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As a result of a social media campaign, last week makers of the famous geek-popular toy highly sophisticated inter-locking brick system the Lego Group has stopped giving away polybags with print copies of the Daily Mail, something it has done for years in occasional promotions.
The Daily Mail is frequently criticised for its right-wing stance and critics often claim that many of the stories are either inaccurate or utterly fabricated, as the quote below from the " Stop Funding Hate" campaign shows:
While I disagree with their political stand I can accept their right to have it. But lately their headlines have gone beyond offering a right wing opinion. Headlines that do nothing but create distrust of foreigners, blame immigrants for everything, and as of yesterday are now having a go at top judges in the U.K. for being gay while making a legal judgment.
Another article from The Independent has more background.
Lego spokesperson Roar Rude Trangbaek told The Independent: "We spend a lot of time listening to what children have to say. And when parents and grandparents take the time to let us know how they feel, we always listen just as carefully.
"[...] The agreement with The Daily Mail has finished and we have no plans to run any promotional activity with the newspaper in the foreseeable future."
Other targets of "Stop Funding Hate" include John Lewis, Waitrose, and Marks & Spencer.
Is this a case of the liberal left shouting and screaming to enforce a kind of corporate self-censorship, or simply free markets and freedom of speech working together as they should?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @06:38PM
Those on the left have a long history of refusing to debate their policies, with them instead choosing to silence their opposition with words like racist and xenophobic. In the past this worked well, and if somebody on the right wanted a debate about immigration the left would simply scream "racist!" and that would be sufficient to end the debate. However, they've been doing that for so long, and with such regularity, that people have simply stopped paying attention. The old approach of the left is failing, and the left are losing election after election, with more to come next year.
Since their current methods of silencing opposition have failed, they're now trying new approaches. One approach is the accusation that all right wing news outlets report "fake news". The likes of Google and Facebook are now working to remove this "fake news", where "fake news" is any news that doesn't meet the liberal agenda.
Another new way the left are seeking to silence their opposition is by reporting everyone to the police for "hate speech". They're trying to make people scared to speak for fear of losing their job and their freedom, with even politicians like Geert Wilders being left unable to discuss is own party's policies.
Now we have this "Stop Funding Hate" campaign, which is trying to silence right wing publications by putting them out of business.
The problem is, those on the left don't see what's wrong with trying to silence their opposition, and one thing we repeatedly hear from the left is "there must be limits to free speech". The student council at the City University, London have just voted to ban newspapers which they label as fascist. These leftists are essentially calling for the burning of books that don't match their ideology, but are then labelling other people fascists. The real fascists now are the left, and the public increasingly realise it, but the leftist themselves fail to understand how evil they've become.
The fascist policies of the left are making people extremely motivated to get out and vote against them, and that's why the left is losing so many elections, and will continue to lose elections. If the left what's to save itself from destruction, it needs to stop trying to silence the opposition and instead engage in open debate. However, the left have been focused on censorship for so long I fear the word 'debate' is no longer in their dictionary.
(Score: 2) by n1 on Saturday November 19 2016, @07:15PM
Top Daily Mail story right now: "Strip clubs, drag shows... And the KKK: US photographer captures the troubling essence of the eighties for 'those people your mother warned you about' "
Top The Guardian story right now: "President-elect: I had to settle Trump University case 'to focus on our country' "
If the Daily Mail loses important advertisers and household names doing promotions with them, they only have themselves to blame with the content they publish in the way they do it.
They could take the lessons from how Murdoch runs his media empire.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @08:45PM
Be careful of the political tools you create. For they will one day be used upon you. Count on it. That is the reason for the backlash on the 'alt-right'. They had picked up the very tools that the left had used the previous time. Now the left is crying foul. 'the right' may be a bit slow but they are mercilessly effective once they figure it out.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @10:12PM
The alt-right is nothing new. America's story has been about white supremacy since columbus first found the place.
There will always be those looking to harm the weak regardless of what "tools" currently exist, they'll create them as needed anyway they always have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @06:39AM
You consider the likes of CBS/NBC/CNN/WSJ and the political elites to be 'the weak'? Interesting.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @12:28PM
If I can over-generalise, the problem with everyone is over-generalisation. Not *everyone* with left-leaning politics thinks you shouldn't debate/let anyone into the country, nor is everyone with right-leaning politics a Heil Jesus xenophobe. All this partisan bullshit is what led to Chief Wotsit versus Robo-Clinton and *the Wotsit won*. What he'll be allowed to do is another matter entirely but if you genuinely think that either of the two biggest US political parties would make your life, or even your country, better then I've got a lovely bridge to sell you. Politicians of any stripe you care to mention will talk a big game and then if they win, anything that would reduce their power/reach and increase yours is immediately brushed under the carpet. Neither Trump nor Clinton could care less about any of you, if they realise you exist at all outside of election time. Trump played the anti-elite card and people believed that despite it being utter bollocks; we had the same nonsense in the UK with the EU vote and, before that, the AV referendum - the big bad elites are after you, vote my way and I'll give you a stone to chuck at them. It's all shit from top to bottom and if *any* area of the political spectrum continues to exist only within its echo chamber, nothing will change. But for fuck's sake, do it with an open mind; patronising people is just perpetuating this shite and the elite who keep telling you they're on your side will continue to get fat off your labour, laughing all the way to the bank.
Investigative journalism is dead and the corpse has rotted. The vast majority of "news" is clickbait tripe, bread and circuses to keep people occupied and stop them noticing the dice are loaded and they'll always, *always* ultimately lose. If Trump makes the US into a manufacturing powerhouse again I'll be the first to eat humble pie, ditto if any form of the UK leaving the EU improves life for the poor dumb bastards who believed Nigel Fucking Farage and the bullshit bus.
The trouble with playing the 'them and us' game in the long term is that we kill them, they kill us and then there's no bugger left to wonder what exactly the fuck it was all for and for whose benefit.
(Score: 2) by art guerrilla on Sunday November 20 2016, @02:47PM
ummm, ye-a-a-a-h-h-h-no...
you are falling into the left/right trap, mein gut freund...
it is NOT left/right we 99% should be concerned with, we can sort that out in the wash; it is the top/bottom, 1%/99% schism which is the problem...
the 1% WANT US to be divided and to blame each other for what are -ultimately- the problems from the 1% having control, NOT libtards, you conservatard...
if you think our present Emperor -or even the failed Empress- are in any way, shape, or form 'liberal' or progressive in any meaningful way, then you have bought into the reich-wing propaganda of false liberalism... these neo-lib con artistes are more rethug than dem'rat, more for Empire than for the people...
for dog's sake, the obamacare centerpiece of his administration is a fucking rethug idea to ENTRENCH and preserve the parasitic health insurance industry (and most importantly , the continued stream of donations), NOT TO ACTUALLY provide health CARE, but to MANDATE being extorted by the insurance parasites...
that is YOUR SIDE's shit 'plan', the stupid dem'rats just ran with it... you think a real iiberal/progressive would even consider a steaming pile of shit like that ? ? ?
GTFOH...
further, this 'fake news' feint is not a 'liberal' vs 'conservative' agenda item, this is the desire of Empire... this is TOTALLY aimed at the wikileaks and other alt media who do not bow to Empire's will as the mainstream media willingly does... this is TOTALLY to be able to discredit the pesky little mammalian alt media who are running circles around the Big Media dinosaurs, and reporting more truth and salient issues than they are... The They are losing control of the message, thus this 'purge' of too often truth-telling media...