WeDon'tNeedNoStinkingResearchVille
When it comes to disinformation, it's not just the content but also the volume per unit area that matters.
A fine purveyor of the 'cover them with mountains of craptacular disinformational content' strategy, Mr. Stephen K. Bannon, explained the strategy back in the salad days of his former boss' presidency (i.e. 2018):
“The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit.”
So.
How to deal with it all?
Well, it turns out that there are actually academics out there researching the issue with goal of figuring out how we can deal with it.
And, as you might expect, the craptacularists are out there flooding the zone with shite hoses from all angles doing their best to disinform the public of the work of those whose research is designed to deal with the disinformation.
Confused?*
Jeff Tollefsen, writing in Nature, has the story:
Researchers who study how disinformation spreads are under investigation in the United States for allegedly helping to censor conservative opinions about COVID-19 vaccines and government elections. Jim Jordan, a US representative for Ohio, is leading the charge against the scientists. He is also one of the Republican leaders who have suggested that the Democrats have stolen the 2020 presidential election from former president Donald Trump, and who have made unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud...
And, to be clear, it's not just whackadoodles in the US'ian Congress and the shite spreaders on the internets who are doing this.
Jurists of a certain bent are getting in on the act as well:
...(O)n 4 July, a federal judge in Louisiana issued a preliminary injunction barring US agencies from interacting with social-media companies, with the purpose of “urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing” them to remove content. The order by judge Terry Doughty, who was appointed by Trump in 2017, also banned federal agencies from working with disinformation researchers...
On the Fourth of July?
In America?
The irony!
______
*The whole goal of this approach, whether it be about elections, vaccines, or Hunter Biden's (perhaps non-existent) laptop is to confuse everyone so much that no one can figure out what, if anything, is actually a ground truth...
.
The irony!
______
*The whole goal of this approach, whether it be about elections, vaccines, or Hunter Biden's (perhaps non-existent) laptop is to confuse everyone so much that no one can figure out what, if anything, is actually a ground truth...
.
3 comments:
Fake news, propaganda, alternative facts, call it what you want, goes back to the early days of man, to mislead others on real events happening.
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
This is the big lie.
This is Trump's "modus operandi" and with the help of FOX news and a cohort of others, the people are coming to believe it.
Sadly, in this age of hyper media and lack of any laws to prevent outright lying in North America, the big lie gains a foothold and spreads like Covid.
In Europe, with the experience of Lord Ha, Ha and Axis Sally, there are far stricter laws for this sort of thing, as in the USA "Freedom of Speech" now means, Freedom to Lie".
Until we get a grip on fake and invented news and with the population so dismally educated, the big lie, repeated often enough becomes fact.
This used to be a section included in the Criminal Code of Canada:
“181 Every one who wilfully publishes a statement, tale or news that he knows is false and that causes or is likely to cause injury or mischief to a public interest is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years.”
In R v Zundel (1992), the Supreme Court held that the offence violated freedom of expression (section 2(b) of the Charter). Parliament repealed the section in 2023 along with a lot of other sections on other matters that the Court had ruled unconstitutional.
So lie as much and as big as you want folks. Although I’ve heard it said your pants may catch fire.
If only the lairs' pants did catch on fire. Would not want them to be hurt but it sure would be fun to see Jim Jordan's pants on fire when he tells some of his woopers and a few more also. Just thinking of trump's antics if he thought his trousers were on fire. OMG, that has all been amusing and given me some laughs. Lets not forget Lake, Green, etc.
It is more difficult for some to realize what we are being "fed" by media, pundits, politicians, wanna bees, etc.
Mom did tell us, just because its in the vancouver sun doesn't make it true. She said that about the time I was 12 or 13. 60 years later, its still true, but with a variety of other media technologies.
When politicians and their followers lie, there are consequences, not to them, but those they lie about and it can cause a lot of problems violence, etc. We are seeing a resurgence of some of those lies and its dividing people in a dangerous way.
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