The US shadow campaign to "fortify democracy"

Nothing to see here folks 😠

Well I guess at least it's not a conspiracy anymore ... I wonder what else has been done to 'protect democracy'

https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/?amp=true&__twitter_impression=true

I guess TIME magazine is now a far right conspiracy theorist magazine for saying that a shadow cabal clandestinely intervened in the election to defeat Donald Trump 🙄

They fended off voter-suppression lawsuits, recruited armies of poll workers and got millions of people to vote by mail for the first time. They successfully pressured social media companies to take a harder line against disinformation and used data-driven strategies to fight viral smears. They executed national public-awareness campaigns that helped Americans understand how the vote count would unfold over days or weeks, preventing Trump’s conspiracy theories and false claims of victory from getting more traction. After Election Day, they monitored every pressure point to ensure that Trump could not overturn the result.

Seems like a relative non-story to be honest. They're just putting a sensational spin on what has been common practice for decades.

How absolutely outrageous of them.

If only more voter suppression had happened, if only less people had voted, if only the American people were more ignorant of their system, if only fake news promoted by right wing grafters had been allowed to dominate the narrative then maybe the anti-democratic reactionary right would have seen their cult hero remain in office.

Not quite. The internet, social media sites and near total partisanship of the MSM hasn't existed for decades.

If only more voter suppression had happened, if only less people had voted, if only the American people were more ignorant of their system, if only fake news promoted by right wing grafters had been allowed to dominate the narrative then maybe the anti-democratic reactionary right would have seen their cult hero remain in office.

Near total partisanship of the MSM? Are you kidding? Do the extremely popular right wing sites / papers like the Daily Mail, The Telegraph and The Express just not exist anymore?

Obviously talking about America not the UK.

Though the daily mail, telegraph and ConHome are all anti trump (even before November and regularly host critical pieces about him)

Not quite. The internet, social media sites and near total partisanship of the MSM hasn't existed for decades.

Guess Fox News and the Wall Street Journal don't exist either, then.

Guess Fox News and the Wall Street Journal don't exist either, then.

The article is complaining about a supposed sinister cabal between business, activists and vested interests shaping policy is it not? This has been happening since time immemorial. The means of organising is of fairly limited impact imo.
As to the partisanship of media in America, its been that way for decades... Be it fox or cnn they have never sought to hide their biasses and it has been positively encouraged by government fiat. Then again, theyre not as bad as the 'non-msm' who are the pits for it.

No. That's not what I'm highlighting. This group is not about shaping policy (eg lobbying X party to do Y) but about shaping the election itself through the 'control of Information'.

I am not against media partisanship. Quite the opposite in fact and this is why I am concerned about the above almost total one sided partisanship of the media working in conjunction with big tech to silence dissidents.

I get that people don't like Trump but I dont think giving these groups a monopoly on 'truth' is what they want either.

I'm not sure we can call it all one sided, fox and oan being just two of the more visible networks trying to fellate Trump. As to the others, whilst some undoubtedly have a bent, i see little problem in them calling out Trump for his unamerican attitudes, corruption and general trashing of the country and its institutions. After all, pointing out that he was unfit for office was less an article of partisanship than a mere statement of fact. The only interesting aspect was that the networks supporting him (which are part of the msm, whether they like it or not) lied quite so much in support of him.

I will grant you a point with big tech in their abuses, not least in 'deplatforming' a sitting president. Something they will hopefully answer for in the coming enquires. That being said though, as far as silencing lunatic like Marjorie and other subhuman elements i can think of worse things. Silencing people for being merely conservative is one thing (something that doesnt actually happen very much) silencing them for propagating conspiracy theories, lies and propaganda is quite another though and something that i see no real issue with. Aside from their lack of doing it to some of the eco-fascists, blm lunatics with their 'antifa' buddies and so on. Basically the problem i see is less them cleaning undesirables from their sites but doing so with an ideology in mind.

You have a point on the truth aspect although in fairness thats a nasty problem for them to run into and theyve merely taken the safer course, especially with covid. It is easier to simply remove dubious material than go through the time and effort of fact checking it. On the flip side, there are singular truths on things such as 5G (its fine), Qanon (its rubbish) antivaxxers and so on. They might not have a monopoly on truth but equally they shouldnt be under any obligation to host crap like that which can cause physical harm to people. Difference of opinion is one thing, propagating lies and crack pot theories is quite another.

Both of whom have been very lukewarm at best, Fox in particular has long been pretty dismissive of Trump which has been noted.

The NYP is a better example and they censored when it came to light that Hunter Biden had a laptop with all sorts of dodgy crap on it (that he is now being officially investigated for)

Also see:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_media_endorsements_in_the_2020_United_States_presidential_election


(Now imagine If this was the other way around )