To block GBNews from my parent’s TV?

[goslowly]

My parents retired 4 years ago. They’re both in their 60s, healthy, happy, comfortable financially.

Since they’ve retired they have been sucked in by every single thing they say on there. They can spend an entire day sat in front of the TV getting angrier and angrier. It’s to the point that if Starmer comes on the TV, they shout about how he should be killed.

it’s genuinely starting to concern me. You can’t have a rational conversation with them about anything. I miss my parents, how they used to be before all the conspiracy and anger took over.

I’m genuinely tempted to block it from their tv using parental controls and just pretending it’s some weird fault in their telly. They’d not be able to fix it.

Meh. You sound as set in your views as they are in theirs, and as prone to dramatic overstatement.

I think your problem may be that you lack the skills to discuss GB News’ presentation of stories with your parents in a constructive manner.

Unlike you and your husband, I don't have multiple degrees. I only have one degree and I'm a single parent living in a council house in the inner city.

A deletion followed by laughing emoticons is disappointing. No argument, no solution, no wit.

I despair of the education system in this country.🤦‍♀️

This happened with my lovely gentle
FIL who turned into an angry ranty man. My DH sat down with him and explained that the billionaire owners of the media are sitting there laughing at him - it makes them money to get and keep him angry. The more he watches the richer they get. And they are laughing at him
and how easily he is being influenced. Held up a (metaphorical)mirror to show his dad how much he’s changed and just how miserable and unpleasant he was to be around.

encouraged him to switch off, go for
a walk and look for all the good and happy things in his world and life like his wonderful grandchildren and the good they do in the world, his nice (Indian - relevant as he was getting increasingly racist) neighbours, his garden, getting out on his bike.
it seems to be working and DFIL seems much calmer (and hasn’t ranted about people
in boats for a few weeks).
these fascist media moguls are such utter manipulative bastards. They destroy people’s lives and mental wellbeing - many at the very time they should be kicking back and enjoying their golden years.

So I wouldn’t disconnect it but would have a proper conversation.

I'm surprised your lovely gentle fil didn't tell your busybody, patronising dh to wind his neck in. Maybe he's too polite.

I've got gb news on now, I like Anne Diamond and Stephen Dixon on a weekend.

You and your dh need to get a grip and stop treating your fil like a naughty boy.

Things could be worse. They could be watching YouTube. There's some really bonkers political stuff on there. And then you start feeding the algorithm and even more bonkers stuff arrives. I must confess, I watch YouTube because the main channels are rubbish. However, i know rubbish when I see it and know when to switch off.

I also watch This Morning. My daughter says only people with half a brain cell watch this morning. It is good humoured banter, she would never dream of censoring my viewing habits.

Whatever. Haven't your parents got a garden? It has been a beautiful summer. They should be out and about. There are oldies everywhere. They go to garden centres, which often have cafes. They could spend a whole morning there. They go to the pub. Oldies love a pub lunch. National trust properties are full of oldies. An annual pass is expensive but will pay for itself in a matter of months.

Museums are usually free. Oldies also go to shopping centres just for a mooch. Art galleries are often free too. If they have a dog they could go to local beauty spots. If they don't have a dog they are free to go out all day long.

Instead of moaning about the telly OP needs to encourage them to build a routine into their lives and get out and enjoy life. Travel broadens the mind, as does going places and doing things. Theyre not even old. 60s is just late middle age nowadays. In an ideal world they should be out at least 3 days a week. As a minimum, they should get out once a week.

Nah. When I see a man descending into depression anxiety and anger all with a single trigger I’m not going to stand by and let it happen.

This is absolutely not about political opinions. It’s about watching someone you love being turned into a ranting unhappy angry man.
my DFIL is much better calmer and happier for stepping away from that incessant ranty, inflammatory and often very, very misleading ‘news’. I’m we intervened and so is he.

If you enjoy it and it’s your thing then great. But when it starts to make your life shit and takes over then maybe you’d have a different view.

and if it helps my mum is the same with the junky BBC and ITV drivel. Makes her so angry and unhappy. At late 80s I just don’t see the point.

Anyone descending into depression and anxiety need professional help, not their ds and dil ranting at them and blaming it all on a tv programme.

'and if it helps my mum is the same with the junky BBC and ITV drivel'

I mean really. The sneering on this thread is awful. I feel sorry for the parents on the receiving end. I bet as soon as their relatives have left they breathe a sigh of relief and say thank fuck for that!

This post is spot on. Most of us get our news from here and the last paragraph from the above is so true.

Meant to say we get news from here and there. A variety of places so to speak.

Which part of GB news specifically made your FIL a racist?

Death by a thousand cuts. Constant drip feed of one sided news that is, by design, incendiary and often triangulates race with immigration status, crime and poverty.

Not rocket science, really.

Do you know @itsmeafterall FIL? I was waiting for them to tell which specific part made him racist. Your reply is ambiguous. Which presenter maybe or which show. Truth is nobody knows. If I were you I wouldn't watch it.

How is the OP actually going to block them?

GB News nailing the absurdity of ex-council houses that cost about 200 quid to build in the 70"s being valued at a million pounds now, LOL, no one wants an expensive house now though in case they have to pay Andy"s tax, GB News really is a breath of fresh air compared to the other "news" channels! They used to say that the UK public like their houses expensive, well now they are getting that in spades, mortgage pricey as fuck, taxes high as fuck, way to go UK!

Can anyone who is really critical of GB News please tell me which other mainstream media channels are covering this story properly?

Because without GB News we sure as hell would not know half of what has been going on when it comes to sterilising children and removing women’s rights.

"This is a medical scandal of epic proportions and people of power and influence are still too frightened of trans activists and trans lobby groups to do the right thing and put an end to the insanity. Kids are being sacrificed to ideology and cowardice."

https://x.com/jk_rowling/status/2073782945362411788?s=20

I’ll tell you what GB News isn’t covering and that’s Farage’s murky finances.

That's an important subject, we need to know where politicians funding comes from, because if we don't there's a huge risk of conflicting interests. You only have to look at the US to see how influence is bought. Farage also used to be on the Russia Today channel.

To be fair to GB News*, Camilla Tominey absolutely annihilated Honest Bob Jenrick on her show this morning. It is all over X if you want to watch it. It is painful.

*This is probably the only time I will ever say those words.

where all the flat earthers, covid deniers...

It always amuses me when pro-EU posters mention Covid deniers and flat earthers - when at the same time they want freedom of movement with several Balkan countries (and millions of people) where Covid denial is rife/the norm and flat earthers are more prevalent. Apparently, it's fine, as long as the Covid deniers have an EU passport.

No it’s not.

The figures recently discussed in the House of Lords say that immigrants on care worker visas will have a net cost to us of £36,000 per head. Plus significantly more when family members are factored in. Which makes sense if you consider that they gain the right to bring family members, many of whom will be old and of higher medical needs and in the case of immigrants from countries where repeated cousin marriage is practised, there is a significantly increased incidence of severe congenital abnormalities and disabilities.

Targeted, managed immigration may be a net gain, the current system which is being abused by significant numbers - student visas, false asylum claims (as recently highlighted by the BBC) and failed asylum seekers that are either avoiding deportation or returning after deportation is not. That’s before you factor in the wider social cost of the benefits and accommodation and cost of gang crime committed by foreign nationals or older immigrants such as the grooming gangs, mini marts/vape shops/barbers and drug crime. All as recently highlighted and investigated by the BBC in case anyone missed it.

www.express.co.uk/news/politics/2220979/Migration-settlement-Labour-ILR-Shabana-Mahmood/amp

Ok great. Finally one example of a GB News reporter saying something incorrect during a broadcast conversation.

That isn’t ‘reporting the news’ and hardly constitutes ‘habitual lying’.

The BBC has been caught out on a number of occasions making monumental and significant lies so by your measure OP has to ban her parents from watching them too.

Wrong. Read my earlier post. Asian and African families were highlighted for wanting to do well in education. White working class families don't encourage their kids to do well. Fact.

There was also an article in the Independent saying that white middle class kids do well because school feels like a home environment to them. When white working class kids arrive in school it feels like an alien environment to them. It's demographics not racist.

I don't watch GB news very often. I used to watch Eamonn Holmes and I do like Camilla Tominey - but she pops up everywhere.

As others have said, I get my news from across all channels. I am also so ancient that I read newspapers. Maybe OP could buy her parents a newspaper if she is so unhappy. I read the Guardian, the Mail, Financial Times, Telegraph and I've even been known to read the mirror. I actually love the headlines on the Daily Star but never read it.

Yep. People in 2 small towns not far from me are constantly complaining about vape shops and Turkish barbers and illegal immigrants/ asylum seekers sleeping rough. The 2 MPs are working hard to deal with it. One vape shop was closed by the police but reopened the next week. One lot of rough sleepers were rounded up by the police and found to be part of a Romanian organised crime gang.

The residents aren't complaining because of watching GB news. They are complaining because of their lived experience.

Are you talking about this case?

Where the judgement said this:

The judgment from Collins Rice J was striking in favouring freedom of expression and the broadcasters. She found that Jacob Rees-Mogg’s programme was a current affairs programme and not a news programme, and therefore Rule 5.3 of the Broadcasting Code did not apply.

All other news programmes are regulated as normal. So your claim is a total misrepresentation of the truth - they were talking about the specific programme, not the whole channel.

But it isn't regulated like other news channels.

And in fact, my earlier point is proved as Ofcom were found to be applying rules to GB News that they don’t apply to other broadcasters. They are unfairly biased against GB News as a number of PPs are here.

The rationale for OFCOM’s consultation is not entirely clear (and is not stated in the announcement). One can understand that OFCOM would consider that viewers would expect programmes which are recognisable as “news programmes” to be sacrosanct and free from any taint of political bias. Accordingly, it makes sense for politicians being banned from presenting such programmes. But if politicians are to be allowed to present other types of current affairs programmes, it is unclear why such programmes should be prevented from including even a simple update of the news.

https://cms.law/en/gbr/legal-updates/ofcom-decisions-quashed-following-gb-news-judicial-review

You make a fair point.

If only people like OP and PPs on this thread could stop attacking their fellow countrypeople for having an opinion on immigration or complaining about issues in their daily lives caused by the impact of huge demographic change and immigration in their areas we might get somewhere.

There is so much hatred directed at British people for having pride in our country, flag and values and I don’t understand it. Even the soon to be former PM claimed that the biggest problem our country faces is the ‘far right’ (by which he means anyone who wants to have a conversation or limitations on immigration and doesn’t want to be silenced by his laws) .