Unless it isn't, see various oppressive governments. Nazi-germany showed how to hack free speech into oppression through censorship, book-burning. Russia showed and continues to show how to use techniques like generating multiple low-effort angles to balkanize readership and lionize their time, thus sowing confusion and discord. China.
Free speech won't and doesn't survive contact with the human race without an effective defence, and history shows merely counting on people to use more free speech leaves free speech and democracy open to coordinated brute force attacks.
My examples are not your examples, and your statements at best holds true for yours only.
The point is that merely thinking saying free speech should be free is not enough. As you well illustrate, the debate on what exactly free speech is means we need to define what falls outside of it very clearly.
The Nazis themselves were censored before seizing power, and some say it helped radicalize them. Maybe censorship doesn't work all that well at its ostensible purpose?
> The Nazis themselves were censored before seizing power, and some say it helped radicalize them.
This is ahistorical. The only "censorship," they faced before they were granted power were in response to an attempted coup. They were radicalized prior to any censorship.
There's just something that doesn't sit right with me about indicating that censorship lead to a radicalization of Nazis. Violent anti-Semitism has eternally been a problem in Europe and both Austrian and German nationalist parties were entrenched in such conspiracy. It was always a violent movement.
Qanon and the explosion of all the other conspiracies and hate groups who use the internet to amplify and spread their message is proof that the solution to bad speech is no longer
“More speech”.
It’s been shown that fake information travels farther and faster than accurate information.
My grandfather used to tell me stories about his time speechifying the Nazis in Europe. Thank goodness Hitler was receptive to logical, well-sourced arguments.
I totally against allowing hate speech to be tolerated for this matter. Hitler was able to grow his power (and promoted hatred) while speech was still free. Once he had enough power, he reduced the freedom of speech. This is a counter example of how the paradox is real and hate is not necessarily overcome with more freedom.
Except it isn’t his invention. I don’t want to rehash 2003 all over again, but it was a collaborative effort that included ideas from Curry, spec work from Dave Winer, and an iTunes pass-through script for downloading to an iPods from Kevin Marks.
Of course, i use "invention" fairly loosely there, but he was absolutely involved, and i would say it's more his invention than not. They call him the podfather for a reason. My overarching point remains the same.
The thing is, Apple and Spotify et al. have shown themselves to be willing to censor content in favour of Marxist views; so why would a Marxist fight them? Isn't it part of the playbook to use the existing means of production to harm itself?
What a baseless accusation. Did you even bother listening to the podcast linked in the article or consider that a centralized directory hosted by a major company might be cause for concern?
Last I checked he does a current podcast with an ADOS member discussing everything from reparations to current events...
Throwing this sort of stuff out there is irresponsible.
And similarly, throwing out the term “went full alt-right” without providing any references at all does not make something true/a responsible statement.
I can see already that this is going to be a fruitless conversation based on feelings rather than evidence.
I am sure I'm not the only one who would actually appreciate some insight into where this accusation comes from.
Not very familiar with the guy but have heard him on other podcasts before, and did not expect there to be such widespread distaste for him here. Can you help sort me & others out?
I have. And the poster is right: Adam Curry's other podcast (No Agenda) can accurately be described as right-wing propaganda. If you don't believe me, I challenge you to listen to the show for a week and find anything positive they might say about anyone who isn't a Republican in Trump's orbit.
Yes there is. Look up 'alt right'. The Republican party is not arguing for a white ethno state.
Hell the democrats are led by Joe Biden who believes in segregation (see Biden's 'jungle' comments about school desegregation), by that standard they're more alt right than the republicans are.
But, as you say, the game is to divert attention and dodge the issue -- as illustrated by the fact that you asked for a distinction between the modern GOP and alt-right and our friend here started talking about Biden.
Kind of makes the point whenever alt-right apologists need to look to comments from an opponent from 40 years ago to prove their guy, today, is aokay. Akin to how the GOP likes to point out where the Democrats were during Jim Crow.
Speaks much more about where your party is in 2020 than anything else.
Not sure who is apologizing for the alt right, I haven't seen anyone doing this within these comments or elsewhere on HN. If it's you in your personal life, then you should definitely stop supporting the alt right - racism is evil.
I'm aware you think being for segregation 40 years ago is acceptable. I reiterate: racism is evil even 40 years ago.
It seems to think you believe pointing out Biden's support of segregation is bad. That's not an assumption, that's logic.
It seems you making an argument about Biden being racist a while ago means he's no longer racist. Evidence suggests the contrary. That's not an assumption, that's logic.
Come on dude, read the comment you're linking to. Where did I make an argument as to the truth or a value judgment as to Biden being a racist? At least read the comment before you respond ... and link to it.
Edit: I'll put a bow on it for you. You say:
>by that standard they're more alt right than the republicans are.
You are comparing comments made by one individual 40 years ago to where your preferred /party/ falls today. You are doing all of this in response to a question as to what meaningful difference there is between the modern GOP and alt-right.
Forget about the fact that even if Joe Biden literally wore a Klan hood on Inauguration Day 2020 your answer would still not be responsive to the question, you must be able to see the issue in needing to go back 40 years in one individual's public life to find a favorable comparison to your preferred party's current positions.
Seriously. Just stop. You're flailing.
Edit 2: Just saw your other thread where you're defending Rittenhouse in Kenosha. Clear which side of the aisle you fall. We're done here, feel free to have your last word.
>>> need to look to comments from an opponent from 40 years ago
>> you believe pointing out Biden's support of segregation is bad.
> I made no such arguments.
ok
> your preferred /party/
you make a lot of assumptions yourself.
> You are comparing comments made by one individual 40 years ago to where your preferred /party/ falls today.
Do you understand Biden has been nominated as the leader of the Democrats? Do you understand as mentioned, that Joe Biden was making racist comments in 2019?
> Seriously. Just stop. You're flailing.
/Someone/ is :D
> you're defending Rittenhouse in Kenosha.
Why aren't you defending him? Do you think he deserved to be assaulted?
> We're done here
And still no links proving your bizarre accusation that Adam Curry is alt right.
This sort of tit for tat flamewar will get you banned here. Please don't do this on HN again.
We've had to warn you many times before. If you keep breaking the site guidelines, at some point we're going to just call it a day and ban you. Please fix this.
What your saying is just not true. I'm as certain as a third party can be that neither of them want Trump to be president. They follow where the media goes and take exception to the way much of the media bends the truth when they report on Trump and also spend all their time losing their minds about the tweets that he puts out rather than actually reporting about important issues. And here is the important part. They don't do this because they like or want to defend Trump, they do it because they want to point out the dishonesty in a lot of what passes for journalism these days. Their coverage is not all about Trump, they talk about all sorts of current events.
> They follow where the media goes and take exception to the way much of the media bends the truth when they report on Trump
They didn't seem to care that much about right-wing media doing exactly the same during all of Obama's presidency. In fact, they regularly would regurgitate their talking points and promoted ridiculous conspiracy theories, including Birtherism.
> They don't do this because they like or want to defend Trump, they do it because they want to point out the dishonesty in a lot of what passes for journalism these days.
Then you would expect them to cover such dishonest media outlets as OANN, Fox News, The Blaze and Breitbart, right? And yet they've probably spent more time covering a single show (The View) than they have spent covering the full programming of all those outlets.
They can claim they deconstruct media all they want, but they can't claim they have 'no agenda'.
This is a combination of regurgitated mantras from the show and fan fiction.
They defend Trump at every turn and only hold his feet to the fire for things like “Tweeting too much.” You need only look to the subreddit for the show to see those that fell off over the years owing to their alt right turn. Let’s not pretend this is some accusation you’ve never heard before.
As the other replier said, they constantly and consistently repeated the Obama birtherism nonsense. Now they defend Trump. There is a throughline there, you just don’t want to see it.
Do you have a link for that? I've been listening to his Napoleon podcast and he seems left-leaning to me. They do talk about politics from time to time.
No Agenda is primarily media deconstruction. If you believe the media are telling you the truth, the full truth, and nothing but the truth then you'll hate the podcast.
It is that, but not just that - it is also true (to some degree).
Or, are you under the impression that the media is truly independent and always tells the full truth in an unbiased manner, that no alternative media organization has ever legitimately exposed even a single mainstream narrative that was less than truthful?
Yeah I reckon you can't call one podcast an alt right conspiracy spew without believing "the media is truly independent and always tells the full truth in an unbiased manner, that no alternative media organization has ever legitimately exposed even a single mainstream narrative that was less than truthful."
It seems you conflate "deviating from mainstream media" as being alt-right. I'm sure people like Amy Goodman, Cenk Uygur, Tim Pool, and Ezra Klein would be surprised to learn this puts them firmly in the alt-right. In fact, thinking the mainstream is useless doesn't betoken right or left, only that what the major networks are saying doesn't correspond with reality on the ground.
You’ve defined No Agenda or Curry as just being “deviating from mainstream media,” decided that is what I must mean by alt-right, and worked yourself up into a lather about it.
How you can determine what I am or am not conflating based on my statement about a single media property and the guy behind it is beyond me.
We get it. You’re a fan. You don’t want to be a fan of an alt right guy. That’s your conundrum to work out, not mine.
I've said it several times. Grab an episode of No Agenda and give it a listen. Alternatively, check out any of the times he has filled in for Alex Jones on Infowars; a quick Google turns up the August 9, 2017 episode.
I've listened to every episode of No Agenda since maybe 2008 or so. Yes, I am a fan, so biased, but I see no real evidence of him fitting any definition of alt-right, but again, since you haven't actually defined what you mean by that or given any concrete examples, I have to assume you are just trolling. Seems wrong though to throw someone into that category since these days many people use the term alt-right as a synonym for racist or Nazi.
You really haven't, despite all the people in this thread asking you repeatedly. "Watch any episode" is vague. Appearing on Infowars, a conspiracy show, doesn't make one a racist.
I think at this point we may as well just flag your accusation and move on.
Appearing on Infowars does however make you alt-right, which is what I said to begin with. As does hosting an alt-right show. If you want to contend that fraternizing with racists in public doesn't make you a racist yourself, that's an argument you can have with yourself because I won't be a part.
There is nothing vague about what I said. He espouses alt-right positions and the conspiracy theories that are hallmarks of that movement, where does he do it? On his show. Where should you go to hear it, should you want to? His show.
Just as an aside, flagging a post works without announcing it ahead of time. That isn't in the FAQ so I thought I'd let you know.
> Appearing on Infowars does however make you alt-right
Why?
> If you want to contend that fraternizing with racists in public doesn't make you a racist yourself
That's not my argument. Is it yours?
> He espouses alt-right positions
Which ones? What episode? Is there really so much evidence that you can't point to a single instance?
Please don't bother answering that. Just stop wasting everyone's time. You're new on the site. I suggest you stop posting here.
> flagging a post works without announcing it ahead of time.
Multiple people are trying to engage you, you've been given amply opportunity to answer questions, and you haven't. I'm advising people to just flag your posts.
Its pretty clear why you're here -- you're arguing with shadows about whether Biden is or is not a good candidate in another thread. You want an argument. Sorry, I won't be giving it to you.
>You're new on the site. I suggest you stop posting here.
I haven't seen someone brag about their seniority on a website in like ten years. Congratulations, I feel like I'm 14 and on AIM again.
You seem to have a lot of suggestions for other people (readers to flag my post, me to leave), here is one for you: don't be this guy. You're jumping around in here commenting everywhere and arguing with people you don't agree with. Choose your battles. There is a time and place.
Because you made up a serious accusation about someone, repeated it frequently, can't provide evidence to back it up, and that's disgusting?
> I haven't seen someone brag about their seniority on a website
Me neither! Who did that?
You seem to have confused me pointing out that your don't conform to expected behavior (because you don't) and saying you're new here (because you are) with bragging. It's just pointing out you're a bad person.
I thought this was about the expectations of a user on here? Now its about ethics? You must have strong legs to do all this jumping. You should try just saying what you mean the first time.
If you don't understand, lying is wrong. Literally everyone from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24408123 has said this is a baseless accusation and your replied have confirmed it is baseless. We expect you to be make substantive arguments and always have.
"Baseless" and yet if you search for it, you'll find both people in these comments repeating the same and, widening the net, a simple Google search turns up plenty of results.
Its almost like you just want to argue. Hmm. Sort of like bringing up Biden when someone asks you to draw a distinction between the alt right and the modern GOP.
You can't provide a single link. Provide one and we'll stop asking.
Saying the modern GOP believes in a white ethno state is ridiculous. The closest a mainstream political part has gotten to that is electing a leader that supported racial segregation. You seem interested in this topic, but only in one direction. Surprising.
We don't want to have to ban you. Help us out and please stop and don't do this again.
Also, your recent comments have clearly been using HN primarily for political and ideological battle. That is also against HN's rules: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Please don't do that.
Like many things in this vein you have to look past Curry and Dvorak's own speculative editorialization from time to time, but the actual analysis of the media is very enlightening. You can make your own reactions to the clips they highlight; that's the key thing, to develop the mindset of having a critical eye for what you're being told - and in what format, and with what narrative tricks.
Some people think that this means they're "alt right", but all that means is that they don't know what "alt right" actually is at all. Both Curry and Dvorak are very classically liberal people, American individualists or perhaps libertarians, which is a totally different political theory than fascism. Of course, most people have no idea what "fascism" is, which is why they feel comfortable calling Totalitarian Liberalism fascism as though there were no differences.
You made a little feint there in your second sentence of the second paragraph -- who said anything about fascism? I suspect it might be you that doesn't know what alt-right means in your confusion between the two. That would also explain your waving away the reality that classical liberalism underpins much of the alt-right movement. You might notice many folks espousing the views of one Ayn Rand, for example.
Beyond that, and returning to the actual subject at hand, there is very little "deconstruction" -- to the extent that is a thing, in the show. Perhaps in the early days. It has long since devolved in to a Trump apologist show, regurgitating Fox News and Breitbart talking points. You need only look to see where else Curry has appeared.
The alt-right is basically fascism, no? I don't mean in the normal online accusatory fashion, I mean in the "literally fans of Mussolini" fashion.
Or maybe we mean two different groups of people? I'm thinking of the folks involved with Charlottesville, etc. as opposed to the "alt lite" which is Ben Shapiro / Sargon / Cernovich and their ilk, who are distinct in the sense that they ostensibly disavow racism etc. and are more classical liberalists.
> , there is very little "deconstruction" -- to the extent that is a thing, in the show
That's a matter of opinion, I guess? I agree it has devolved since 2016, but there's still the occasional gem in there.
That's a lot of semantics. It doesn't really make any difference how they are categorised. And it's perfectly possible for someone with liberal sensibilities to be corrupted. In fact that seems to be the theme of the show.
No Agenda does encourage you to think about the news in a more nuanced way. But it deliberately supresses nuance in how it discusses the people in the news. Most of the people they discuss are not given any benefit of the doubt ever. That is not enlightening at all.
Ultimately I think there style has far more to do with feeding the community and generating donations than anything political.
Don't believe their narrative. Go back to any episode in the 2009/2016 range and you'll notice a significant difference on the amount of time they spent discussing politics and criticizing the government vs. just 'deconstructing' the media. Weirdly - for a media deconstruction podcast - they rarely had any criticism of right-wing media, they even came to an agreement at some point about explicitly ignoring right-wing media.
The 'purely media deconstruction' script was adopted when a Republican they liked became president. Suddenly the show became exclusively about criticizing the media's coverage of the Trump administration and all criticism of government was dropped or became about 'optics'.
Someone with a cynical streak would conclude that they always had an agenda.
Alt right is a term coined by Richard Spencer, who advocates for a white ethno state. Can you please post a link of Adam Curry advocating for this or holding similar positions?
EDIT: I am aware HN etiquette is not to complain about downvotes, but it does seem very old that asking for evidence of a very serious accusation is downvoted. For those unfamiliar with the term - Wikipedia (which is generally considered left wing) states:
> Groups which have been identified as alt-right also espouse white nationalism, white supremacism, white separatism, right-wing populism, tight immigration restrictions, racism, anti-communism, anti-Zionism, holocaust denial, xenophobia, antisemitism, antifeminism, homophobia, and islamophobia.
If you have evidence of Curry holding the more extreme positions in that list (ie, excluding anti communism etc) that would be relevant too.
I wonder how The Podcast Index will handle fraud. There are other directories that are similar in that they allow anyone to submit without moderation and that leads to spammers re-hosting other podcasts with ad insertion.
Yeah, fraud is a major reason other people don’t want to maintain their own directories. And I’m guessing there aren’t a lot of fraud provisions built into this by design. Because “open.”
“Podcasts that violate these guidelines are removed from our directory making them no longer searchable or available for download or streaming. We believe in representing a wide range of views, so long as people are respectful to those with differing opinions.”
Anything not distributed will be used as a locus of control. The justification for the action is immaterial. The problem is that the action is possible at all.
Joe Rogan's interviews with Tim Pool have covered corporate censorship in detail. Adam Curry and his co-host John C. Dvorak have also covered in detail on their podcast, the No Agenda Show, how a lot of this "censorship" on the part of corporations is a reaction to advertisers to demand brand-safety for their advertisements (eg: I don't want my ads showing up next to alt-right, pro-Trump content!) which is why Reddit banned The Donald and YouTube de-monitises videos that get even a little preachy or political. It's a real pickle for the companies because they are caught between bowing to their advertisers (which shareholder interest demands) and being free to the spirit of free speech in which they all believe.
Separating the definitive index of podcasts from a corporate entity allows corporations to save face with their shareholders without removing discoverability for content creators who are considered not to be brand-safe.
They started an exclusive podcast (Apple News podcast) and had some weird workarounds to hide the rss feed url from the iTunes directory API. It's still based on RSS and the feed url got leaked, so you can subscribe it in any app which uses the directory (and has added the leaked url to their own database), but people are fearing that they might screw around in the ecosystem
This is one of those ideas that is good in theory until you look at how it will actually be used, as well as the actual problems it solves and doesn’t solve.
For better or worse, Apple has been the defacto podcast directory for almost every podcasting app for over 15 years. In the aughts, a number of startups tried to take on that space (notably Odeo, which incubated and then pivoted into Twitter) and all of them failed. Apple has been largely an absentee steward, which has worked out well for podcasting. It wasn’t until Google decided to take podcasts seriously about five years ago and launched its own podcast directory. Spotify’s podcast directory started about five years ago too, though took longer to build momentum.
All three are largely copies of one another — although Spotify has exclusives in its directory that can only be played in its app — and most major podcasts choose to submit their RSS feed to those directories, with some also choosing to share with other services (Stitcher, Luminary, etc.) that can do some fucked up stuff with the audio. It’s all a game of reach for a podcast publisher, unless you choose you don’t want Luminary or Stitcher to insert their own ads into your content — or you have an exclusive with some service or another.
So now there is ostensibly yet another podcast directory, except it can’t offer a good value prop for existing except that it is “open” — which sounds good if you’re Alex Jones or you make content that has been kicked out of the other directories — but will realistically impact only a small number of podcasters.
The target audience, I assume is podcatching apps. Right now, most of them scrape the Apple or Google podcasts directory to save the insanity of trying to maintain their own directory.
So what value is there for this “open” directory to someone who has a podcatching app? Well, nothing unless there is a critical mass of podcasts submitted. Moreover, the service says it’s free, but is also asking for donations, which makes me worry about the viability of the index longterm. Given how difficult the market is for creating a third-party podcasting client when Google, Apple, and Spotify exist with their own apps and established indies (Overcast), I would strongly discourage anyone from building their own podcatcher as anything more than a hobby project.
So what’s the point? Podcasters will still have to submit to the major indexes anyway and podcatchers or client apps already have enough problems without having to worry about a little-used alternative that doesn’t have a business plan associated with it.
I’m all for open and I’m not mad this exists — but I certainly wouldn’t build my app off its API.
That’s great that he has a lifestyle business he can support on donations. But I wouldn’t rely on one of his projects for my own project. If I’m going to be beholden to the whims of someone else, I’d rather be beholden to one of the actual directories that has all the content out there.
I only say that because I saw him on Rogan, and there was some odd tap dancing going on, imo. There were a few topics, including the donations and business model, where he seemed to just be oblivious. 3rd parties handling of the donations and his 'I don't know/I'm not involved' kind of aloofness. It came across strange to me; avoidant, I guess.
The main problem it solves, as mentioned in another comment, is that this project is not beholden to a corporate entity which is in turn beholden to its shareholders. The "censorship of conservative content" has never been about politics but about making advertisers happy: advertisers who demand that their ad buys not be displayed with/alongside content they deem inappropriate for whatever reason. It was the political right who used this tactic to great effect in the 1980s, going after advertisers and boycotting companies advertising on "non-family-friendly" media content (usually television). The media companies want to keep the ad money rolling in so they made a content pivot/censored content. The same thing is happening now; follow the money: that's where the effort to silence is being bought and paid for. Companies like Apple, Google/YouTube, Reddit, and Facebook are simply caught in the middle of a political tug-of-war and trying to find the least crappy path through it.
You’re not getting it. I understand the aim. I’m asking how it can solve that problem if it doesn’t have massive mindshare for podcasters to use and submit to?
Because simply having another directory in existence and requesting people submit their feed to it isn’t going to be easy. And if the index doesn’t have the content, it is useless, regardless of its mission.
Well they could certainly seed their initial data by scraping Apple's directory, like most of the podcast player apps do. As for not having mind share, that's not necessarily a reason to just throw in the towel. Lot's of problems have this kind of chicken and egg scenario. Get something up and running and then try to chip away at the mindshare problem by getting podcasters to list there and podcast players to use this directory.
So you are saying that the killer app for this service is discovering content that’s other services won’t tolerate? It’s like 4chan for podcasts, except it’s just a directory, not a host? It doesn’t sound like a great foundation for a business.
Apple is just the a popular platform for podcasts but there are many others. Soundcloud, youtube, spotify are each commonly used for podcasts as well. The problem with these walled gardens is that Apple is great for about 15% of the Audience that actually uses their products. Mostly popular podcasts get cross posted to several of these platforms. Some of them also just get uploaded to a simple website. Because technically that's all you need to host podcasts.
Back in the day, you'd just publish an RSS feed on your website with media content and then the users could subscribe to that. That's all a podcast used to be: an rss feed with links to (typically) mp3 or mp4 files. That still works; though many popular podcast apps insist on their own walled garden as the only source of truth.
> The problem with these walled gardens is that Apple is great for about 15% of the Audience that actually uses their products.
A number of other apps (including Pocketcasts and Rhythmbox on Linux) scrape the iTunes directory for podcast feeds. So getting your podcast in iTunes is reaching much more than 15% of the market. Purely anecdotally from people I've spoken with and podcasts I listen to, Apple is their largest source of subs.
I remember when he did this 15 years ago. He hosted fraudulently uploaded podcasts with ad-inserts. Along with his podcast network that literally stole the names from several of the biggest podcasts at the time through their Podshow Contract. This looks to be exactly the same. Scammers gonna scam.
Yeah, it was very different from Uber's fraudulent taxi service and Theranos' fraudulent everything. Where where were the billionaire investors and sycophantic press?
"In late 2005 Curry was caught making anonymous edits to the Podcast Wikipedia page, deleting several sections concerning contributions made by fellow podcasting pioneers, Kevin Marks and Stephen Downes, while adding material that emphasized his own involvement with the development of the medium."
Edit: the entry goes on to quote Curry in a context where he admits performing the indicated edits.
Not a huge Curry fan but I'm REALLY not a fan of the co-host of his podcast. I have been reading John C Dvorak, in real-time, since the mid-80s. I challenge you to find someone so consistently wrong about technology and be wrong in the most douchebag way possible.
Dvorak was at least interesting back in the 80s even if he was (often) wrong--sometimes spectacularly so--about some things. But at some point, he became way more about being controversial and curmudgeonly than he did about even trying to be insightful.
I remember when in 2006/7ish he said that Apple should give up on hardware and license MacOS. I assume that he knows that vertical integration is Apple's whole strategy, so I guess his grift is just going for the stupidest takes possible and saying them angrily to make it seem like he's saying something of import.
Gave Adam Curry's content (No agenda) a shot a couple of years ago. They created content that was at least flirting with creating their own dimension (figuratively). It seemed more like they were interested in their ego's then actually doing real research. To me it seemed fuel for unfounded conspiracies and provoking for provocation sake.
Not sure how people this disconnected with the rest of the world are able to create an "open podcast directory".
Pretty much seams like there is a platform wars going on when it comes to podcast. Looking what youtube did to video content as a platform I think companies like Spotify (Gimlit) smell blood when it comes to podcasting. Think that would be a shame for that industry, podcasting collectives like Radiotopia are awesome because of that, they have to lean on quality and content. Not on some fancy algorithm that tries to keep you engaged as long as possible. Looking at the content he creates, seems like the complete opposite.
What made podcasts awesome was that the platform was fairly neutral (rss feed). Yes you have Apple podcasts, but I don't know anyone that really likes podcasts and still uses that app.
I use Apple Podcasts for simplicity. Is there a better app that still enables Indie self hosted podcasts to proliferate? I’ve never run into any problems with Apple Podcasts, it’s a low tech solution for a low tech problem.
Overcast is my current choice. (For iOS, I don't have Android so can't comment.) I tried them all. I don't particularly like any of them.
I've requested a feature and reported a bug via their Slack. I'm hopeful they'll get added and fixed, respectively.
I still don't have a way to easily binge on some large archives. Like History of Philosophy without any Gaps. https://historyofphilosophy.net
And Malcolm Gladwell's Revisionist History doesn't sort correctly in any podcast client I've tried, making it even harder to binge.
What I really want is a NetNewsWire (RSS client) that can play audio (directly).
I also want client-side metrics and listening history. To help me remember when I heard something, better determine if I'm actually listening to misc content, etc.
Castro is another. I like its "Inbox" structure and switched to it from Overcast after subscribing to both for a year. The Inbox is where all subscribed podcasts go by default for you to decide whether to add to queue or skip. You can also have select podcasts go straight to queue. I subscribe to a few podcasts where I only listen to the occasional episode (Joe Rogan, e.g.). You can also drag episodes from the queue back to the Inbox if you want.
I could never quite master Overcast's playlists and smart playlists, but did love its exceptional polish and just how tiny and privacy focused the app is.
I wish I could get the best parts of both those apps.
Just chiming from the Android Side. I enjoy Castbox (castbox.fm). Although , the one scummy thing they did recently, is they look for silence gaps then insert their own ads. I still use it, because I haven't found a good alternative on the Android side of the world
Launched a podcast recently ( https://thexyzpod.podbean.com/ ) and we were surprised to find most traffic by far coming from Spotify ( https://open.spotify.com/show/3j2oovdoty9hf0TI67ZYb1?si=D68k... ). What's nice on Spotify is the sharing episodes to Instagram stories works well - if you share from Spotify to Instagram you get a "play on Spotify" link at the top of the story - actually amazed Instagram gives that away for free given that linking to most things off-platform costs money. Anyway helps with the marketing to non-Podcast-nerds
I use an app called iCatcher which seems to have a directory of podcasts and will also let you enter rss/urls to download from host sites directly if the podcast creators distribute that way.
Been using it for years because it gives pretty fine grain controls over streaming vs downloading the entries, how many entries to maintain, how often to check, etc.
I've said this before on HN but No Agenda started off as a great podcast. It wasn't until Obama ran for president that it descended into a infowars knock off with their non stop talk about the Clintons are really lizard people, sarah palin is a rockstar and we gotta stop pizzagate.
Someone sent a link to a recent episode and I didn't hear any of that. Maybe I just got lucky? In fact I heard more mocking of those type conspiracies than promotion of them.
Biggest turnoff for me was the "private jokes" or terminology that seemed to intentionally create a barrier to understanding without investing a lot of time to learn their language. Like being the newcomer to a group of people who have been hanging out for years.
What I did appreciate was the podcast notes which were like a full-fledged bibliography of every article discussed. Including the text of the articles.
As an example of what I would call mocking conspiracy theories, they used a "rain stick" and claimed to have accidentally caused floods and storms. It was pretty clear they didn't actually believe in rain sticks, but were having fun and kind of mocking such beliefs because it was all so over the top. But I could see someone taking their words literally.
While they mock some beliefs, they’ll subscribe to the dumbest conspiracy theory as long as it attacks the right people (hint: it’s not Republicans.) To give you an idea of how dumb: they used to promote the ‘joke’ that Michelle Obama was secretly male and would make fun of Biden’s many procedures.
>Someone sent a link to a recent episode and I didn't hear any of that. Maybe I just got lucky? In fact I heard more mocking of those type conspiracies than promotion of them.
I haven't listened since Obama ran against McCain, it's entirely possible they've changed their MO since then. However much like the question if Dovak really thinks Apple should cancel the iPhone or if he's just seeking attention, I just fine constant bad takes uninteresting and annoying. It's one of the reasons why I stopped listening to Rogan.
"Unfounded conspiracy theories and provoking for provocation sake" comes pretty close to a description of the social environment of the whole internet.
Yes. there's some overlap with his audience and the audience of a couple other podcasts that I like that record live on twitch. I've tried No Agenda twice and it was full of conspiracies and borderline racist.
The amount of sheer stupidity and science denial that emanates from the No Agenda podcast is mind blowing and terrifying as the podcast has a huge cult following. The amount of societal damage from media of this kind is real. Yes it's a niche market still but collectively the mongers of bullshit are overrunning the airwaves.
As someone here put it aptly, these days journalism is paywalled while bullshit is free.
Years ago I was listening for one of early seasons of DSC for a year or so and it was kind of fun. Few years later I've looked him up and his new show has totally different vibe: grumpy old men with questionable political agenda. From DSC days I reckon he was a good entertainer but sucked in business. Hence I have little exepctations for his new venture.
I was excited for a moment, because I was a listener of his "Daily show" way-back-when distinctly remember when Apple got on board for example. At the time he was legitimately a pioneer of the technology, terminology and the medium.
Unfortunately/fortunately? I'd pretty much not tracked him for 15+ years, so had forgotten what a sleazy Bagshot crazy he's become. Sad.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 211 ms ] threadFree speech won't and doesn't survive contact with the human race without an effective defence, and history shows merely counting on people to use more free speech leaves free speech and democracy open to coordinated brute force attacks.
So is the great firewall of China.
Russia chills speech with assassinations.
Nearly all your examples are proving the opposite of your point.
The point is that merely thinking saying free speech should be free is not enough. As you well illustrate, the debate on what exactly free speech is means we need to define what falls outside of it very clearly.
This is ahistorical. The only "censorship," they faced before they were granted power were in response to an attempted coup. They were radicalized prior to any censorship.
There's just something that doesn't sit right with me about indicating that censorship lead to a radicalization of Nazis. Violent anti-Semitism has eternally been a problem in Europe and both Austrian and German nationalist parties were entrenched in such conspiracy. It was always a violent movement.
It’s been shown that fake information travels farther and faster than accurate information.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/false-news-travels-6-ti...
My grandfather used to tell me stories about his time speechifying the Nazis in Europe. Thank goodness Hitler was receptive to logical, well-sourced arguments.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
I totally against allowing hate speech to be tolerated for this matter. Hitler was able to grow his power (and promoted hatred) while speech was still free. Once he had enough power, he reduced the freedom of speech. This is a counter example of how the paradox is real and hate is not necessarily overcome with more freedom.
Fighting Apples dominance in podcasting control has to be sympathetic to marxists like you?
Knowing yourself is the first step. Thanks for the heads up.
Not very familiar with the guy but have heard him on other podcasts before, and did not expect there to be such widespread distaste for him here. Can you help sort me & others out?
Hell the democrats are led by Joe Biden who believes in segregation (see Biden's 'jungle' comments about school desegregation), by that standard they're more alt right than the republicans are.
But sure, let's talk about how Democrats are the real racists...
[1]https://www.npr.org/2016/09/29/495955920/donald-trump-plague...
/s
From the article you just linked, Trump did not lose the court case.
Biden was literally pro segregation.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/biden-racial-jungle-quote/
But, as you say, the game is to divert attention and dodge the issue -- as illustrated by the fact that you asked for a distinction between the modern GOP and alt-right and our friend here started talking about Biden.
Speaks much more about where your party is in 2020 than anything else.
I'm aware you think being for segregation 40 years ago is acceptable. I reiterate: racism is evil even 40 years ago.
Biden's comments about poor people vs white people were literally last year. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/09/us/politics/joe-biden-poo... Racism is evil even in 2019.
It seems you making an argument about Biden being racist a while ago means he's no longer racist. Evidence suggests the contrary. That's not an assumption, that's logic.
Edit: I'll put a bow on it for you. You say:
>by that standard they're more alt right than the republicans are.
You are comparing comments made by one individual 40 years ago to where your preferred /party/ falls today. You are doing all of this in response to a question as to what meaningful difference there is between the modern GOP and alt-right.
Forget about the fact that even if Joe Biden literally wore a Klan hood on Inauguration Day 2020 your answer would still not be responsive to the question, you must be able to see the issue in needing to go back 40 years in one individual's public life to find a favorable comparison to your preferred party's current positions.
Seriously. Just stop. You're flailing.
Edit 2: Just saw your other thread where you're defending Rittenhouse in Kenosha. Clear which side of the aisle you fall. We're done here, feel free to have your last word.
>> you believe pointing out Biden's support of segregation is bad.
> I made no such arguments.
ok
> your preferred /party/
you make a lot of assumptions yourself.
> You are comparing comments made by one individual 40 years ago to where your preferred /party/ falls today.
Do you understand Biden has been nominated as the leader of the Democrats? Do you understand as mentioned, that Joe Biden was making racist comments in 2019?
> Seriously. Just stop. You're flailing.
/Someone/ is :D
> you're defending Rittenhouse in Kenosha.
Why aren't you defending him? Do you think he deserved to be assaulted?
> We're done here
And still no links proving your bizarre accusation that Adam Curry is alt right.
We've had to warn you many times before. If you keep breaking the site guidelines, at some point we're going to just call it a day and ban you. Please fix this.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
They didn't seem to care that much about right-wing media doing exactly the same during all of Obama's presidency. In fact, they regularly would regurgitate their talking points and promoted ridiculous conspiracy theories, including Birtherism.
> They don't do this because they like or want to defend Trump, they do it because they want to point out the dishonesty in a lot of what passes for journalism these days.
Then you would expect them to cover such dishonest media outlets as OANN, Fox News, The Blaze and Breitbart, right? And yet they've probably spent more time covering a single show (The View) than they have spent covering the full programming of all those outlets.
They can claim they deconstruct media all they want, but they can't claim they have 'no agenda'.
They defend Trump at every turn and only hold his feet to the fire for things like “Tweeting too much.” You need only look to the subreddit for the show to see those that fell off over the years owing to their alt right turn. Let’s not pretend this is some accusation you’ve never heard before.
As the other replier said, they constantly and consistently repeated the Obama birtherism nonsense. Now they defend Trump. There is a throughline there, you just don’t want to see it.
Or, are you under the impression that the media is truly independent and always tells the full truth in an unbiased manner, that no alternative media organization has ever legitimately exposed even a single mainstream narrative that was less than truthful?
How you can determine what I am or am not conflating based on my statement about a single media property and the guy behind it is beyond me.
We get it. You’re a fan. You don’t want to be a fan of an alt right guy. That’s your conundrum to work out, not mine.
I think at this point we may as well just flag your accusation and move on.
There is nothing vague about what I said. He espouses alt-right positions and the conspiracy theories that are hallmarks of that movement, where does he do it? On his show. Where should you go to hear it, should you want to? His show.
Just as an aside, flagging a post works without announcing it ahead of time. That isn't in the FAQ so I thought I'd let you know.
Why?
> If you want to contend that fraternizing with racists in public doesn't make you a racist yourself
That's not my argument. Is it yours?
> He espouses alt-right positions
Which ones? What episode? Is there really so much evidence that you can't point to a single instance?
Please don't bother answering that. Just stop wasting everyone's time. You're new on the site. I suggest you stop posting here.
> flagging a post works without announcing it ahead of time.
Multiple people are trying to engage you, you've been given amply opportunity to answer questions, and you haven't. I'm advising people to just flag your posts.
>You're new on the site. I suggest you stop posting here.
I haven't seen someone brag about their seniority on a website in like ten years. Congratulations, I feel like I'm 14 and on AIM again.
You seem to have a lot of suggestions for other people (readers to flag my post, me to leave), here is one for you: don't be this guy. You're jumping around in here commenting everywhere and arguing with people you don't agree with. Choose your battles. There is a time and place.
Because you made up a serious accusation about someone, repeated it frequently, can't provide evidence to back it up, and that's disgusting?
> I haven't seen someone brag about their seniority on a website
Me neither! Who did that?
You seem to have confused me pointing out that your don't conform to expected behavior (because you don't) and saying you're new here (because you are) with bragging. It's just pointing out you're a bad person.
Have. Not your personal researcher.
>...don't conform to expected behavior...
And yet, my initial comment is doing just fine despite your suggestions people flag it. Hmm.
Comment moderation isn't a measure of ethics.
I thought this was about the expectations of a user on here? Now its about ethics? You must have strong legs to do all this jumping. You should try just saying what you mean the first time.
Its almost like you just want to argue. Hmm. Sort of like bringing up Biden when someone asks you to draw a distinction between the alt right and the modern GOP.
Saying the modern GOP believes in a white ethno state is ridiculous. The closest a mainstream political part has gotten to that is electing a leader that supported racial segregation. You seem interested in this topic, but only in one direction. Surprising.
We don't want to have to ban you. Help us out and please stop and don't do this again.
Also, your recent comments have clearly been using HN primarily for political and ideological battle. That is also against HN's rules: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Please don't do that.
I was just asking, as there are people that truly seem to believe the "mainstream" media is indeed truthful. Some of my relatives, for example.
Some people think that this means they're "alt right", but all that means is that they don't know what "alt right" actually is at all. Both Curry and Dvorak are very classically liberal people, American individualists or perhaps libertarians, which is a totally different political theory than fascism. Of course, most people have no idea what "fascism" is, which is why they feel comfortable calling Totalitarian Liberalism fascism as though there were no differences.
Beyond that, and returning to the actual subject at hand, there is very little "deconstruction" -- to the extent that is a thing, in the show. Perhaps in the early days. It has long since devolved in to a Trump apologist show, regurgitating Fox News and Breitbart talking points. You need only look to see where else Curry has appeared.
The alt-right is basically fascism, no? I don't mean in the normal online accusatory fashion, I mean in the "literally fans of Mussolini" fashion.
Or maybe we mean two different groups of people? I'm thinking of the folks involved with Charlottesville, etc. as opposed to the "alt lite" which is Ben Shapiro / Sargon / Cernovich and their ilk, who are distinct in the sense that they ostensibly disavow racism etc. and are more classical liberalists.
> , there is very little "deconstruction" -- to the extent that is a thing, in the show
That's a matter of opinion, I guess? I agree it has devolved since 2016, but there's still the occasional gem in there.
No Agenda does encourage you to think about the news in a more nuanced way. But it deliberately supresses nuance in how it discusses the people in the news. Most of the people they discuss are not given any benefit of the doubt ever. That is not enlightening at all.
Ultimately I think there style has far more to do with feeding the community and generating donations than anything political.
The 'purely media deconstruction' script was adopted when a Republican they liked became president. Suddenly the show became exclusively about criticizing the media's coverage of the Trump administration and all criticism of government was dropped or became about 'optics'.
Someone with a cynical streak would conclude that they always had an agenda.
Alt right is a term coined by Richard Spencer, who advocates for a white ethno state. Can you please post a link of Adam Curry advocating for this or holding similar positions?
EDIT: I am aware HN etiquette is not to complain about downvotes, but it does seem very old that asking for evidence of a very serious accusation is downvoted. For those unfamiliar with the term - Wikipedia (which is generally considered left wing) states:
> Groups which have been identified as alt-right also espouse white nationalism, white supremacism, white separatism, right-wing populism, tight immigration restrictions, racism, anti-communism, anti-Zionism, holocaust denial, xenophobia, antisemitism, antifeminism, homophobia, and islamophobia.
If you have evidence of Curry holding the more extreme positions in that list (ie, excluding anti communism etc) that would be relevant too.
This is the first I'm hearing of it. What are have Apple been doing to their index?
Anything not distributed will be used as a locus of control. The justification for the action is immaterial. The problem is that the action is possible at all.
Separating the definitive index of podcasts from a corporate entity allows corporations to save face with their shareholders without removing discoverability for content creators who are considered not to be brand-safe.
For better or worse, Apple has been the defacto podcast directory for almost every podcasting app for over 15 years. In the aughts, a number of startups tried to take on that space (notably Odeo, which incubated and then pivoted into Twitter) and all of them failed. Apple has been largely an absentee steward, which has worked out well for podcasting. It wasn’t until Google decided to take podcasts seriously about five years ago and launched its own podcast directory. Spotify’s podcast directory started about five years ago too, though took longer to build momentum.
All three are largely copies of one another — although Spotify has exclusives in its directory that can only be played in its app — and most major podcasts choose to submit their RSS feed to those directories, with some also choosing to share with other services (Stitcher, Luminary, etc.) that can do some fucked up stuff with the audio. It’s all a game of reach for a podcast publisher, unless you choose you don’t want Luminary or Stitcher to insert their own ads into your content — or you have an exclusive with some service or another.
So now there is ostensibly yet another podcast directory, except it can’t offer a good value prop for existing except that it is “open” — which sounds good if you’re Alex Jones or you make content that has been kicked out of the other directories — but will realistically impact only a small number of podcasters.
The target audience, I assume is podcatching apps. Right now, most of them scrape the Apple or Google podcasts directory to save the insanity of trying to maintain their own directory.
So what value is there for this “open” directory to someone who has a podcatching app? Well, nothing unless there is a critical mass of podcasts submitted. Moreover, the service says it’s free, but is also asking for donations, which makes me worry about the viability of the index longterm. Given how difficult the market is for creating a third-party podcasting client when Google, Apple, and Spotify exist with their own apps and established indies (Overcast), I would strongly discourage anyone from building their own podcatcher as anything more than a hobby project.
So what’s the point? Podcasters will still have to submit to the major indexes anyway and podcatchers or client apps already have enough problems without having to worry about a little-used alternative that doesn’t have a business plan associated with it.
I’m all for open and I’m not mad this exists — but I certainly wouldn’t build my app off its API.
I only say that because I saw him on Rogan, and there was some odd tap dancing going on, imo. There were a few topics, including the donations and business model, where he seemed to just be oblivious. 3rd parties handling of the donations and his 'I don't know/I'm not involved' kind of aloofness. It came across strange to me; avoidant, I guess.
Because simply having another directory in existence and requesting people submit their feed to it isn’t going to be easy. And if the index doesn’t have the content, it is useless, regardless of its mission.
Back in the day, you'd just publish an RSS feed on your website with media content and then the users could subscribe to that. That's all a podcast used to be: an rss feed with links to (typically) mp3 or mp4 files. That still works; though many popular podcast apps insist on their own walled garden as the only source of truth.
A number of other apps (including Pocketcasts and Rhythmbox on Linux) scrape the iTunes directory for podcast feeds. So getting your podcast in iTunes is reaching much more than 15% of the market. Purely anecdotally from people I've spoken with and podcasts I listen to, Apple is their largest source of subs.
ETA: was his the venture backed startup that hired Scoble until they ran out of money or was that something else
Edit 2: the Scoble podcast VC thing was different. But it too went up in flames in spectacular Web 2.0 fashion.
"In late 2005 Curry was caught making anonymous edits to the Podcast Wikipedia page, deleting several sections concerning contributions made by fellow podcasting pioneers, Kevin Marks and Stephen Downes, while adding material that emphasized his own involvement with the development of the medium."
Edit: the entry goes on to quote Curry in a context where he admits performing the indicated edits.
Not sure how people this disconnected with the rest of the world are able to create an "open podcast directory".
Pretty much seams like there is a platform wars going on when it comes to podcast. Looking what youtube did to video content as a platform I think companies like Spotify (Gimlit) smell blood when it comes to podcasting. Think that would be a shame for that industry, podcasting collectives like Radiotopia are awesome because of that, they have to lean on quality and content. Not on some fancy algorithm that tries to keep you engaged as long as possible. Looking at the content he creates, seems like the complete opposite.
What made podcasts awesome was that the platform was fairly neutral (rss feed). Yes you have Apple podcasts, but I don't know anyone that really likes podcasts and still uses that app.
I've requested a feature and reported a bug via their Slack. I'm hopeful they'll get added and fixed, respectively.
I still don't have a way to easily binge on some large archives. Like History of Philosophy without any Gaps. https://historyofphilosophy.net
And Malcolm Gladwell's Revisionist History doesn't sort correctly in any podcast client I've tried, making it even harder to binge.
What I really want is a NetNewsWire (RSS client) that can play audio (directly).
I also want client-side metrics and listening history. To help me remember when I heard something, better determine if I'm actually listening to misc content, etc.
It's puzzling how no one has done this yet:
- play podcasts in chronological order, keeping x of them downloaded and getting the next one when one is finished.
I could never quite master Overcast's playlists and smart playlists, but did love its exceptional polish and just how tiny and privacy focused the app is.
I wish I could get the best parts of both those apps.
"Indie self hosted podcasts" are still predominantly listed in the Apple Podcasts Directory.
Been using it for years because it gives pretty fine grain controls over streaming vs downloading the entries, how many entries to maintain, how often to check, etc.
Biggest turnoff for me was the "private jokes" or terminology that seemed to intentionally create a barrier to understanding without investing a lot of time to learn their language. Like being the newcomer to a group of people who have been hanging out for years.
What I did appreciate was the podcast notes which were like a full-fledged bibliography of every article discussed. Including the text of the articles.
As an example of what I would call mocking conspiracy theories, they used a "rain stick" and claimed to have accidentally caused floods and storms. It was pretty clear they didn't actually believe in rain sticks, but were having fun and kind of mocking such beliefs because it was all so over the top. But I could see someone taking their words literally.
I haven't listened since Obama ran against McCain, it's entirely possible they've changed their MO since then. However much like the question if Dovak really thinks Apple should cancel the iPhone or if he's just seeking attention, I just fine constant bad takes uninteresting and annoying. It's one of the reasons why I stopped listening to Rogan.
As someone here put it aptly, these days journalism is paywalled while bullshit is free.
Unfortunately/fortunately? I'd pretty much not tracked him for 15+ years, so had forgotten what a sleazy Bagshot crazy he's become. Sad.