Are far-right voices ‘amplified beyond their popularity’?

https://www.newstalk.com/news/are-far-right-voices-amplified-beyond-their-popularity-1753984

Posted by Diomas

20 Comments

  1. A lot of media live their lives through Twitter rather than IRL. Everything in Twitter seems a cluster fuck and exaggerated, so the media tends to reflect this.

  2. Absolutely: social media is an echo chamber and certain outlets are worse than others for cultivating or promoting extreme voices to the top of feeds. And often, clicks or “engagement” can be as much from rubber neckers as true believers … so until feet hit the pavement there’s no true way to guage “real” support. And when they come out, these right wing wannabe fascists find their support was not as large as they thought 

  3. Augustus_Chavismo on

    Don’t give into this type of hand waving. It’s what got us here in the first place.

    The longer people pretend the far right is gaining traction for no reason is the closer we’ll be to living under a far right government.

    Established parties need to do something now or the unrest will only get worse.

  4. i’d say it’s the opposite, ‘far-right’ views that most lads in the pub share are suppressed. of course, all depends on your definition of far right

  5. WellWellWell2021 on

    The Internet gives so many people who shouldn’t have a voice at all a voice to recruit minions.

  6. Best-and-Blurst on

    If you are a news editor looking for content; would you rather greenlight and manage an investigative reporter for a month’s or years long delve into some hidden aspect of society, or open twitter for some easy ragebait clicks?

  7. 21stCenturyVole on

    _NewsTalk_ asking if right-wing talking points are ‘amplified beyond their popularity?’ lmao

  8. Available-Lemon9075 on

    Absolutely they are, they’re a bunch of fringe freaks with no elected representatives in the Dáil, they are a political non-entity. 

    The media love polarisation so always tend towards covering the extremes and this is no different. They’d have you believe they’re everywhere and anywhere. 

    It’s not helped by the hysterical dopes on here and across social media that will characterise anything that they disagree with as “far right”. A reflex that they think precludes them from having to actually substantiate any points they’re making.

  9. No_Performance_6289 on

    The only way to truly test if the far right is gaining traction is at the polls. Arguments with accounts on twitter and reddit are not reflective of real life given a lot are bots.

  10. Everywhere used to have village idiots. But they were disjointed and very much alone. With social media they were able to connect and fuel eachothers worst tendencies and thoughts and conspiracies. The outside force of friends and family shaming them for being such monumental gowls is no match for 10,000 people saying “yeah you are right there is a (insert easily disproved theory here), you are one of us!”.

    That small bit of acceptance from other people who are just as ignorant is like rocketfuel for them. Suddenly they have misplaced confidence in their uneducated ideas and the Dunning–Kruger effect married to social media has ensured that their ignorance is now EVERBODIES problem.

  11. Social media gives people the platform to spread their message, both good and bad

    There’s always two sides to every story so you can paint everything with the same brush, scare mongering works on both sides

  12. Mysterious-Bubble-91 on

    No they are actually misrepresentated on social media due to bans and censorships and deleted comments etc. Won’t have accurate numbers on different opinions unless there’s free speech on the internet

  13. Yes, and journalists need to stop using Twitter/X as if it’s a valid ‘vox pop’.

    A lot of media people have been living on Twitter for years, and it’s often a bubble of journalists interacting with bubbles of various loons.

    Likewise politicians are often on Twitter and getting really extreme hate that they wouldn’t get in real life. They just should walk away. It’s a pointless exercise being there arguing with nazis and bots and getting a sense that they’re somehow a reflection of society.

    People need to stop using that site. It’s a hellish mess yet a lot of public bodies, academics, musicians, politicians and journalists are giving it way more credibility than it deserves by being actively on it all the fecking time.