… Currently, the public appears broadly supportive of mass deportations—that is, if you ask them directly and provide no further details. However, once more details are given, support for mass deportations declines.
One poll from about a month ago gauged support for the following policy: “Detain and deport millions of undocumented immigrants.” It found 52% of Americans in favor and 45% opposed. But with the addendum “even if it means businesses will face worker shortages,” the result changed to 46% in favor, 51% opposed. The effect of including other information about the negative economic effects of mass deportations was not tested, but it seems highly probable that other information—like the potential for a hit to GDP or a spike in inflation—would similarly turn Americans against mass deportation policy.
The problem is, the details about the potentially disastrous economic effects of mass deportations are likely known by only a small minority of the population. If corporate media outlets took their job seriously, they would make those details very well known. That could have major political effects, and could help turn the tides against extremist immigration policies.
Failing to inform the public likewise has major political effects. Passivity means greater leeway for Trump and his backers to shape public opinion, with their claims perhaps continuing to go unchallenged by outlets like Politico. Elon Musk, for one, is known as a prolific propagator of anti-immigrant conspiracy theories, and has frequently used X to amplify his message in the past. If corporate media fail to confront such misinformation, they effectively acquiesce to its corruption of the popular consciousness.
Ultimately, it’s up to corporate media to make a decision about what journalism means to them. They can’t escape making a decision with significant political consequences—political consequences are coming no matter what. But they can decide whether they care more about not appearing political to Trump supporters, or about protecting millions of people—and the health of the US economy.
the problem is getting the word out. there’s so, soooo much garbage on the internet and people rely on (usually corporate) search engines and social media to find content. and both are so chock full of ai/seo slop it’s still hard to find real information. see “adding reddit to search queries”.
secondary problem, particularly in authoritarian regimes like the us, is that domains are not anonymous (though workarounds do exist - intermediary domain purchases, free subdomains, ipns hashes, direct ip addressing, crypto dns), and can be taken down by any corporate lawyer with a cease and desist or a fraudulent dmca notice (or at the most extreme by direct government seizure).
hosting itself is not usually anonymous either, since ip addresses are traceable without using some combination of vpn, anonymous vps, onion routing, and ddns. none of which is trivial to set up. and the more secure the system, the more obtuse it is to access, SHARPLY limiting the target audience.
also, running a pi is fine, but consumer hardware, software configured by inexperienced sysadmins, consumer-grade internet connections (many providers prohibit running servers), semi-reliable power grids, etc can all cause security, usability, and reliability issues that could limit adoption.
and of course, finally, there’s the reliability and cost of journalism. anyone can say anything but how do we know it’s credible? and real journalism is hard work, of the variety most people don’t have the time or resources to do without remuneration.
these problems are NOT insurmountable, however, and there are people and groups doing exactly this. you probably just haven’t heard about them.
tl;dr: journalism and webhosting are both difficult and risky. some are doing it anyways.