I finally, after much cajoling (and more importantly, after much increase in the monthly bill) got my parents to finally cut cable TV entirely. I even made sure they got Netflix as their streaming service so that they wouldn't be exposed to any commercials.
Now they sit around watching mostly OTA TV all day, with so many ads for medicine and mortgage scams and other old-people shit that I can't fathom how they can even stand it, let alone prefer it.
The one small comfort is that at least the local news in my area isn't owned by Sinclair.
In order to use Netflix, they have to choose what show they want to watch. People don't like doing what they want. Making decisions about what they want is hard. People want to be told what to like, how to think, and how to live.
That's smart! Take advantage of the fact that cable keeps getting more and more expensive and urge them to cancel it. No need to sneak and block Fox News this way.
90 yr olds having finally kept america a hell-on-earth long enough to pass the torch to the new generation of racists who can't operate a cable box:
Stop normalizing this and start normalizing filtering your parents internet with a Pi-Hole and blocking whole swaths of the right-wing ecosystem.
Everyone complains about people wanting them to be the computer guy in their family but no one ever uses that to protect their family from misinformation/disinformation and then blame it on their ISP.
...in Minecraft. (please don't actually do this to your parents)
Nothing wrong with doing both. I fully support using a Pi-Hole to block right wing misinformation/disinformation if the situation is appropriate.
I should also mention in reality this is just a shitpost. In real life there is more nuance to these decisions. I have read stories about people who's parents have been basically "gone" because of Fox News and other right wing disinformation sources and after blocking it they get their parents back usually within 6 months to a year. But it could also result in back lash. It all depends on the situation. I do feel strongly that Fox News should be blocked in hospitals and nursing homes (especially memory units) because it stresses out the patients and some of the content they run is directly contrary to a hospital's mission.
Well I'd say the nuance here is that while it's hard to break through when those ecosystems have a hold on them, and it's hard to compete with them, being a censorial editor for the elderly really only makes sense if they really can be considered not in their right mind and not have the capacity to think or care for themselves.
I don't really think censorship is the solution as much as finding a way to break the spell of whatever has overtaken right wing thought.
I think the public right wing response to both Luigi Mangione and to Musk promoting H1Bs shows that while they've sucked down racism, on some level they understand that the corporate world exists to harm workers. They just haven't found solidarity with the workers of the rest of the world yet, and it's finding a way to crack that barrier and get them to see themselves in others. I think it's very hard but not impossible.
I think part of the problem is the nature of our media and how consolidated it is and how rare real independent news media is at the moment in this country. I think we'd do better to tackle that at a community level than we would to just outright censor it.
Like, an example... You have a child and you want to know what they're watching on television for their mental health. Is it better to watch those things with them and discuss the themes and ideas with them and help them contextualize it all in a healthy way or censor the things you don't like and never discuss them so the child enters the world wholly without the knowledge of these subjects. I'd say based on personal experience that the latter doesn't work out so hot for the kid.
Censorship and control of information without discussion isn't a good path, whereas openness and communication is.
EDIT: Also, in response to hospitals, I do agree, it should be nothing but like calming nature documentaries or chill kids cartoons. All family friendly stuff with nothing stressful to promote healthy recovery. In the context of hospitals I'd say its less censorship and more "genuinely people need fewer stressors so they can heal." Removing stressful and divisive television solves that.
Why shouldnt you ?
Look, if they still have a cable box, they haven't paid the bill in 25 years.
Plus they won't notice.
Because they've already moved to Newsmax?
If you were to block Fox you should also block other more extreme channels like Newsmax and OANN.
Parental controls on your parents? Jfc
parents are now streaming NewsMax and OANN, please advise
Start by throttling traffic to those websites and then block using Pi-Hole, host files or DNS settings. Maybe your router can also do it.
