps exclusively on the Spotify platform.

But from the beginning, there were issues. Spotify quietly had Rogan remove about a dozen episodes interviews Rogan had done with alt-right figures like Milo Yiannopoulos and with Gavin McInnes, founder of the extreme-right Proud Boys movement. The Times recently reported that Spotify staff had vocalized their concerns about Rogans content as early as September 2020.

Then came Rogans increasingly skeptical views on generally accepted Covid-19 medical advice. On the show, Rogan advised young adults not to get vaccinated, claimed to be treating himself with harmful rogue treatments including an animal dewormer not recommended for Covid-19, and hosted anti-vax guests. The scientific communitys response to his spread of misinformation peaked in January with the open letter to Spotify. In response to the physicians criticism, legendary rock musician Neil Young protested Rogan by pulling all of his music from Spotify.

It was a jarring callout for Rogan, whose fans say they love him for being a moderated, reasoned voice in the middle of an increasingly polarized media space. And that fan base is enormous: His own estimates put the shows regular listening audience big enough to rival the Super Bowl, although those numbers are self-reported. And while his influence may have declined since moving to the platform, a Spotify spokesperson told Business Insider that Rogans listenership had actually grown since his move to Spotify.

The Neil Young controversy had barely been doused Rogan apologized, sort of, explaining, Im not a doctor, Im a fucking moron before another erupted. This time, another musician, India Arie, threatened to pull her music from Spotify over Rogan, sharing on her Instagram the video of Rogan saying the n-word 24 times on the podcast. In his subsequent apology, Rogan admitted that hed previously had a long history of saying the actual racial slur instead of saying the n-word.

I thought as long as it was in context, people would understand what I was doing, he said. But it is not my word to use. Im well aware of that now ... I never used it to be racist because Im not racist, but whenever youre in a situation where you have to say, Im not racist, you fucked up.

In response to the video and Rogans apology, Spotify asked Rogan to remove an additional 70-ish offensive episodes from the platform, including episodes where he made racialized remarks and joked about sexual assault. With that unpleasantness out of the way, the company stood firmly by Rogan. We should have clear lines around content and take action when they are crossed, but canceling voices is a slippery slope, company CEO Daniel Ek stated in a published memo to Spotify employees.

Rogan stressed that the video which has been floating around the internet for a while had been taken out of context, compiled over his shows 12-year history. Still, the implication that Rogan only said the n-word on-air an average of two times a year (as The Daily Shows Trevor Noah described it, like he bought it in bulk at Costco) is pretty galling by itself. It doesnt help that the video also included the time Rogan described entering a Black neighborhood as like entering the planet of the apes a statement Rogan claimed he only made to be entertaining, not to be racist.

As Rogan himself admitted, all of this looks and sounds horrible. But with zero consequences being laid at his door and his fan support unwavering, does any of it ultimately matter?

Rogan got his start in comedy and still primarily identifies as a comedian though that may be difficult for people who are mainly familiar with his more recent career to parse. As a standup comic, he performed in Boston, then moved to Los Angeles and scored roles on the 90s sitcoms Hardball and NewsRadio. His comedy career continued around his entertainment jobs, including the role that launched him into stardom: the often confrontational host of NBCs eat these worms reality show Fear Factor. Rogan has said he took the job as Fear Factor host so hed have more material for his standup routines. But in fact, his hosting abilities would pave the way for a career in podcasting.

When Rogan began The Joe Rogan Experience on Christmas Eve in 2009, the landscape of podcasting looked hugely different from how it looks today. Some legacy media had forayed into the podcasting world, most notably This American Life, which began distributing episodes as a podcast in 2006. But barring some rare exceptions, podcasting was almost entirely an independent, amateur, grassroots space not an industry at all, but rather a community of predominantly high-income, extremely online tech nerds, mostly men, flocking to the audio equivalent of a blog. The small-town intimacy of podcasting in those days allowed podcasts like Rogans to do well, not only because of listener loyalty but also because they were the only game in town. If you wanted to listen to a funny, comedian-centered chat show, or a meaty, lengthy interview, Rogan was right there with plenty of content to chew on.

Rogan was fast, prolific, and consistent, putting out long weekly, then biweekly, then multi-weekly episodes like clockwork. These initially featured long interviews with other comedians like Dane Cook or Bill Burr, but it didnt take long for other high-profile interviews to sneak in: Kevin Smith, Anthony Bourdain, Melissa Etheridge. Rogans wide-open approach to guests was effective but unwieldy: By 2013, he was chatting with scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson, but also courting fringe conspiracy theories of every variety, ranging from his long-held belief that the moon landing was faked to the existence of DMT elves.

Rogans podcast debut coincided with the introduction of Googles Android into the smartphone space, a development that exacerbated the rise not only of modern social media but also of the podcast as a ubiquitous smartphone presence. It also coincided with the increasing obsolescence of traditional media; between 2006 and 2016, awareness of podcasting doubled while trust in media on the whole plummeted, reaching new lows year over year.

Even more crucial to Rogans success was YouTube: Rogan filmed and released his podcast episodes on YouTube as well, giving him access to two growing online ecosystems. These were increasingly united not only by a common DIY ethos but a sense that influence and authority, if not expertise, could be earned through nontraditional pathways.

For Rogan, that authority took the form of embracing his masculinity and encouraging his listeners the vast majority of whom were and are young men to do the same. He offers a motivational shove in the general direction of success and happiness, a clarion call for audiences to step up and take control of their own lives that fits somewhere between a Tony Robbins seminar and Reddits favorite lawyer up and hit the gym mantra. In his bio, Rogan highlights his longstanding side gig as an MMA commentator and notes that he had a black belt in tae kwon do as a teen. Its perhaps significant that he lists those accomplishments before his Fear Factor hosting gig the latter might be a more recognizable achievement to the general public, but the former underscores the stamp of authentic machismo that his fans value.

But Rogan also, perhaps surprisingly, eschews toxic masculinity (even as Rogan himself eschews the whole idea of toxic masculinity and a potpourri of other progressive buzzwords). He urges listeners to be vulnerable, to forge close male friendships, to celebrate male energy. As Andrew Sullivan recently observed, He readily admits when hes wrong and often self-deprecates. Hes not afraid to show emotion and choke up whether its over the triumph of female fighters or putting down a puppy or the death of Chadwick Boseman. ... His masculinity is unforced, funny and real.

While a desire to uphold men and masculinity might make Rogan more relatable to his audiences, however, it also leaves them more receptive to Rogans wide-ranging social and political views and the extremist views of some of the guests he platforms. For example: Even after the 2018 collapse of his Infowars empire, right-wing extremist conspiracist Alex Jones continued to reach a massive mainstream audience as a guest on Rogans show, thanks to a 2019 appearance that was downloaded more than 30 million times before its eventual Spotify removal. Rogans most recent episode with recurring guest and right-wing philosopher Jordan Peterson was over four hours long; excerpts of it have already been viewed millions of times on YouTube alone. Thats a lot of potential new eyes and ears turned toward a man whose reactionary politics have won him a huge following among white supremacists.

Rogan has also increasingly faced charges of being an alt-right gateway drug, despite and perhaps even because of his progressive political endorsements and research into YouTubes ballooning far-right sphere of influence has borne out some of that alarm. Though Rogan has never overtly courted the internet manosphere, with its long tail of toxicity and function as an introduction into harder extremism, many of his fans are drawn to his podcast for the same reasons theyre drawn to the manosphere: Rogans permissive, understanding approach to being a man in a world increasingly critical of masculinity.

None of this context fully explains how Rogan arrived at the injecting himself with dewormer stage of Covid-19 conspiracies. But it does imply that unlike, say, a right-wing news anchor who might preach vaccine wariness while being fully vaccinated themselves, Rogans mistrust of authority and anti-establishment contrarianism are more than just words. The complicated reality is that Rogan seems to genuinely dislike woke progressive politics and what he perceives as the hypersensitive, overly semantic identity politics of leftism, while also despising Donald Trump and everything he represents. Recognizing that the two arent mutually exclusive moral vectors is arguably one of Rogans strengths; he wont cancel you for disagreeing with him. I disagree with myself all the time, hes said.

His fans likewise see his self-deprecating openness about his own ignorance as a value rather than a flaw. And all the racist language? That, too, is a nonstarter with fans as a serious criticism of Rogan which makes sense when you consider that one of the main ways modern racism flourishes is through a reliance on nuance that skirts the line between ironic racism and actual racism, between intent and effect. NPR critic Eric Deggans calls Rogans Im not X-ist, despite doing these many literally X-ist things approach to these topics bigotry denial syndrome, which he defines as the belief that, because you personally dont view yourself as a bigot, you dont believe that you can say or do something that is seriously bigoted or damaging.

The problem here isnt just that Rogan may have hurt feelings or given offense, Deggans writes. The bigger issue is the way such jokes foster acceptance of stereotypes that are damaging and persistent. ... In fact, you can argue that by providing more palatable ways for fans to use a horrible racial slur and laughing off a joke he admitted was racist Rogan did damage that is tougher to address than an admitted racist openly advocating white supremacy.

Deggans is focused here on Rogans history of racist language usage. But hes also pinned the slippery, bigger problem with Rogan as a public figure. Rogan is the influencers influencer a new-generation media mogul whose fame is predicated less on being accurate or being professional than on being popular and relatable. Paradoxically, that allows him not only to get away with professional-level mistakes errors that might have ended his career if he had a boss, worked in an office environment, or had anyone to hold him accountable but also to claim ownership of those glaring mistakes as a part of his brand of relatability and honesty.

Instead of being canceled (hes too big to cancel), Rogan has dragged us all in the opposite direction: Hes just respectable enough, and more than powerful enough, to have helped shift the Overton window of acceptable, respectable social views toward a messier, uglier roundtable that, sure, includes Bernie Sanders and Neil deGrasse Tyson, but also includes Alex Jones and a bunch of alt-light right-wingers. Spotify might have been the driving force that could have attempted to hold Rogan accountable for his decision to consistently platform extremists, but Spotify, battling its own set of problems in the podcast space, kowtowed to Rogan and graciously gave way.

In other words, Rogan, one of the most powerful voices in the world, now may have more freedom than ever to dictate the terms of public conversation to decide who and what gets to be listened to, and why. As Deggans notes, that sort of influence is much harder to fight than out-and-out extremism.

Its in that gray space that Rogan flourishes. Its in that gray space that his listeners, exhausted by the endless polarization of sociocultural discourse, find comfort in Rogans ambiguities and contradictions and uncertainties. But its also that gray space that harbors bad actors, bad science, misinformation, and disinformation. By playing host to them all but claiming it all as fair game in the name of free speech, Rogan has taught his followers a simple but effective playbook for how to appear balanced without actually being balanced.

Whether Rogan himself believes his dedication to cultivating a moderate and open viewpoint is almost beside the point: It only takes one bad seed to yield a lot of bad apples. And for every Roganite who gravitates to his show because of his more moderate guests, there are the Roganites who come for the Elon Musks but get drawn to the Jordan Petersons and Ben Shapiros. Thats all part of Rogans appeal, no matter how much his fans might insist that it isnt. And the more he teaches his followers how to weaponize that denialism, the harder it gets to pass off Rogans brand as that of a relatable guy whos just royally fucking up once in a while.

Yet what if Rogan were to drop the artifice? If he were to actually admit that there are limits to the acceptable nature of the views hes been platforming? For all Rogans shows of authenticity, that level of honesty seems almost unthinkable.

Rogan, and people like Peterson alongside him, have been able to stretch the Overton window because not enough of his followers and the general public are convinced that what theyre preaching is socially unacceptable discourse. But if Rogan admits that it is, then hes turned his show into yet another moral line in the culture war sand and another hill for his fans and far-right reactionaries to die on. If Rogan admits that amplifying abhorrent views in the name of free speech isnt worth the trade-off, then the safe comfort zone hes spent 12 years constructing for his audience comes crashing down.

And if Rogan admits, out loud, that the safe zone he built hides monsters, then we all have to reckon with having allowed him to build it. And to reckon, not just with Joe Rogan but with the past decade of our cultural conversation constricting itself in knots in order to establish a legitimate platform for white supremacy, white nationalism, and a bottomless cauldron of hate. For ideas that should never have been treated as legitimate to begin with.

Surely, rather than unpack that mess, its easier for everyone to let Joe Rogan keep Joe Roganing for Spotify to sidestep a distasteful canceling, and for fans to continue viewing Rogan as a vanguard of moderated discourse.

The only problem is one of attrition: The more we let Rogan get away with it, the more we set ourselves up for something worse down the line for something even more unacceptable to slowly become acceptable.

Whats more unacceptable than 24 n-words? We can barely imagine. But one thing already seems like an inevitability: The next Rogan-esque influencer who comes along may have even less pretense, and even more fans who are willing to follow him into the dark.

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Joe Rogans Spotify controversy: Its bigger than the n-word clip - Vox.com

Last week, Republican senator Ted Cruz posted a photo of himself alongside UFC legend Chuck Liddell. The photo, which showed the two men posing with raised fists, was the latest example of a politician using an athletes star power, in this case to pander to a younger demographic. It also underscored the American rights ongoing love affair with the UFC.

Over the past few years, UFC has become synonymous with rightwing politics due to its well-documented relationship with former president Donald Trump. As previously reported by the Guardian, the organization effectively became the sports arm of the Maga regime and was an ideal platform for Trump to espouse his political agenda.

UFC president Dana White was among Trumps most boisterous supporters, having campaigned for the former president as far back as 2016. White has since defended Trumps policies, produced a documentary on him Combatant-in-Chief, and even used his relationship with the former president to defy government mandates at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

During the 2020 presidential election, Trump deployed several UFC fighters as campaign surrogates, placing them in front of crowds at rallies in swing-states such as Florida in order to secure a key demographic that forms the majority of mixed martial arts fanbase: young men.

And though Trump lost the election, Republicans continued to flirt with the UFC in order to benefit from the organizations popularity.

UFC fighters and executives have become regular guests on conservative shows such as those hosted by Sean Hannity and Candace Owens. Over the past few months, Owens has invited fighters like UFC lightweight Beneil Dariush to discuss the woes of communism while White was brought on to discuss the supposed importance of keeping politics out of sports.

Its America, White told Owens in April 2021 when asked about the UFCs supposed political apathy. Thats the way its supposed to be. And you shouldnt have to go to work and listen to that shit.

While Whites assertion is tenuous at best due to his own history with Trump, his comments endeared him to conservative audiences dissatisfied with the rise of social justice narratives in leagues such as the NFL and NBA. By taking saying the UFC does not support so-called woke politics, White is essentially positioning the organization as a fitting alternative for the American right. This, in turn, has warmed conservative pundits and politicians to the organization, which they now view as a market for their ideology.

Among the politicians who embraced the UFC over the past year is Floridas governor, Ron DeSantis, who invited the organization to host UFC 261, a capacity-crowd event in Jacksonville, Florida, in April 2021. DeSantis, who is viewed as a contender for the Republican nomination in 2024, has been criticized for using his states limited Covid restrictions to increase his political clout. Hosting a capacity-crowd UFC show during a particularly difficult period during the pandemic was a clear show of defiance.

This is going to be the first [indoor] full-throttle sports event since Covid hit anywhere in the United States and I think its fitting, DeSantis said to a cheering crowd at the UFC 261 pre-fight press conference. Welcome to Florida. You guys arent the only ones looking to come to this oasis of freedom.

It is worth noting that UFC 261 was celebrated by the likes of Steve Bannon, as well as user wrote on a QAnon Telegram channel with more than 20,000 subscribers. Watch UFC.

UFC fighters have also stepped into the political arena in recent months. In December 2021, lightweight contender Michael Chandler spoke at Turning Point USAs Americafest event alongside conspiracy-monger Tucker Carlson, Donald Trump Jr, and alt-right personality Jack Posobiec.

Chandler first made his political leanings clear when he questioned the results of the 2020 presidential election, tweeting at the time is Joe Biden really just taking the mic to talk about how patient we have to be and how long we are going to have to wait AKA we are going to contest these resultshard #wakeupsheep. The fighter deleted the tweet shortly thereafter.

Other UFC fighters such as Colby Covington, whom the Guardian described as the athletic embodiment of Trumps politics, continues to strengthen his ties to prominent conservatives such as Trump Jr and Owens. In fact, Owens revealed that it was Covington who helped her become a fan of the UFC and that she plans to attend his upcoming fight against fellow Trump loyalist Jorge Masvidal at UFC 272 next month.

I will definitely be there [at UFC 272], Owens said on Full Send podcast. 100% will be there. I love Colby.

Owens previously called for the UFC to replace the NFL as Americas national pastime, a term that was once reserved for baseball. [The UFC] is exploding right now and its because they do not get involved in politics. They are not woke and they do not bend the knee, Owens said, adding that the UFC is the only real sport left.

It is perhaps no surprise many on the right identify more with the UFC than the NFL. Although the league is currently being sued for racial discrimination in a high-profile lawsuit, it has at least paid lip service to social justice in recent years, particularly after the police murder of George Floyd. According to a recent survey, approximately one-third of those polled stated that they were less of a fan of the NFL now than they were five years ago. The poll found that those who did not approve of the NFLs current stance on social justice were disproportionately Republican, and that 45% of those who identified themselves as Republican believed the NFL was doing too much to show respect for Black players. Whether this disapproval is actually making a difference to the NFLs bottom line is debatable. Viewing figures for the 2021 regular season were up 7% on the year before, so some Republicans are clearly still tuning in.

Nevertheless, since the NFLs policies no longer coincide with Republican ideals, the American right has since shifted much of its attention to the UFC, a hyper-masculine sport that is popular among young men.

As Republicans forge ahead with shaping the GOPs post-Trump future, they will continue to rely on the UFC as an ideological incubator and a breeding ground for future supporters.

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They do not bend the knee: US right courts UFC as NFL nods at social justice - The Guardian

Few people in recent times have created as much controversy as Donald Trump. A year after his utterances got him banned from Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, his new enterprise, Truth Social, has made its debut on Apples App Store.

The platform, which is available as both an app and website, was made available to download on the US Apple App Store yesterday, and has so far topped the download charts. It will also be coming soon to the Google Play Store and other countries.

The timing of Truth Socials debut on the symbolic US Presidents Day is certainly no coincidence. Is it, at the end of the day, another tool in Trumps political arsenal?

Lets just say Trump is likely keeping his options open.

The Truth Social website has reportedly already been the target of hackers. It seems some users who managed to get early access also secured user handles including donaldtrump and mikepence.

The site is offline at the time of writing this article, presumably while its cyber-security capabilities are upgraded. It may be the site came under a sustained attack, or developers realised the need to thoroughly debug it before it goes live.

Truth Socials developer, the Trump Media and Technology Group (or T Media Tech LLC), said the platform will routinely collect data about users browsing history, contact information (including their phone number) and any pictures or videos they post. Importantly, this information will be linked to the users identity.

The platform will also gather non-identifiable data on how the user interacts with the application supposedly to analyse usage patterns and personalise the users experience.

However, while these data are described as not being linked to a users identity, they nonetheless include the users email address and ID. This suggests they are, in fact, personally identifiable.

Having such richly textured information puts Truth Social in a position not only to learn about users opinions and behaviours, but also to target them with personalised political messaging.

The legalities of this practice would have been carefully vetted to be on the right side of the law (morally questionable as it may be). And the technology for it already exists. It was used in the now infamous Cambridge Analytica scandal which, as evidence suggests, could have aided Trumps victory in the 2016 US presidential elections.

Big data analytics is advancing fast, made possible by ever-smarter algorithms, larger datasets and more powerful computers. Its a game-changer in the high-stakes world of politics.

Its also no accident Truth Socials user interface closely resembles that of Twitter: the platform used to greatest effect by Trump. In a 2019 interview, Twitter cofounder Evan Williams described Trump as a master of the platform.

It could be argued his 57,000 Tweets helped in no small way to make him the 45th President of the United States.

Read more: Despite being permanently banned, Trump's prolific Twitter record lives on

In the case of Truth Social, most of the opinions and ideas expressed will likely fall within the right of the political spectrum everything from hardcore alt-right ideologies, to those slightly right of centre.

However, as the platform is reliant on Apple and Google distributing it on their app stores, its unlikely the Truth Social platform can afford to become a mouthpiece for the far-right, as Gab has become.

If it is to survive, it must avoid the fate of Parler. This hard-right Twitter clone was delisted by Apple and Google for hosting comments that incited violence during the pro-Trump riots at the US Capitol in January 2021.

Read more: Parler: what you need to know about the 'free speech' Twitter alternative

It remains to be seen whether Devin Nunes, who heads up T Media Tech LLC, can avoid the platform becoming stridently right-wing and being delisted.

Success will depend on Truth Social attracting a spectrum of political views from a substantial number of users. This is something previous Twitter alternatives Parler, Gab and Gettr all failed to do.

Only time will tell whether Truth Social can avoid the mistakes made by other similar platforms. But it does appear to be trying to distance itself from being perceived as hard right. It has adopted a so-called big tent approach. To quote from the app store listing:

Think of a giant outdoor event tent at your best friends wedding. Whos there? The combination of multiple families from all over the United States, and the world. Uncle Jim from Atlanta is a proud libertarian. Aunt Kellie from Texas is a staunch conservative. Your cousin John from California is a die-hard liberal Although we dont always agree with each other, we welcome these varied opinions and the robust conversation they bring.

Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labour in the Clinton administration, outlines seven ways unscrupulous politicians exercise control over the media.

These include berating and blacklisting dissenting media and raising a lynch-mob mentality. Opponents are demonised, sometimes with the added threat of legal action.

Also in the playbook is the exclusion of critics from interviews and comments. And last but not least is the exclusion of news outlets altogether, by using platforms such as Twitter to communicate directly with the public.

Before he was banned, Trump used Twitter to divert attention away from issues that could harm him. And research suggests diversionary tweets can be used to suppress coverage of certain issues, allowing the tweeter in question to exercise control of the narrative.

For example, heightened media coverage of the Mueller investigation was countered by multiple tweets from Trump about unrelated issues. It was observed this was followed by reduced coverage of the Mueller investigation.

All of this adds up to the distinct possibility that Trump has already begun campaigning for election in 2024. Instead of settling into comfortable retirement following his defeat in 2020, he has stayed in the limelight behaving more like a candidate-in-waiting.

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Twitter for the right: a look at Truth Social, Trump's ethically dubious social media platform - The Conversation AU