Sunday, November 20, 2022

Fake news

 

 

Kellyanne Conway coined the phrase, “alternative facts” in the early days of the Trump administration, and the incoming president started to call everything that he did not agree with “fake news”, echoing the thoughts of the book “1984”.

The section on Double Think says this:

The keyword here is blackwhite. Like so many Newspeak words, this word has two mutually contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it means the habit of impudently claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts. Applied to a Party member, it means a loyal willingness to say that black is white when Party discipline demands this. But it means also the ability to believe that black is white, and more, to know that black is white, and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary. This demands a continuous alteration of the past, made possible by the system of thought which really embraces all the rest, and which is known in Newspeak as doublethink. Doublethink is basically the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four

The man idea in “1984” is that there is no such think as freedom of speech, but freedom of speech is not always a clear-cut idea.

Although it’s obvious that you can’t shout “fire” in a crowded movie theatre, it becomes very murky when it comes to social media and political campaigns.

The presence of Russian bods during the 2016 and 2020 elections exemplifies why social media sites have an obligation to monitor the content of their sites for mis-leading information – but all that went out the window last week, when Elon Mush eliminated 20 of the 30 people on Twitter’s media review team.

 

https://www.wired.com/story/twitters-moderation-system-is-in-tatters/

 

EVEN BEFORE TWITTER cut some 4,400 contract workers on November 12, the platform was showing signs of strain. After Elon Musk bought the company and laid off 7,500 full time employees, disinformation researchers and activists say, the team that took down toxic and fake content vanished. Now, after years of developing relationships within those teams, researchers say no one is responding to their reports of disinformation on the site, even as data suggests Twitter is becoming more toxic.

Yesterday, Musk removed the ban on Trump’s presence on the site. Although Trump is contractually obligated to first broadcast on Truth Social, it won’t be long before he starts posting again on Twitter.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/19/trump-musk-twitter/

When he was if office, the Washington Post documented 30,573 lies during his four years in office.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/01/24/trumps-false-or-misleading-claims-total-30573-over-four-years/

Trump’s presence on Twitter is dangerous because it diminishes the integrity of our political system, and it also greatly exacerbated the riots on January 6 – which led Twitter to ban him from the site permanently.

Other social media sites, including Facebook and TikTok have also scaled back on content review, which is why we need to be skeptical of anything that appears on social media.

To quote Abraham Lincoln, “don’t believe everything that you read on the internet”.

The overwhelming source of information for the high school kids I teach is TikTok, but a fair number also use Facebook as well, even though a few of them think that Facebook is “for old people”.

The biggest Facebook audience is the age group 18-24, and the smallest is 13 to 17 and 65+.

https://datareportal.com/essential-facebook-stats#:~:text=489.0%20million%20users%20aged%2018,of%20Facebook's%20total%20ad%20audience

 

Advertisers are fleeing Twitter in droves, and the article below indicates that Twitter may not even survive, given the extent of the massive layoffs recently instated by Muck.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/18/technology/elon-musk-twitter-workers-quit.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Technology

Elon Muck is the world’s richest man. Even if his $44 billon investment plummets in value, he’ll still be the world’s richest man.

Where freedom of speech becomes murky is when it concerns books.

I wrote earlier this year why book bans are a very bad idea, but the legislators in Idaho did not lister to me.

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2022/01/should-books-be-banned.html

 

In March, legislation with the potential to fine Idaho librarians $1,000 and send them to jail for a year for checking out material to a minor that could harm them cleared the House.

The House voted 51-14 to approve the measure that backers said will protect children. But opponents said it is so undefined and subjective as to be unconstitutional. Over the past year, book challenges and bans have reached levels not seen in decades, according to officials at the American Library Association, the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) and other advocates for free expression.

And according to PEN America, which has been tracking legislation around the country, dozens of bills have been proposed that restrict classroom reading and discussion. Virtually all of the laws focus on sexuality, gender identity or race.

The Idaho measure now goes to the Senate.

 

https://www.eastidahonews.com/2022/03/idaho-house-oks-measure-that-could-fine-jail-librarians/

Although it’s true that truth is not always what it seems, the recent midterm elections in Arizona are proof that truth still matters, since ALL of the candidates who believed in “The Big Lie” that the 220 elections was stolen went down in flames.

Regardless of how you feel about this topic, here’s my advice:

Don’t discuss it at your Thanksgiving dinner this year, since the day should be a day of thanks, rather than a day of political disagreements.

 

 


 

 


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