peteblue
Welcome back Wayne
meanwhile back to GB news......
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meanwhile back to GB news......
It's a difficult one. This isn't like Carphone Warehouse pulling ads from Big Brother after the Shilpa Shetty racism scandal, because that's a clear as day incident that you can reasonably not want your brand associated with. The problem here is that these brands haven't acted because of something GB News have specifically done; they've acted out of fear of reprisal. They're afraid of it snowballing.
That's not really something you can tolerate in a free society. For example, we don't have brands terrified of religious fundamentalists in this country, and rightly so. Dowden is right to point out that a diverse media is threatened if it was, as financial backing is of course required for a media institution to exist.
Should he be the one to do something about it? He shouldn't be because of his position of course, but the problem you have is the pure imbalance in what's happening. There's no right wing pressure groups that would instil fear in brands in the same way, so the logical endgame is a sterilisation of media in a leftward direction in a completely artificial way.
It can be argued the media in the UK is too much to the right. Guardian, Observer, Mirror on the other side to varying extents and that's it. But it could also be argued that demand meets supply and the UK is simply right-leaning by default (as the majority of elections show).
So yes... it's difficult. The only thing I'm sure about is 'cancel culture' isn't the way to go about the fight, and it's reasonable to expect pushback to such an extreme influence from a minority, any minority.
peteblue
Welcome back Wayne
So what is all of this crap about removing ads from an ofcom approved and regulated news outlet....a bit of bantz....this kiddie woke culture will now be put in its place by the adults .......
Have brands that have not pulled their ads had any reprisals?
More likely brands either not wanting people to associate them with some British version of Fox News coupled with brazen publicity stunts.
Don’t think it’s pressure from ‘wokes’ lol
Yes, there's continuing campaigns to boycott them across social media on a constant basis. Lists of brands, tagged in, retweet to spread the message etc.
Of course, in return you have people boycotting those who HAVE pulled out.
Both are wrong approaches, but the difference is the fact cancel culture has a long history of constant moaning over and over again until it snowballs, whereas the other group don't. Brands fear that. They overreact.
As such you get brand virtue signalling, not because they believe in the politics or even necessarily that they'll increase sales, but rather to take the easy road and stop the constant negativity.
Sounds like publicity stunts to me. IKEA for example want to look more ethical after the news from France. Also if GB news was pulling in millions of viewers I doubt they’d be pulling out so quick
peteblue
Welcome back Wayne
Business is business, politics are politics. People work for businesses and their jobs depend upon doing business. If people only buy from politically associated businesses then the country is completely screwed. The woke twitterati and the childish left need to grow up or else it will be them or the people they supposedly support who will suffer....idiots.....
Think it’s a storm in a teacup personally. Fabricated culture war.
tsubaki
Player Valuation: £90m
As was pointed out earlier, these brands have not (for the most part) had a choice to advertise on GB News so I think they are entirely within their rights to decide not to (especially given the general state of it so far, and more importantly the way in which the GB News chyron remains on screen during the ad).
With regards to "theres no right wing pressure groups that would instil fear in brands in the same way" - this is because they don't need pressure groups; they've got most of the media who can (and have) hugely impacted businesses (and individuals) by bad reporting, often over absolute nonsense.
Of course it is. You honestly think there's such a thing as a 'woke company'? There isn't. Not a single one. The motive, every time, is profit, and who can blame them, it's why they exist.
'Cancel culture' works on them without question. Phenomenally successful. The problem with it is that it's a pyrrhic victory, because while you get the business to cave in, loads of the employees there do so whilst spouting platitudes through gritted teeth, and the public at large thinks you're a colossal crybaby and roll their eyes at hour anyone could possibly be arsed enough to moan about 99% of the stuff they do.
tsubaki
Player Valuation: £90m
peteblue posting is usually a good sign of that
Right, but they don't unless pressured. That's the key - the choice.
^ This shouldn't be a thing. It's playing the man, not the ball. It's authoritarian in that it's arbitrarily deciding what is hate, attempting to have no dissenting views. They straight up state the aim is to change the media in their own image.
You can disagree with these rags, but their right to exist shouldn't be in question. If you hate the message, argue back against it. Don't just cancel the message entirely if it's simply something you disagree with politically. That's what free speech is. If you want to "stop funding hate", don't buy it, but let everyone else have the choice.
EDIT:
They're flat out just saying 'anti woke' is 'hate'. No grey areas, just flat out 'you agree with me or you're a monster' - surely everyone can agree that's bloody insane?
tsubaki
Player Valuation: £90m
TBF this post is a good example of why such action is required against outlets like GB News, or Fox (or for that matter the papers, especially the Murdoch rags).
You've basically rolled off three right wing memes here - that the opponents of the right are infantile, that "the public at large" don't like whatever it is the people against the right are doing, that it is going to require loads of the workers to be forced to do something against their will. None of them are true (indeed they are probably absurd) and yet here they are featuring in your post and a myriad of articles, tweets and reports across the British press.
People are opposing GB News for a reason; personally I think it is a sensible reason because if much of this countries' population continues down its habit of just repeating things that its masters tell them without ever examining whether they are true (or even whether they make any bloody sense), we are all absolutely screwed.
Didn't say that. At all. I said the people 'cancelling' are. They aren't the same thing.
I freely admit they are a vocal minority; hell, most of you in this very thread were making that exact same point, some to the point of pretending 'cancel culture' is a myth that doesn't exist.
But yes, it's infantile. Objectively so. It's not an attempt to debate or reason, it's the exact opposite. And while I can't give any proof in terms of polls except this in the US, where 64% believe it's a 'threat to freedom' - https://thehill.com/homenews/campai...cel-culture-as-a-threat-to-their-freedom-poll - I am personally 100% certain the public at large detest 'cancel culture'. As in loathe it. More and more by the day.
As for workers being 'forced to do something against their will', no, what I'm saying there's no such thing as a woke company. The idea the social media managers behind the keyboard are in businesses that are delighted in their messaging is nonsense. Look at this crap from Octopus for example - a 'woke' response about how they're committed to not funding hate whilst proudly advertising in The Sun. All over the place in a desperate attempt to please. Look at the get out clause of 'primary purpose' - it's all a constructed con.
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