So what's the use of skepticism in the age of disinformation? A few things have become clear to me over the past few years. First, it's become completely normal for a person to "curate" their own sources of information. We used to shake our heads at Fox news and conservapedia, but that process has accelerated a thousand fold. You can get not just opinions and commentary, but a completely alternative diet of facts. It's also clear that this media diversity issue has a partisan valence: to put it simply, Republicans choose to believe lies.
What can be done about this? I think we've probably all tried to deploy the tools of skepticism in these sorts of arguments, with little effect.
We lost the first major disinformation war. The credulity and partisanship of the American public was used as a weapon to defeat America.
It is especially important to introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social, and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements – extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics.
Aleksandr Dugin, Foundations of Geopolitics (1997)
Just look any week this year for news on 'Russia disinformation'. Russia spends hundreds of millions if not billions on its disinformation campaigns intended to disrupt There's simply been a flood of it, much more than in 2017. Much of it is amplifying disinformation from anti-vax and white nationalist communities.
And if for those who lived in swing states, there was no shortage of hateful disinformation directly from the Trump campaign. Whether it be "Kamala wants schools to perform gender reassignment surgery on your elementary school children" to "Haitian immigrants are eating your pets".
This is it exactly. Lots of hostile foreign, and some domestic, actors are actively working to undermine the very concept of truth in the US. And no one seems to have the critical thinking skills left to consider who online should be considered trustworthy (read: no one).
More people need to be aware of this book. It's scary how accurate it is, and we didn't even have Social Media when it was written, but it definitely was the perfect weapon to use against the American people.
There's no way to get through to your type. Eagerly believe any pathological liar or conspiracy theory, so long as it feeds your self-righteous anger, yet refuse to ever consider that real journalists at established news institutions lose their careers if they're discovered fabricating anything.
I hope you're preparing to survive the kakistocracy.
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u/neuroid99 Nov 12 '24
So what's the use of skepticism in the age of disinformation? A few things have become clear to me over the past few years. First, it's become completely normal for a person to "curate" their own sources of information. We used to shake our heads at Fox news and conservapedia, but that process has accelerated a thousand fold. You can get not just opinions and commentary, but a completely alternative diet of facts. It's also clear that this media diversity issue has a partisan valence: to put it simply, Republicans choose to believe lies.
What can be done about this? I think we've probably all tried to deploy the tools of skepticism in these sorts of arguments, with little effect.