Stop Funding Hate - Pathetic!

[Jim in the West]

The Mail and the Express have the right to promulgate their vile views, and readers have the right to subscribe to them - or reject them.

Similarly advertisers like Lego have the right to support these publications with advertising or alternatively to withdraw their funding.

Seems a pretty simple arrangement to me. I say well done Lego for taking a conscientious decision and it would be refreshing to see more big companies aligning their corporate philosophy with their media spend.

Good points, well made. The Mail gets very close to incitement, but obviously has good lawyers. In my view it is a hideous paper that attempts on a daily basis to demonise minorities, and encourage division within our society. If only there were a popular press that tried to sow cohesion and understanding, but it seems a very sizeable minority don't want such "liberal claptrap"!

Personally, I'm very glad Lego has decided to pull their advertising in the Mail. Hopefully the first of many.

One day we may emerge from this post-Referendum nightmare and realise that we are, after all, a civilised, decent society which welcomes diversity and understanding.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Not so long ago, people were asking sponsors to withdraw from FIFA, as it was so corrupt. Was that a good thing?

Now, a campaign has started to ask companies not to advertise in various newspapers because of their editorials ehich have been extreme, to say the least.
Nobody is censoring the paper, nobody is forcing a company to stop advertising, but pointing out, that their funding is contributing to the bile. Lego have made a decision to withdraw. I don't see any coercion.

 

[BadFish]

So it seems that some posters are complaining about people complaining that people are not allowed to choose what they think and do. Then complaining that Lego et all are choosing not to advertise in a paper whose journalistic standards are questionable ITHO.

democracy is about being able to make such choices.

 

[Machiavelli]

Of course people have the right to campaign for things they believe in. But this sets a dangerous precedent in that a relatively small pressure group can alter a policy of a large company with huge financial implications, especially if that company is part of the free press.

Your Brexit comment is very one sided. What about the lies that remain told. We haven't had economic meltdown as their 'experts' predicted, neither have we had an emergency budget and immediate tax rises as a result. And it was a lie to suggest that we were getting back almost £10 back from every £1 we put in.

Trump, and I must make it clear I did not want him to win, won fair and square. People keep banging on about the majority in the popular vote that Clinton enjoyed. The American election plays by those rules. It isn't simply a popularity contest like the referendum, if it was, both campaigns would have been different with different priorities and the votes for each candidate would have been different as well. It is impossible to extrapolate what the result would have been had the vote not been carried out with the college system.

You make some good points here, but there's nothing free about The Daily Mail. Just like most other of our 'free press', they're owned by multi-millionaire white male elites (recognise what I just did there?) who are based off-shore to substantially reduce their tax bills.

 

[Bry Nylon]

Lego is Swedish and the Swedish are a stupid people.

Lego is Danish.

But carry on with the rest of the post about stupid people...

 

[Monkey Man]

This is all very silly.

Lego is Swedish and the Swedish are a stupid people.

The Mail and the mainstream media are disgraced and irrelevant. 2 national votes they failed to sway.

Breitbart now rule the world. Their editor who lead the Trump campaign is favourite to be White House chief of staff, their expose on bias on Facebook's trending news got the entire staff sacked(You may have noticed it changed a few weeks ago).The most politically influencial Brit, Nigel Farage regularly writes for it. Their hits have grown 30 fold over the last year and are now more popular than CNN or huffpost.

What is this Daily Mail you speak of?

Lego is Danish.

 

[Big G]

As compared to you, who clearly are open to all views except those that are different to yours. A democracy means free speech. The papers can print whatever they want, assuming it is within the law, but people have the right to protest. If there wasn't a lot of truth in the campaign, nothing would happen.

Can protest all they want, and you couldn't be more right....a democracy does mean free speech!
But protesting against that free speech by embarking on some sort of crusade to label anyone or anything that doesn't sign up to their ideas or dares to put the other side of the argument out there as some sort of (insert word here)ophobe or (insert word here)ist is now wearing so thin....as per the title of the thread...it's pathetic!
Like I've said in my second post....my point is not about the actual arguement but the over the top labelling.

 

[BadFish]

I have never bought the Daily Mail nor even read it. I am completely indifferent. This constant agitation against this newspaper seems to me to be more a coded attack on ordinary people (the readership). It's just metropolitan,middle class,snobbery.

If you had read it, you may be in a better position to comment. My grand mother swore by it, and having read it quite often I can tell you that it's journalism is poor and often inaccurate.

 

[Monkey Man]

So Lego made a conscientious decision and it was nothing to do with a pressure group?

Perhaps they'll make a conscientious decision to stop selling Lego in Pakistan then as I don't recall the daily mail calling for executions, even in their most vile moments.

Maybe that will happen. I guess the other way of looking at that particular question is that there are blameless kids and families in Pakistan who may well share the values that Lego would like to be associated with, but on the other hand there is hardly an issue of the Mail that is published that doesn't foment hatred, paranoia and intolerance.

 

[Green Cross Code Man]

You make some good points here, but there's nothing free about The Daily Mail. Just like most other of our 'free press', they're owned by multi-millionaire white male elites (recognise what I just did there?) who are based off-shore to substantially reduce their tax bills.

Thanks, and yes, I don't find much to commend the daily mail at all, I am worried about press freedoms in general and that is why I am sticking up for it.

Some posters think it's a good thing and fine. However it isn't individual democracy that has caused the removal of Lego as a sponsor, it's concerted political pressure. Should a relatively small number of people in a pressure group exercise such power over a newspaper? I found some of what I saw in the DM reprehensible in the past year. That does not mean this action is right, the same kind of action could then be replicated from both left wing pressure groups and right wing. That would be undesirable. This group is also pressurising the express, John Lewis and co-op. I am firmly against the politicisation of business in this way. It is incidentally different from FIFA in that the corruption at FIFA was not political in the sense that one would need to be left out right wing to oppose it.

 

[looney]

Lego is Danish.

But carry on with the rest of the post about stupid people...

pffft close enough.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Thanks, and yes, I don't find much to commend the daily mail at all, I am worried about press freedoms in general and that is why I am sticking up for it.

Some posters think it's a good thing and fine. However it isn't individual democracy that has caused the removal of Lego as a sponsor, it's concerted political pressure. Should a relatively small number of people in a lawyer pressure group exercise such power over a newspaper? I found some of what I saw in the DM reprehensible in the past year. That does not mean this action is right, the same kind of action could then be replicated from both left wing pressure groups and right wing. That would be undesirable. This group is also pressurising the express, John Lewis and co-op. I am firmly against the politicisation of business in this way. It is incidentally different from FIFA in that the corruption at FIFA was not political in the sense that one would need to be left out right wing to oppose it.

It's not a political group. It's lots of individuals who are joining together to ask advertisers not to pay for advertising space in certain papers, because of their treatment of minorities.

 

[Bry Nylon]

pffft close enough.

No malice meant, Looney.

 

[BadFish]

Not so long ago, people were asking sponsors to withdraw from FIFA, as it was so corrupt. Was that a good thing?

Now, a campaign has started to ask companies not to advertise in various newspapers because of their editorials ehich have been extreme, to say the least.
Nobody is censoring the paper, nobody is forcing a company to stop advertising, but pointing out, that their funding is contributing to the bile. Lego have made a decision to withdraw. I don't see any coercion.

Good post and indeed accurate, this is democracy in action.

 

[Finchley Seagull]

Can protest all they want, and you couldn't be more right....a democracy does mean free speech!
But protesting against that free speech by embarking on some sort of crusade to label anyone or anything that doesn't sign up to their ideas or dares to put the other side of the argument out there as some sort of (insert word here)ophobe or (insert word here)ist is now wearing so thin....as per the title of the thread...it's pathetic!
Like I've said in my second post....my point is not about the actual arguement but the over the top labelling.

I get your point but, as I despise the Mail and pretty much everything it stands for, I might not be able to give a balanced response. Out of interest, did you hear about their article about the judges who made the decision on Brexit recently. To me that was a classic example of why I hate the Mail.

 

[Big G]

At the risk of biting, do you not agree that people have the right to express their opinion? Democracy doesn't mean you have to take it on the chin and shut up about it.

Especially in the case of the Brexit lies, and the Trump campaign of hate. Would you have demonstrated against the Nazi party in Germany? Or would you have happily and blindly gone along with it, regardless of how you felt? If so, that says more about you than the people who take a passionate stance for what they believe in.

Also worth saying that more of the low turnout in America DID NOT vote for Trump, he got 200,000 fewer votes nationwide. At least Brexit actually won!

Really......you're seriously going to try and make your point with reference to protesting against the 'Nazi Party"!

 

[Monkey Man]

Thanks, and yes, I don't find much to commend the daily mail at all, I am worried about press freedoms in general and that is why I am sticking up for it.

Some posters think it's a good thing and fine. However it isn't individual democracy that has caused the removal of Lego as a sponsor, it's concerted political pressure. Should a relatively small number of people in a pressure group exercise such power over a newspaper? I found some of what I saw in the DM reprehensible in the past year. That does not mean this action is right, the same kind of action could then be replicated from both left wing pressure groups and right wing. That would be undesirable. This group is also pressurising the express, John Lewis and co-op. I am firmly against the politicisation of business in this way. It is incidentally different from FIFA in that the corruption at FIFA was not political in the sense that one would need to be left out right wing to oppose it.

I share your suspicion of mobs dictating what is and isn't acceptable and as a journalist myself I am terrified of anything that undermines a free press. That's why although I despise the Mail's worldview I accept it has a right to publish its commentaries and advertisers have a right to buy into those philosophies or reject them. It surely cuts both ways.

From a consumer point of view I think we all make political and moral choices with just about anything we buy, from bananas to smartphones to healthcare and education to shoes and chicken ... the list is very long.

Personally I think it's a very healthy situation if anyone spending money - whether individually or on a corporate basis - thinks hard about who and what benefits from that expenditure, and also who or what is disadvantaged. Lego have made their call.

 

[pastafarian]

Emotive, but you can't support that statement with any quotes or actual facts. Much like the Brexit campaign running without actually saying what would happen, and Trump who was unable to vocalise actual policies and ideas.

if its all the same with you ill stick with the fact progressive groups get speakers/lecturers banned from speaking on university campuses all the time because they dont like their opinion

Would you have demonstrated against the Nazi party in Germany?

I would have been severely concerned when the Nazis brought Ullstein Publishing, Germanys largest free press company to the brink of bankruptcy by forcing its advertisers to stay away.
All so they could acquire it cheaply, put their own editors in and Ullstein newspapers (jewish owned) could no longer be a dissenting voice instead everyone had to sing to the same tune.
It’sindeed a slippery slope pressuring advertisers to stop advertising in the free press.

 

[Tyrone Biggums]

Wait, being progressive is a bad thing?

A lot of people who take the high ground and call themselves progressives are now being called out for what many actually see them and their ideas as, regressives.

 

[looney]

No malice meant, Looney.

Yea I know. Even Posters as wonderful as I make mistakes, Kind of proves the Swedes are good for nothing and the Danes should stick to making Bacon.