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BBC 'bans' journalists from saying US 'kidnapped' Venezuela's Maduro (www.thenational.scot)

submitted 1 month ago by themachinestops@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/world@lemmy.world

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[-] SarahFromOz@lemmy.world 168 points 1 month ago

Newspeak: "In the 1949 dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (also published as 1984), by George Orwell, Newspeak is the fictional language of Oceania, a totalitarian superstate. To meet the ideological requirements of Ingsoc (English Socialism) in Oceania, the Party created Newspeak, which is a controlled language of simplified grammar and limited vocabulary designed to reduce a person's ability to think critically."

See also: "the officer's gun discharged" instead of "police shot the man"

[-] prole 50 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I remember thinking this aspect of the book was far fetched, but holy shit was he spot on. Language really does inform how we think, and controlling that can be very powerful

[-] partofthevoice@lemmy.zip 22 points 1 month ago

Oh boy… are you opening the door to concept philosophy? Because that’s a fucking mind bender. First big assumption you need to let go of in this domain: mankind is not on some path of iterative progress where we find ourselves at the most knowledgeable and capable in the present. Rather, we’ve conveniently redefined what progress is in the first place.

[-] JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I always thought Winston's job, of literally rewriting history, would be an impossible task.

Nowadays? I'm not so sure. When we look at where most of the news comes from in America and follow the money up, you've got like 90% of it coming from about a couple dozen people.

Some of those people control LLMs along the way. They control our social media and search engine and what posts and answers and advertisers we see. They control the servers through which most of the internet routes their traffic. They control the certificate authorities that all of our web browsers intrinsically trust. And most of them are friends with each other...or at least keep it cordial.

And they're patient. They play a long game. Half of them aren't even middle-aged and are in peak physical health.

Shit even that sounded like a crazy conspiracy theory like 15 years ago, and while I'm being hyperbolic...I'm really not being that hyperbolic.

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[-] sns@lemmy.dbzer0.com 98 points 1 month ago

They also murdered about 80 people when they kidnapped and trafficked them.

[-] icelimit@lemmy.ml 67 points 1 month ago

It's not a "war", it's a "special operation". Anyone who says it's a war is committing treason.

[-] Deckname@olio.cafe 43 points 1 month ago

This was literally the header of the New York times on Sunday...

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[-] AcidiclyBasicGlitch@sh.itjust.works 54 points 1 month ago

BBC bans journalists from telling the truth?

[-] sunbytes@lemmy.world 14 points 1 month ago

It's so unprecedented!

[-] CircaV@lemmy.ca 52 points 1 month ago

BBC is appeasing Trump. The UK is a lost cause. An Irrelevant ex-empire. Just like the US is going to be, once it finally implodes.

[-] FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 month ago

Can it please implode faster?

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[-] ynthrepic@lemmy.world 51 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

~~Kidnapping is an emotionally loaded term which isn't used in journalism. Makes sense.~~ Edit: nah I'm wrong. They'd use it for the actual crime of kidnapping.

I hate this shit. We need media to call a spoon a spoon.

Call lies, lies. "Misinformation", "inaccuracies" "incorrectly said..." Nah fuck that. Trump lied.

[-] Remember_the_tooth@lemmy.world 15 points 1 month ago

Spoon? Is that like a symmetrical, dull, parabolic knife?

[-] prole 5 points 1 month ago

Someone's never seen a grapefruit spoon

[-] Remember_the_tooth@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago

In truth, I haven't, but I'm sincerely looking forward to having the nuances of esoteric cutlery and their proscribed use in polite society explained to me, as if in a cotillion class, by someone with the username "prole."

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[-] Naich@lemmings.world 46 points 1 month ago

"Abducted" it is then.

[-] ToiletFlushShowerScream@piefed.world 44 points 1 month ago

The BBC is no longer reputable

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[-] Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip 43 points 1 month ago

Abducted, then

[-] aarRJaay@lemmy.world 30 points 1 month ago

Question : I break into someones home and take them to my home (from their bed) and lock them up. What's that called?

[-] lividweasel@lemmy.world 22 points 1 month ago

It depends. What’s your net worth?

[-] TigerAce@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 1 month ago

Depends on who's writing history.

[-] nibbler@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 1 month ago

honestly, if the police does it with a warrant in their own country it's certainly not called a kidnapping.

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[-] TallonMetroid@lemmy.world 29 points 1 month ago

Clearly, they should refer to it as "human trafficking" instead!

[-] 9point6@lemmy.world 23 points 1 month ago

Halfway down was a quote from the working-class-LARPer fascist, Stephen yaxley-lennon, that he's called for trump to invade the UK.

Unrelated, I'm pretty sure treason is the only thing we still have the death penalty for...

[-] blimthepixie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 month ago

Thank you for using that dickheads proper name

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[-] TigerAce@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 points 1 month ago

I'll allow it, as long as they call it a war crime.

[-] demonsword@lemmy.world 18 points 1 month ago

so much for that alleged freedom of the press

[-] MagnificentSteiner@lemmy.zip 15 points 1 month ago

Hardly surprising considering the BBC is a british establishment mouthpiece and said establishment is subordinate to the americans.

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[-] Mrkawfee@lemmy.world 14 points 1 month ago

BBC is propaganda for the Empire.

[-] Suriel@lemmy.world 12 points 1 month ago

Perhaps "unfreed" could be used instead?

[-] cutemarshmallow@europe.pub 8 points 1 month ago

Adultnapped

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[-] whyNotSquirrel@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 month ago

Isn't BBC a British company? Why do they fear lawsuits in the USA?

[-] lechekaflan@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

That dickhead in the Oval Office and his cronies have buildings full of lawyers who'll then launch trucks full of SLAPP suits. Couple with their usual OANN attack dogs.

[-] gigachad@piefed.social 5 points 1 month ago

I have no idea what these acronyms mean but I agree with this guy

[-] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 1 month ago

SLAPP are nuisance lawsuits without merit filed solely to bully the recipient into submission and OANN is One American News Network, a hive of fascist Trump loving propagandists pretending to be news.

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[-] aarRJaay@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago

British Biased Corporation

[-] melsaskca@lemmy.ca 9 points 1 month ago

Change "BBC" to "Global Media" and you are closer to the truth.

[-] melsaskca@lemmy.ca 8 points 1 month ago

More billionaire media control. It's everywhere I tell 'ya!

[-] falseWhite@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago

Possibly. But the BBC aired a pretty good segment on Trump and he sued BBC for $5bn. So, that's most likely why they're being careful going forward now.

[-] axmo@lemmy.ca 10 points 1 month ago

In what way is this not control? He has succeeded in changing the editorial position of the BBC.

[-] wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 5 points 1 month ago

Why didn't they take him to court over it? tRump has lost all the cases that companies actually took to court. The only ones who "lost" were the ones who capitulated, paid a settlement, fired the people trump didn't like, then changed their editorial positions to comply with the party line as dictated.

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[-] mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 month ago

Control through legal threats is still control. The BBC is afraid of getting sued again, which means Trump has some impactful control over them.

[-] wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 8 points 1 month ago

Can they say they abducted him?

[-] gnutrino@programming.dev 7 points 1 month ago

Nothing has been "banned" they just issued editorial guidelines on what term to use. As they (and all other media organizations) do with everything, it's just how journalism works.

[-] kbobabob@lemmy.dbzer0.com 24 points 1 month ago

Oh cool, I thought they weren't allowed to use the term "kidnapped".

Media tries to whitewash way too much. As another comment pointed out, "the gun discharged" instead of "police shot someone" is a common one.

Call a spade a spade.

[-] Doubleohdonut@lemmy.ca 11 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

That's definitely how it reads when the beeb says "don't use this word that the perpatrator is dropping like a box of hammers."

It comes despite US president Donald Trump explicitly saying that the word “kidnapping” could be used to describe the military operation. Asked about Venezuelan interim president Delcy Rodriguez saying Maduro had been "kidnapped", Trump said: “It’s alright. It’s not a bad term.”

[-] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 1 month ago

Nothing has been "banned" they just issued editorial guidelines

Tomato, potato.

If you're not following the editorial guidelines, your editor is more likely to censor or outright reject your submitted work.

it's just how journalism works.

Yes, and that's a problem. The Conservative leadership of one of the most influential media organizations in the world "recommending" not to be accurate about the crime committed by their ideological ally is awful for journalism.

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[-] ThunderQueen@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago

Well, kidnapping implies he will be used for ransom and returned. He was abducted.

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this post was submitted on 07 Jan 2026

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