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We are bombarded and over-exposed to certain sensationalist themes and media narratives.

It's almost impossible for anyone to come up with their own ideas/views/opinions with the kind of narrative feeding we get on a daily basis. I know 'giving up the internet' and/or not visiting certain websites could alleviate this issue some what but it led me to thinking.....

  Is there a way to self-censor the data you receive?

eg. If someone finds it counter-productive/unhelpful to hear about 'terrorism' on a daily basis, is it possible to block anything associated with this from your internet viewing without having to restrict the websites you visit?

A lot of people are becoming aware of their over-exposure to other's sensationalist ideas and may be looking for a solution/more control of their data absorption habits....


Does anyone else want a filter/ more control over your internet viewing?

Any ideas on how this can be done?

i know what you mean. almost all of it is unhelpful and depressing but i don't know how you could filter out individual stuff.

the best you can do is choose to avoid the most poisonous sites, and install stuff like the below.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/mediamonkeyblog/2011/mar/28/kitten-block

You can find some browser like TOR, tho I wouldn't recommend tor. Tho, there are a lot of other ones better, short google search would show you the answers. Also, a vpn would do the trick in some cases.

First of all you need to remove yourself from Facebook, Facebook has set itself up as a very powerful propaganda  & social engineering tool, I recommend everyone stays away from it. Most of the political fear mongering and propaganda is showered upon the masses via social media.
Stay away from Google, together Facebook and Google know more about you than your wife does, Google will feed you information that confirms with your bias, making it incredibly difficult for you to receive unbiased data.
Thrid, experience the world for yourself, it sounds silly but people have been plugged into these propaganda channels for a decade and it has completely destroyed their intelligence, personality and humanity, they can no longer think logically for themselves.
Do these things before you are completely and totally enslaved by the technocrats, you haven't seen nothing yet.
If you think the Rothschilds are bad wait until Zuckerberg, Musk & Brin have total control over you.

Use one of those Firefox plugging that you can block specific sites. Only problem is that if you really want to go on a specific site, you could open another browser. But if Firefox is your primary browser, it can at least initially stop you and make you decided if you really want to go through the process of opening up another browser to go to a site that you wish not to go, but can't help.

Absolutely agree with that. I haven't been a member of Facebook for about 6 years, I don't miss it at all. I'm pretty reliant on Google though - I have started using Bing a bit more - to mix it up but ultimately Google still has a superior search.

Large-Scale agenda promoting is in the hands of a handful of people and yes it must have an effect on the masses - (Maybe it's good so far? I don't know) But on a personal level, some of it is certainly unhelpful.

I guess the only true solution is to have a personal Google-esque algorithm that scans the web for me - quality control

I 100% agree. I have psychologically so much more stable after I quit facebook. I still go to reddit and check out the local and international news websites but try to form an informed opinion by reading about stuff on multiple places with different point of views.

Do not get so serious about your life. Social media is actually just a means of communication. facebook is a mirror. You never forget; The mirror shows you what you show.

Going ahead and doing all this just so you won't be exposed to fake news narratives and so on is really just a waste of time. You have to know as a person what to weed out and what you know is true with real evidence backing it, this is why I am always one to ask for sources and such when people post in this sub section of the forum.

I go through a good amount of news sources which include CNN, Fox, NY Post, Reddit (Couple sub reddits that are both Liberal and Conservative in nature, one even outright supports Donald Trump) You have to be able to know what is real and what is fake, it's tough but it really teaches you what point of view and bias can do to a certain topic / article.


Don't do this, just watch all the sources and decide yourself what is exaggerated, outright fake, true and so on. Everyone has a bias so just going on a certain couple of sites will just confirm your own views and you never want that. You want to see what other people feel and see about a topic.

I agree with you. To know the truth need to get information from all sides. Why limit yourself? And suddenly you become the victim of their errors of judgment and are in captivity of their own illusions? The Internet and chat on the forums gives us the opportunity to test themselves and possibly point out the mistakes of others.

I understand what you're saying and I agree (when it comes down to political things it's all noise anyway). But a lot of sensationalist news broadcast is statistically irrelevant to a lot of other stuff that isn't reported upon or reported upon very little.
Some kind of censorship/filter could help balance out this statistical error.
The same effect present in the issue of 'which kills more people, coconuts or sharks?' And which would you take more precautions to avoid?

I'm not Spoc and I'm not 100% rational ;D I'm much more scared of sharks than coconuts! But does my "irrational" fear of sharks limit my opportunities?

sounds like snowflake safe place crap to me.

How to find fake news from real news?..

When you watch the news don't believe what is getting said unless it's come out of the persons mouth..
The person or person the news are concerned about listen to the person they speak about..

Like Clinton the news was saying how good she is and she will do all sorts for the young I.E college tuition
and what not..
Then someone posted her saying what she says in public is not what she means in private..
Then she goes on to say about college tuition to wall street big wigs that she will never give free tuition
like some Scandinavian country where ever that is she said..

So without the internet we would never know how much of a lying thieving scum bag she really was..

You make your mind up about fake news by hearing it come from the persons mouth ..NOT HEAR SAY..

And CNN is the WORST OF ALL ..FAKE A FK

News on TV is owned by billionaire elites with there own agendas ..
TO MAKE SURE THE MONEY GOES BACK TO THEM..

Even our armies are for HIRE..And the news will go with it for a cut..
Weapon maker is the friend of the news owner..Both get together and make money..
As well as others in the pot making money..

So only believe it when it comes from the persons mouth ..
Or he or she is seen on camera doing the deeds that the news talk about..

The internet is FREEDOM.. part of our freedom that binds us altogether..THE PEOPLE.

We just need to filter good things, especially when opening facebook. There is no other way than to block site manually. I was also disturbed by news site & online newspaper, because almost all of them voicing political propaganda. None of world news sites chose to be neutral. But I liked news from reddit, because there are many opinions of people who are intelligent & independent.

Now really there is a world war in the network. A lot of trolls who are engaged in propaganda. However, trolls are not all visiting sites. If you are sure they are right they should be able to defend their opinion under any circumstances. Besides, you always have the opportunity to find like-minded people and maybe recruited by trolls. Never lock the page.

My tip for you.

Make three weeks of holidays with cycling, hiking, running but without a phone, tablet, notebooek, internet, tv ...

You'll see, it will work. And after that you have a different behavior

Unfortunately, modern people are already so used to modern technology that I very much doubt that they will survive long without them. Last time I forgot my cell phone at home, I passed only 3 hours then I had to go back and get him on the other side of town.

Just don't go to the websites that have the content you don't like. It is very simple.

The Ministry of the Armed forces, announced the establishment of the troops information operations. This is today in the state Duma of the Russian Federation Minister of defense Sergei Shoigu, the Russian news Agency "Interfax". They are everywhere so it is not possible to go to sites where they are not.

But it works. At least for me...  8)
And I'm very modern I think.
I have to do this twice a year, in summer and in the winter.

I have no idea what you are talking about. I haven't heard of that. It is possible.

Do whatever you like. When you are online, they got you. You express your opinions in a forum, they already keep a record of you. You can't actually delete anything from internet. When it is online, it is over.

You may use TOR, or VPN to hide yourself from NSA but then TOR/VPN owners got your information. You can't stay completely anonymous... If they want to find you, they will.

I closed my facebook account several times in the past. I haven't uploaded a photo for years. (or shared anything) But still i use its messaging service, and if they take a look at my private messages between friends, they will have every information about me.

If i haven't used facebook, i would have used whatsapp or some other... What's the difference, they already own every mainstream messaging app out there. If not, they own the phone companies, simcard operators, they own your ass!

You can't hide bro. Accept it, and don't share your freaky thoughts with anyone online. Never.

Maybe they do and achieve? Why help the enemy? I'm not afraid of them. Let them know about it. If I commit a crime then of course I will never use a smartphone and a tablet. As far as communication on the forums then I'm the opposite of ready to refute all of them fakes.

That is such a great idea and I've contemplated doing weekend or week away in the wilderness - 3 weeks is really quite a long time, maybe that's what's required for a 'reset'?.

Have you done this?

Do you get a 'reset feeling' after doing that?    I'd be interested to hear your experience.

I can attest (though not for so long a time as that) this does work. Technology use nowadays (which is mostly entertainment or convenience) is mostly habitual. Unconditioning those habits, or replacing them, is healthy. And a note on privacy from state actors. Even if you could hear all the voices in the room, it would be hard to separate a single voice and hear it clearly through the cacophony. That's the current state of affairs with government surveillance. You are psuedo anon, like bitcoin, because it's hard to single out one person with all the noise. When you listen to all the Facebook posts, from the LOL cats to the fight clips, eventually, you tune out everything that isn't "I am a crazy head and intend to do harm to myself, or others".

So, just be aware you are always on record, if you use an electronic medium of communication. It doesn't diminish you, which is the most important thing. But it does give you some considerations.

But when they tune in, you are quite fucked.

Quite separate from PRIVACY (which is another important issue). The concern is if the over-stimulation of a certain type of message is effecting me without my knowing (a bit like subliminal messaging etc.)

It seems to me that it is not possible. It has long been known that 25 fps is a fiction. Same thing with other technologies of this kind. I think everything is much easier. People inspire thoughts through the fake news.

25fps?
Either I missed something, you are in the wrong thread, or you are smoking the best of the drugs.

And to OP, tune out completely then. We weren't designed for this level of stimulation, electronics resemble drugs in the way they engage our pleasure centers. Also, with communications technology at its current state, you are always being advertised at, and those ads are designed to subvert your will. Don't expose yourself to this needlessly.

We lived for centuries without TVs. Cellphones and PCs (and most other consumer electronics), while useful, are only tools if used as such. Otherwise, they are entertainment. And too much entertainment without work will make you soft.

https://www.opendns.com/

will let you set up some filters.

Unfortunately the answer is no, so you will need to do the filtering yourself, what you consider to be useless propaganda and what you consider to be useful information.

I use adblock which serves me very well against unwanted commercials which to me is the biggest irritant on the internet. For the rest, I choose what read or watch, sometimes you waste a coupler minutes of your life but even then I'll retain some infromation.

It depends if you want to avoid the mainstream media just get your sources on the USA from other countries where objective reporting still exists.

Nhk Newsline from Japan, the BBC at times in the UK they are far more bias to Brexit , CTV or CBC from Canada, RT is pretty honest despite all the US fear mongering about it being the Kremlins shouting point from Russia, Al Jazeera from the Qatar,Dubai or CCTV from China to name a few.

The point is as long as it's not from the USA it probably is ok to watch news related to that country through it and not feel like being hit by endless propaganda waves.
Just be careful not to do the safe-space logic where everyone lives in filter bubbles that is a scarier thought than 1984 and the thought police, it would be the self-created thought police.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_bubble

I had also had a negative attitude towards advertising, but now I can concentrate on the essential and is not distracting me. Besides, sometimes advertising is what I need. Through advertising many things we have for free. Accept or pay.

There are website and content blockers that may be useful to you. Those blockers are made especially for children so they cannot watch pornographic and violent filled and graphic sites. This kind of software may be helpful to you but as you are an adult you just need to disallow and block manually the sites that you hate and turn-off pop ups that automatically opens links that you dont want to open.

I would like to censor the world around me. Bad things keep happening and I don't want to see or experience them anymore. I want to be only surrounded by nice things which make me feel nice.

I would say to the OP that we both stand a roughly equal chance of getting what we want.

I guess you're right. There are certain sites I unblock because they hold the content im interested in. I'm not like you apparently because I think advertising without control through adblock is too distracting for me.

I was not distracting ads on websites. Distracting advertising on YouTube, but it cannot be turned off. More distracting ads on TV, but it also cannot be turned off. Nowadays advertising is everywhere and from it to hide will not work. Easier to learn not to react to it.

Thanks for the link to that Wiki page - it gives me a name for what I am trying to describe, my 'filter bubble'. I'd like more control over my own filter bubble.
I'm cool with being in an isolated culture if the alternative is being overloaded with junk.

I'm in the UK, I do pick through a few of the news sources you mention but I can tell you that the BBC are always pushing their narrative.
My favourite news source is probably the Financial Times, because they attach less emotion and/or fear mongering to the stories.

Don't have much experience with US news outlets....

It is necessary to make a selection of the sources of information that you can trust, and this issue needs to be very good and adequate analysis. And the main merit of good agencies that is their objective.

Its very unfortunate that globalisation comes with its own ills and that have even add to the soci-economjc problem we have today. Although, you cannot control what people post online because not all of us have the same moral attachment to several issues but you can as well control what you receive to a large extent. I have had to defriend a friend on Facebook and ban him because he is always fond of adding me to useless group at the same time I have deletes so many groups that are not adding value. We can not stop them, but we can control the flow to us.

I think it will be very difficult for you to do. A lot of the media print on the pages of comments of experts which can be biased. Nowadays, any information should be verified in different sources and to analyze.

I get what you meant, if you make a decent filter bubble you can avoid most of the junk, some gets through but that variance provide objectivity.

The biggest issue with the news is under reporting and people needing to connect their own dots a good example was the topic someone else posted here about an Indian being rejected entry into the US due to Trump ban.

The US politicians lobbied for him to enter the country, then he went and assaulted a young girl and the US news decided to not follow up on that story in the live news, instead it gets mentioned as a note on the BBC and non-mainstream media.
(Example of something against the narrative getting ignored by the mainstream)

Your point about the BBC is true though, objective wise compared to the US outlets it's tolerable for USA news but for UK news you probably know best their positions on Brexit and various issues so finding a neutral outlet for UK news would be good.

If you can connect dots decently you can still find the real point of view but ideally the news should be able to context these things but since they don't always do that people need to be objective and analyze it between sites.

For UK related news, a non UK outlet would work best although the Financial times is not bad, kind of like the National Post (Canada one).
Either way best of luck on building it.

Indian thread
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1811362.0

Interesting Article:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/will-democracy-survive-big-data-and-artificial-intelligence/