You have easy access in that you can find things if you look for it.

What that commenter means by easy access is that the information is in mainstream sources pushed to people such that you are likely to know about it without having looked.

For example I made a comment here on HN recently that immigrants commit crimes at fewer rates than US born people. That sends a segment of Americans into a flying rage even though they have access to that information, they were never going to hear it in their ordinary channels, even if they stick to "mainstream" media.

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ericmay 8 hours ago | parent [-]

Mainstream sources that control narratives, and are owned by the same extremely wealthy people that we're complaining about now owning TikTok?

Sorry, this doesn't pass the smell test for me.

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asveikau 8 hours ago | parent [-]

Right now the Ellison family owns both CBS and the US version of TikTok, so sometimes the connection is kind of literal.

But this complaint is pretty old, I think of Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent. (Setting aside his Epstein connections for a moment) The way we do censorship is much less the methods of a traditional totalitarian state and more like the private sector policing what is acceptable discourse.

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ericmay 8 hours ago | parent [-]

The problem with Chomsky's argument is that you can't do anything about it. Every country, every group in power, democracy, republic, chiefdom, &c, is participating in manufacturing consent and even if you fight to gain power, once you gain power you wind up doing the same thing.

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asveikau 8 hours ago | parent [-]

I'm not citing Chomsky with a claim that he's unassailable, just that it's a very old complaint. I also think he was right about a bunch of stuff, and wrong on others.

As for what he suggested, this is reminding me that I never read his work On anarchism. I heard him speak favorably about the anarchists in the Spanish Civil War. I also found that topic very interesting when I was getting a Spanish minor many years ago at college. I am sure many HN commenters will disagree that it's something to emulate.

	▲	ericmay 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I think I have that book but haven't read it. I did read Manufacturing Consent but it has been some time. I didn't mean to imply that he was unassailable, just had that critique of that general point. I think his writing is very interesting, in general, and it always helps expand the mind to new or reframed ideas.