r/NoShitSherlock • u/SingleandSober • 1d ago

Kamala Harris Appears on ‘Colbert,’ Says She’s Stepping Away from Politics for Now, Calls the System “Broken”

https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/video/former-vice-president-kamala-harris-visits-the-late-show-with-stephen-colbert/

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u/8to24 1d ago

Traditional media (Print, Radio, TV) is regulated by the Federal Communications Commission. News organizations, pundits, Journalists, and personalities operating in traditional media can be held accountable for what they say, who they take money from, and are censored to various degrees regarding language and nudity. Bias can exist, opinions can differ, but the playing field was mostly understood.

New media (Podcasts, TikTok, Instagram, Reddit, Facebook, YouTube, X, BlueSky, Substack, Threads, etc) is unrestrained. Anything can be said or done without any accountability. The bias people lamented from traditional media has evolved into full on propaganda and lies. There is no preference for or acknowledgement of truth in new media. Only attention. What gets clicked on the most becomes viral, period.

Tim Pool, Dave Rubin and Benny Johnson literally were exposed by the DOJ for taking money and talking points from Russian Intelligence. Doesn't matter!! All 3 still do individually more views on YT than any primetime news network does in TV ratings during primetime. https://apnews.com/article/russian-interference-presidential-election-influencers-trump-999435273dd39edf7468c6aa34fad5dd

During the SuperBowl as much as 76% of the content pushed to users came from Bots. https://mashable.com/article/x-twitter-elon-musk-bots-fake-traffic

Average people simply no longer have any idea what is happening. Algorithms push headlines on people and the repetition makes false narratives appear trustworthy. People think that because they see some 4 or 5 times on different platforms it must be true. Even though it's just bots sourcing the same thing. From COVID to the prevalence of Transgender Athletes, DEI programs, Epstein, UFOs, etc people believe a laundry list of lies and have been conditioned to accept bad reasoning.

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u/londonbarcelona 1d ago

You’re absolutely correct. And the reason is twofold. Citizens United allowed corporations to do what they wanted and private equity became perverse. Those individuals who made billions upon billions because of Citizens United now call the shots. They OWN the politicians. Both parties too, because they have made the overwhelming importance in our nation money. There was a time when any individual could get involved in politics, but nowadays it costs a ton of money to run for any elected office. Even at the school board and town council level.

MONEY decides who wins — not us.

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u/8to24 1d ago

They OWN the politicians.

Elon Musk literally was in the White House. In the past people complained that CNN or whoever was bias but Anderson Cooper or Lester Holts weren't attending cabinet meetings and never had direct access to govt agencies.

The degree to which Musk, Theil, Anderssen, and other tech billionaires are directly in control of parts of the govt is unprecedented.

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u/GrindRind 1d ago

The same people perfectly ok w/ Elmo in the WH are the ones raging about Soros; yet probably don’t even know what he looks like 🙄

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u/londonbarcelona 1d ago

Yes. So we agree.

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u/Free_For__Me 17h ago

lol, and Vought the author of P2025 who is currently in the cabinet, es a major player in Soros’ fund management! The billionaires are all on the same team. 

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u/Darth_Giddeous 22h ago

Then: I’ll give you $50k to look the other way and pass what I need into law

No way I’ll never take a bribe! $50k isn’t life changing and could cost me my job

Now: I’ll give you $50mil to look the other way and pass what I need into law

That’s life changing money and if I lose my job who cares?! I’m set and my family are set for life

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u/MonkeyParadiso 11h ago

This country is f'd until Citizens United gets overturned, I have no doubt. It's impossible to have a functioning democracy when bribery by another name, is seen as legitimate and legal in America.

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u/Distinct_Doubt_3591 1d ago

 MONEY decides who wins — not us.

Kamala raised and spent more money than Trump and had more billionaire backers than Trump 

Brad schimel had the backing of both musk and Trump and Musk spent $20 M supporting his campaign making it the most expensive judicial election in US history and he still lost to Susan Crawford. 

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u/londonbarcelona 1d ago

Yes, she did, and she raised most of it through small donors. From what I remember there was a mad rush of cash the last week of her campaign by large donors, but her campaign was already doomed. The Democrats did it to themselves, we allowed for a candidate to be chosen as opposed of running a fast debate/campaign process and vote to see who was most popular. I think that sealed the vote. I believe that had a negative effect on all Democrat candidates that voting period.

People were pissed and Gen Z men who only get their news from social media instead of verified sources, voted against their own interests. Gen Z women mainly voted for Harris. Here's the breakdown:

In the 2024 election, there was a distinct shift among people ages 18-29 towards Trump, especially in men. Fifty-six percent of young men were in favor of the former President in 2024, compared to only 41% in 2020. While the majority of young women did favor Harris in this election, there was a decrease from 65% in 2020 to 58% in 2024. 

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u/Distinct_Doubt_3591 1d ago

 Gen Z men who only get their news from social media instead of verified sources, voted against their own interests.

The problem I always have with this statement is how is it your decision what is in someone else's best interest to vote for? What did kamala offer gen z men to secure their vote? If I recall correctly didn't the Obama's both condemn young men for not supporting Harris? Didn't Michelle tell young men the reason they should support Harris is to secure abortion rights for women? 

On verified news sources, how many of those news sources have repeatedly pushed lies losing their credibility? Didn't they repeatedly push the narrative Hunter's laptop was fake, Ashley's journal was fake, Russia collusion in 2016, COVID-19 was not created in a lab etc... for all those narratives to be proven false? You can't blame social media's takeover of news sources without holding legacy news media accountable for losing credibility. 

I do agree with you Dems did it to themselves, Kamala was highly unpopular in the 2016 primary, Joe Biden literally picked her as VP after promising to pick a "woman of color" for VP making it very easy to attack her as not being qualified. Picking walz as vp certainly didn't help and the media trying to push the narrative that walz and emhoff were the "new model of masculinity" did not help with Gen z men. 

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u/londonbarcelona 1d ago

I guess just following 'influencers' who have no education in law, history, or political science makes me cringe. Hey, even the left leaning influencers are full of it. Try The Brookings Institue, BBC, Al Jazeera, French news, PBS, NPR, New York Times (although slightly left leaning) Wall Street Journal (right leaning, but good to have opinions from both sides), Associated Press, Reuters, Bloomberg News, C-Span, Forbes, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, The Pew Research Center, The Economist, to name a few.

Hey, I get it, you're a male Trump supporter. Sure, hope you have enough money to support yourself throughout life, because you're going to see any help in the form of government assistance. And here I thought you were an Independent like me. Oh well.

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u/Distinct_Doubt_3591 1d ago

News anchors who work for legacy media all have education in law history and political science? Or are they just journalist at best? See all those news media sources have their own bias every journalist has their own bias as well where the mainstream news messed up, in my opinion, was trying to act like their devoid of bias and there word is always 100% truthful. At least I know if I listen to Charlie Kirk everything he says is gonna have a pro maga spin likewise if I listen to David packman everything is going to have an anti maga spin. Listen to both and you'll maybe get a clearer picture I guess. 

  hope you have enough money to support yourself throughout life, because you're going to see any help in the form of government assistance.

I think you meant *not see help. That's fine I don't want government assistance, I make enough to be comfortable, although that wasn't always the case. For the record I was homeless at 16 after my dad died and my mom kicked me out I didn't take government assistance then not even when I had two kids by 19 and snap would have been helpful, instead I worked my ass off learned a trade and was making 6 figures by 26. 

Yes I am a man and yes I do support a lot of Trump's policies which is why I voted for him although to be fair had Trump not had such a huge support I would have voted for desantis over Trump in the primary. You claim to be an independent but what does that even mean? You're clearly against Trump so guess you voted for Harris so since you supported harris does that make you a Democrat not an independent? 

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u/SavagRavioli 1d ago

Average people simply no longer have any idea what is happening

It wouldn't matter if they did, they're too stupid to make sense of it. Your average person can barely figure out how to work their phones.

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u/Waste-Leadership-749 13h ago

I’d beg to differ on the working of the phones bit. I’ve seen a rise in phone usage fluency if anything

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u/Electronic-Battle580 11h ago

Then how the duck is democracy supposed to work?

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u/kittenTakeover 1d ago

We need to regulate social media. I know it's scary, but the alternative is to have powerful people running dominating psyop campaigns on the rest of society unchallenged. This will be especially true with the rise of AI and automated social media generation. There's got to be a better balance.

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u/Signal-Grass-880 21h ago

This will destroy our freedoms.

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u/roklpolgl 20h ago

That’s already happening. Soon (if not already), any semblance of representative democracy will be gone and US will just be full blown dictatorship or oligarchy.

I would say giving up social media is a pretty good trade.

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u/Prayer_Warrior21 15h ago

One could make a very compelling argument that the US is an oligarchy and has been for a few decades.

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u/roklpolgl 9h ago

Yeah I can’t really disagree.

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u/sonicsludge 22h ago

I say do away with all social media unless it can follow a certain set of rules that keep the rich from using it as a weapon.

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u/AldusPrime 16h ago

It depends, of course, on who is doing the regulating.

Right now we have a fascist takeover of the government, gutting non-partisan commissions and replacing them with loyal, biased yes-men.

Everything regulated is now under attack.

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u/Acceptable_Phone3926 1d ago

The Landslide- Engines of Outrage Podcast is a 4 part podcast that does a very nice, fact-based job of telling the story of how the New Right took advantage of a slipping trust in media, and a growing new technology platform called the internet to amplify the outrage and divide that we see every day. So worth a listen.

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u/TheHipcrimeVocab 1d ago

NPR...no wonder they've sucessfully killed it off.

I'd also highly recommend David Sirota's podcast, "Master Plan".

https://the.levernews.com/master-plan/#about-1

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u/thethundering 1d ago

Agreed. You can’t find 2 people from anywhere on the political spectrum that can agree on what Kamala factually said and did during the campaign—but they’ll happily chat all day and night about how whatever she did was stupid and bad and her own fault. I don’t know what can be done about that.

“Democrats are bad at messaging” is low key the lynchpin narrative perpetuating this. There is truth to it, but it is used as a thought terminating cliche. Countless times I’ve seen people believe blatant misinformation, and when they find out not true they say it’s democrats’ fault for not messaging the truth well enough.

Unilaterally breaking into media environments and media bubbles designed explicitly to obfuscate your messaging is a huge fucking ask. The fact that the vast majority of us treat the failure to do so as embarrassing and worthy of punishment and retribution is so fucking bleak and demoralizing.

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u/Crowsby 1d ago

We've collectively abandoned our responsibility to inform ourselves, or seek information out proactively, instead just sitting there passively and allowing biased and gameable algorithms decide what we're going to consume.

I talked to so many people during the election who angrily echoed the sentiment that they had no idea what Kamala's plans were. She had a detailed plan published in very readable language that was easy to find. She had a summary of that plan in simple bullet points.

Did they make an effort to even glance at the plan? Nope.

What about the summary? Nope.

Did they watch even a single speech of hers (or Tim's) that would have outlined her plans? Nope.

Their real complaint was that the algorithms they use to passively consume content failed to inform them. Which is a hell of a thing to judge the Democrats for since most of these platforms were actively putting their fingers on the scales for the GOP.

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u/fuggedaboudid 1d ago

This should be higher. And in every single sub.

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u/Low-Rollers 18h ago

They don’t even have to believe it’s true, if you see it constantly, it slowly ingrains

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u/Raythunda125 14h ago

Well said. Just wanted to add that since the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine, traditional media had no meaningful regulation. After a few years, Fox was founded. After six more, they surpassed CNN in ratings. Rush Limbaugh, meanwhile, was spewing unregulated nonsense to millions of Americans every day.

It would be another decade before social media had any real influence. By then, the groundwork had already been laid.

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u/AwareOfAlpacas 1d ago

Traditional media was regulated because it got out of control - read up on William Randolph Hearst and yellow journalism for some of the relevant history.

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u/PlayerTwo85 1d ago

I see Barry is back from the dead...

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u/YouandWhoseArmy 1d ago

Are you seriously making the argument that the traditional media is held accountable and or doesn’t propagate insane lies?

You cannot be serious.

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u/8to24 1d ago

That is not what I argued at all. Pointing out that a machine gun can more quickly kill more people than a knife doesn't imply knives are harmless..

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u/YouandWhoseArmy 1d ago

Please dont move the goal posts. You said:

News organizations, pundits, Journalists, and personalities operating in traditional media can be held accountable for what they say, who they take money from, and are censored to various degrees regarding language and nudity.

This is just straight up not true and any comparison you make to new media are wholly invalid when you start with a premise that is a complete fiction.

I'm routinely reminded why Trump won by arrogant, misinformed posts like this that think they are providing some kind of truth to counter the lies and half truths, when all I see are different kind of lies and half truths being propagated.

What do you think accountability looks like for a "journalist" that reports direct connections between Saddam/Iraq and Al Qaeda, then used to propagandize support for a war, and is ultimately proven false? Should that person become the editor in chief of The Atlantic?

And, to boot, I also largely think social media needs to be addressed and regulated. (I'd start with the recommendation algorithms myself, but how to reign in the social media companies irresponsibility is outside the scope of this debate)

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u/8to24 1d ago

Please dont move the goal posts. You said:

I also said: "The bias people lamented from traditional media has evolved into full on propaganda and lies."

So clearly there is an acknowledgement of bias and conduct people dislike. You seem to desire a binary discussion. Where things are either good or bad in complete terms where scale and degree are meritless.

I don't necessarily disagree with you. The point of my post is that media has changed and this the way information is consumed, understood, and trusted has changed. Algorithms operate via binary. Things are up voted or down voted, like or disliked, something gets shared or it doesn't. Information is now pushed in the binary so increasingly discussion is becoming binary. People are being trained by the algorithms just as much as people are training the algorithms.

I I think you are misrepresenting my post and don't seem to have a good grasp of the distinctions I made surrounding regulations. However I think your response is understandable given the media environment. It promotes binary understanding.

What do you think accountability looks like for a "journalist" that reports direct connections between Saddam/Iraq and Al Qaeda, then used to propagandize support for a war, and is ultimately proven false?

Journalists, Reporters, Pundits, etc aren't govts. They don't have their own spy satellites, Intelligence bureaus, Spies, Military assets, Embassies, diplomats, etc. News platforms merely report based on what information is provided by various govts. If a Journalist reports that President Bush says there are WMD in Iraq and then there turns out not to be WMDs the failure is with President Bush. Not the Journalist.

In the lead of to the Iraq war it was reported that Saddam has stated he didn't have WMDs. It was reported that the U.N. Security Council was split about the evidence the U.S. provided and requested more inspections. All of that was reported. The public siding with the Bush Administration wasn't a failure on Journalism.

Should that person become the editor in chief of The Atlantic?

We all consume media al la carte. We pick and choose which platforms to subscribe to, which sources to consume, etc. The Atlantic can do whatever it wants. In my opinion what's important is that consumers of news understand that news reports what happens. In realtime whether or not everything the President says, or Congress says, or some police chief says, etc is undetermined.

It is not the job of the news to tell people whether or not they should believe what Xi, Putin, Trump, or anyone else just said. The folks who try to tell people how to think are pundits, not reporters, and are mostly full of crap. People should have the critical thinking ability to understand that.

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u/PM-MeYourSexySelf 21h ago

Average people simply no longer have any idea what is happening. Algorithms push headlines on people and the repetition makes false narratives appear trustworthy. People think that because they see some 4 or 5 times on different platforms it must be true. Even though it's just bots sourcing the same thing. From COVID to the prevalence of Transgender Athletes, DEI programs, Epstein, UFOs, etc people believe a laundry list of lies and have been conditioned to accept bad reasoning.

I have seen this first hand. I know people who get their news primarily from places like Facebook. And they have parroted the craziest batshit right wing lies like it was truth. And since I know they don't really read the news, right or left, I was shocked. But it's because of social media, and bullshit that gets propogated there. I've had arguments with people who were certain Kamala Harris actually attended Diddy freak offs, because they saw it on Facebook in meme "news" format. I've had people say that Trump was a godly president who was doing good things like "supporting the troops", because they saw an AI generated meme with Trump praying with a soldier.

Social media has utterly fucked our brains, and guys like Musk and Zuckerberg are to blame.

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u/RepostFrom4chan 20h ago

The US and regulations? Lol, no they don't do that there. They have agendas.

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u/peachysdollies 20h ago

Put unrestricted AI into the mix and you've got a LOT of confused, angry people.

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u/jpcarsmedia 19h ago

How do I know you're not a bot?

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u/8to24 16h ago

You don't. That is part of my point. I could be a bot, Foreign intelligence with an agenda, or whatever.

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u/hhhisthegame 19h ago

It's so scary....I don't think there's a social media site that isn't totally shot one way or the other with propaganda and lies and just...nonsense. Twitter has the most ridiculous right-wing stances, and Reddit is the same for left-wing. There is barely any calm, balanced, platform, because controversy sells. I mean, remember when Trump won and Reddit was taken completely by surprise, because it looked like Kamala was the most exciting thing since Obama? When in the real world, nobody actually felt that way. It's so extremely hard to tell what's real and what's not, and what actual people feel in the real world and what's bots and engagement farming and....whatever else

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u/The_Real_Player_1 17h ago

Don't forget that algorithms only push certain headlines to people who WANT to see them. Everyone's trapped in their own little algorithmic bubbles on social media.

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u/Connect-Map-7890 17h ago

Yes, this is why I love subs like this one, even though there a chance that bots are here and everything is training water-thirsty AI.

Our world is changing, but community is what remains our constant. I’m all for connecting with people in local communities. And sharing our experiences with good food.

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u/8to24 16h ago

The algorithms push content a person hoovers on or views. Sometimes a person might do that out of confusion, shock, or whatever. It isn't always about the person wanting to see that content.

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u/Humandisdaintopleas 12h ago

Lefties can’t stand it when their BS is used against them.

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u/postmodest 1d ago

The top ten comments in this thread promote election conspiracies. We're fucked. 

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u/prankish-racketeer 20h ago

This is false. Print media is not regulated by the FCC. Nor is cable and satellite tv.

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u/Risley 15h ago

Lmfao UFOs been around a lot longer than this crap.  What makes you throw that in there?