Tag: Disinformation

“Start Doing Your Damn Job”

We on the so-called Left have been screaming that at the MSM for decades to no avail but now there are others that are trying to get the MSM to actually report the news….

Journalists have always been a fairly morose bunch, and the news they produce reflects that. Communications scholars have found that across many years and countries, coverage of political topics tends to more often be conveyed in a negative or cynical tone rather than a positive one; one study in the mid-2000s found that about half of US, German, Italian, and Austrian campaign coverage conveyed bad news, while as little as 6 percent conveyed good news. By some measures, the situation is deteriorating; a recent study found that the “proportion of headlines denoting anger, fear, disgust and sadness” grew markedly in the US between 2000 and 2019.

Some news consumers have surrendered to the phenomenon and find themselves hooked on “doomscrolling,” in journalist Karen Ho’s memorable term, proceeding between articles asking if the war in Ukraine could be World War III, or whether another world-destabilizing pandemic could be on the way, or if we’ve already passed key climate tipping points. At least some news consumers aren’t too happy about the situation. An international survey from Oxford’s Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism last year found that in almost every country surveyed, trust in media is falling, and more people are saying they’re avoiding news. Why? Because, respondents say, it “has a negative effect on their mood.”

So … why are we like this? Are we journalists just a miserable lot who insist on spreading our neuroses to the rest of the world? Are readers, despite their protestations to the contrary, likelier to click on news that’s negative or dire?

https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/23596969/bad-news-negativity-bias-media

News consumers should not have to search for hours to find factual news….but we do live in the age of social media and that has crapped all over the news plus the Clinton admin signing a law into being that allowed corporations to own the news.

So I among others scream into the void “Do your damn job”….and wait for the day when news becomes factual again….

There are some that feel that ‘integrity’ should return to the media…..

In the formal rooms of the University Club of Chicago the loudest applause was not reserved for celebrity. It was reserved for refusal.

The refusal to accept an official story merely because it was official and trade editorial independence for access; refusal for leaving wrongdoing concealed because disclosure might end a career and invite prosecution or fracture and upend a life.

The second annual Integrity Media Independent Journalism Awards on Sept. 17 brought journalists, publishers, lawyers, supporters, and whistleblowers into the same room and treated their work not as separate pursuits, but as parts of a shared democratic undertaking against autocracy and authoritarianism.

We attended as members of the wider whistleblower community that the event sought to honor. What stayed with us was not simply the roster of accomplished recipients.

Integrity in Media Is Possible

(Time for a smile here)  That day is not coming any time soon….until then I guess I will continue to scream…(I’m getting tired)….and the void just smiles.

Any thoughts on this?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

The “Dirt Bag” Wing

With all the success that the DSA is having in the elections the propaganda wing of MAGA pulls out all the stops to trash what is happening.

I want to say that I do not support this type of bullshit reporting I offer it up as FYI and to show just how far the MAGA machine will go to misinform the public.

Most of this is LIES.

 

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2026/aug/5/beware-dsa-dirtbag-wing-democratic-party/

 

This goes to illustrate just how much afraid of the current trend in voting.

Anything you would like to say?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

 

 

More MAGA BS

I post these articles not because I agree with them but rather that I want to illustrate the lengths the Right will go to to instill fear into the voting public.

This is another bunch of manure from a MAGA rag that should be labeled propaganda not news….

Democratic socialism is a lie — it’s just communism with better branding

Speaking of better branding….if we want to go that far then the policies of Donny and the MAGA morons is nothing more than fascism…..you see two can play that game.

So to say that this rag stretches the truth then that would be more accurate reporting than  what they call reporting.

Do not fall for the bullsh*t….we have a nation to win….let’s get busy.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

“Baloney Detection Kit”

The late scientist Carl Sagan…..Carl Sagan (November 9, 1934–December 20, 1996) was many things — a cosmic sage, voracious reader, hopeless romantic, and brilliant philosopher. But above all, he endures as our era’s greatest patron saint of reason and critical thinking, a master of the vital balance between skepticism and openness.

He3 devised a way of separating facts from crap…..he called it the ‘Baloney Detection Kit’…..

it contains invaluable tools of healthy skepticism that apply just as elegantly, and just as necessarily, to everyday life. By adopting the kit, we can all shield ourselves against clueless guile and deliberate manipulation. Sagan shares nine of these tools:

  • Wherever possible there must be independent confirmation of the “facts.”
  • Encourage substantive debate on the evidence by knowledgeable proponents of all points of view.
  • Arguments from authority carry little weight — “authorities” have made mistakes in the past. They will do so again in the future. Perhaps a better way to say it is that in science there are no authorities; at most, there are experts.
  • Spin more than one hypothesis. If there’s something to be explained, think of all the different ways in which it could be explained. Then think of tests by which you might systematically disprove each of the alternatives. What survives, the hypothesis that resists disproof in this Darwinian selection among “multiple working hypotheses,” has a much better chance of being the right answer than if you had simply run with the first idea that caught your fancy.
  • Try not to get overly attached to a hypothesis just because it’s yours. It’s only a way station in the pursuit of knowledge. Ask yourself why you like the idea. Compare it fairly with the alternatives. See if you can find reasons for rejecting it. If you don’t, others will.
  • Quantify. If whatever it is you’re explaining has some measure, some numerical quantity attached to it, you’ll be much better able to discriminate among competing hypotheses. What is vague and qualitative is open to many explanations. Of course there are truths to be sought in the many qualitative issues we are obliged to confront, but finding them is more challenging.
  • If there’s a chain of argument, every link in the chain must work (including the premise) — not just most of them.
  • Occam’s Razor. This convenient rule-of-thumb urges us when faced with two hypotheses that explain the data equally well to choose the simpler.
  • (This is my opinion….and this is where the Democrats lose the voter….they offer way too many details and ‘facts’….in other words that give TMI for the voter to grasp.)

It is a shame that more people, especially voters, do not have the mental capacity to test their ‘facts’ out before they act.

It is either they are too confused or lazy and now they let AI do their thinking….after all the attention span of the normal voter is that of a goldfish.

Social media has killed the desire for the truth it is easier to find someone who thinks like the individual and stop there before examine the information provided….I give you, my reader, the current situation in the world….about 70% of the information available is either a half-truth or an outright lie.

If you want to save our republic from collapse then maybe now would be a good time to start paying attention to the crap you fed.

Just a thought!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

 

Why Do We Believe?

That is the question that avoids a good answer….although many have tried….

For instance a couple of stories from just the last couple of weeks….

Haitian immigrants are stealing and eating people’s pets! The U.S. government directed Hurricane Helene to hit North Carolina to chase people off their property so the government can seize land in a secret effort to mine and control lithium! The government is taking FEMA money away from Americans hit by hurricanes and giving it to illegal immigrants! This is the worst economy in history. ALL of the aforementioned stories are outright lies with zero evidence to back them up, but yet, many Americans believe the lies to the point of condemning anyone who does not accept them, and they are promoting these lies as the truth.

Let’s not forget the ever popular, for now, the Dems are controlling the weather and directing hurricanes to punish Red States.  (If this one does not make you laugh then you have a serious problem).

But why do so many latch on the these ‘theories’ and run with them?

Did NASA fake the moon landing? Is the government hiding Martians in Area 51? Is global warming a hoax? The answer to these questions is, “No,” yet a committed subculture of conspiracy theorists vigorously argues the opposite.

Many scholars dismiss conspiracy theorists as paranoid and delusional. Psychological data bolster their case: people who harbor conspiracist thoughts are also more inclined to paranoid ideation and schizotypy, a mild form of schizophrenia. As conspiracy theory expert Timothy Melley of Miami University has put it, these beliefs are often dismissed as “the implausible visions of a lunatic fringe.”

Yet these antiestablishment ideas are surprisingly widely held. According to a national poll released last April by Public Policy Polling, 37 percent of Americans believe that global warming is a hoax, 21 percent think that the U.S. government is covering up evidence of the existence of space aliens and 28 percent suspect a secret elite power is plotting to take over the world. Only hours after the bombing at the Boston Marathon, people suggested, in YouTube videos and elsewhere on the Web, that the attack might have been an inside job and even that the entire event was a hoax.

With so many people ascribing to weakly supported explanations for news events, belief in conspiracy theories cannot be a mere symptom of pathology. The questioning of officialdom is critical to a functioning democracy, as the recent revelations of the National Security Agency’s electronic surveillance efforts illustrate. Yet new data suggest that conspiracy theories can diminish public engagement, eroding interest in issues of great political importance. Attaining a better understanding of why these ideas persist can help us devise new ways to combat misinformation.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-people-believe-conspiracy-theories/

I will go with the delusional thing.

Thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Is It Fact Or Fiction?

That is the question that should be asked when news hits your mind…..sadly nowadays it seldom is asked.

People have become so complacent that they accept anything as long as they do not have to think about it or it does not contradict their small minded ways.

This situation has been going on for a very long time and it has done its job well for few question the validity of the the news anymore.

A report has been issued that looked at this problem….

US citizens are worryingly poor at differentiating between fact and political opinion. This may not be the news you wanted to hear in an election year, but is the finding of new research led by scholars from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s Department of Political Science.

“The capacity to differentiate between a statement of opinion and a statement of fact is vital for citizens to manage the flood of political information they receive on any given day,” said co-author Professor Jeffery J. Mondak in a statement. 

In the age of polarizing discourse on social media, viral mis- and disinformation, and AI-generated fakery, sifting through to the facts of a political story is a challenging business. But Mondak and co-author Matthew Mettler believe the problems discerning truth from fiction start even further up the chain.

“There’s a huge amount of research on misinformation. But what we found is that, even before we get to the stage of labeling something misinformation, people often have trouble discerning the difference between statements of fact and opinion,” Mondak said.

https://www.iflscience.com/us-citizens-are-strikingly-bad-at-sorting-facts-from-opinions-73394

If you would like a more ‘political’ analysis then this report would help out….

https://thehill.com/changing-america/enrichment/arts-culture/4550432-americans-struggle-tell-difference-fact-opinion-study/

This report comes out just before the presidential campaigns kick-off in earnest…but people like me have been pointing this out for a very long time and it got much worse in 2010 and has been gaining strength ever since.

People make bold and inaccurate statements and a multitude of small minded bigots latch on to them and pass them off as fact when basically it is pure fiction.

Some of us try to stimulate people’s curiosity to make them look below and beyond the rantings and ravings of bigots and liars….

Our efforts go unrewarded because people are too slow to grasp anything that their tiny minds cannot comprehend.

Please look at all angles of a story to determine if what you see and hear is accurate.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Is The Media Failing Us?

I know I rant about the disservice I think the MSM is doing to the public by not reporting to passing on propaganda….few are listening instead they drink the disinformation kool-aid all to justify the waste of taxpayer money.

For now

In my considerable opinion it is failing badly…..the press that is…..

But then I am a cynic and do not think that the MSM is doing a service to the people of this country…..instead they are PR for the defense industry and as so they give only one side of any story….Ukraine is a perfect example of this disservice.

They have done their duty well…..their reporting have people so confused and indoctrinated that they will deflect when they are presented with alternative facts and information.

All that opinionated stuff aside….the question remains….is the media failing the citizens of this country?

As U.S. leaders speak more openly about their geopolitical goals, and Russian leaders warn of the risk of nuclear war, there are essential questions that journalists should be raising in their coverage of the war in Ukraine that they are not. Chief among them:

Is escalating what has clearly emerged as a proxy war between the United States and Russia hastening or prolonging the carnage in Ukraine?

And: What’s the best way to minimize the risk of a nuclear conflict?

Thus far, most American news coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine has reflected an unquestioned conviction that the more weapons the United States and the West send the Ukrainians the better.

It may well be that continuing and accelerating the arming of the Ukrainian military is, in fact, the best of bad options, the quickest way to peace, and doesn’t increase the likelihood of a nuclear strike. But that’s a hypothesis, which should be questioned and discussed, not blindly embraced as fact.

And in the meantime, Ukraine is being destroyed. Civilians are dying, refugees are fleeing for their lives, untold damage is being done to Ukraine’s infrastructure, and young men in arms are killing each other.

It’s time now for journalists to talk and write about at what point the goal of punishing Russia could diverge from the goal of bringing peace to the Ukrainian people as expediently as possible — and what the West should do if and when that happens.

The American media is failing us on Ukraine

I have been suspicious of the reports that were coming out of Ukraine….most are ‘unverified’ yet were reported as fact.

I am not alone….even real conservs see the crap the MSM is spreading…..

The coverage once again provided very little context regarding the underlying issues. Matters such as NATO expansion or the difficult, contentious Russia-Ukraine relationship were either ignored or treated in a way that confirmed Western and Ukrainian virtue and maximum Russian villainy. Journalists portrayed a complex situation as a stark melodrama, with all blame put on one side. Indeed, experts and pundits who even suggested that NATO’s policies had contributed to the current tensions were quickly smeared as siding with Putin, willingly circulating Russian propaganda or disinformation, or even as being outright Russian agents. Some of the architects of the new wave of smears were the same individuals who used similar tactics in the lead up to the Iraq War. Max Boot, Jennifer Rubin, and David Frum, for example, were all prominent alumni of that earlier campaign to silence dissenters, and here again they were hard at work branding critics of Washington’s Russia policy as disloyal.

The Press Fumbles Again on Ukraine

Americans need to care more about what is going on in Ukraine because there are American law makers that are calling for American troops to take a more active part in the conflict in Ukraine.

Even Pay Pal is trying to silent independent journalism by trying to close the accounts of two independent investigative journalism sites, Consortium News and Mint Press.

What are they afraid of?

Do you truly want another prolonged war?

NO?

Then pay attention and get all the facts before blindly side with war.

Image

Be Smart…..Learn Stuff….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–13Dec21

“Birds Aren’t Real!”

This has been a trending meme on Twitter for months.

Want more information?

Have you ever seen a baby pigeon? No? It’s probably because birds aren’t real but rather government drones used to spy on you and steal your information. That’s according to the Birds Aren’t Real movement, and a movement it is: hundreds of thousands of young people are now on board. Some will even tell you that woodpeckers are fluent in Morse code. Thankfully, it’s all a joke, as the 23-year-old founder of Birds Aren’t Real finally admits in a New York Times interview. “Yes, we have been intentionally spreading misinformation for the past four years, but it’s with a purpose,” says Peter McIndoe of Memphis, Tenn. “It’s about holding up a mirror to America in the internet age.”

It was a spur-of-the-moment decision. McIndoe was in downtown Memphis in January 2017 when he spotted a women’s march and counterprotesters in support of then-President Donald Trump. He grabbed a poster, flipped it over and wrote “Birds Aren’t Real,” then began spouting stuff about a government cover-up. “It was a spontaneous joke, but it was a reflection of the absurdity everyone was feeling,” he tells the Times. The episode went viral, drawing in Generation Z, which grew up in “a world overrun with misinformation,” per the Times. McIndoe knew a thing or two about that himself, having been homeschooled in rural Arkansas, where he was taught that “evolution was a massive brainwashing plan by the Democrats and Obama was the Antichrist.”

He began embodying the character he’d created, not faltering once in a 30-minute interview with Audubon in 2018; paid actors to pose as bird truthers; and built a fake history of the movement with friend Connor Gaydos. It fooled the public and local media, but members knew the reality. One describes the movement as “fighting lunacy with lunacy,” per the Times. Another says it’s “more about media literacy.” Or as Audubon described it: “a chimera of conspiracies that wraps satire, modern insecurities, and internet culture into a successful marketing scheme.” Merchandise sales not only cover McIndoe and Gaydos’ living expenses but support the movement overall. As McIndoe tells the New Statesman, it’s “a safe space of sorts, for people to come together and laugh at the absurdity of the world that we’re in right now.”

This illustrates the stupidity that social media creates…..and the stupidity that people are willing to accept.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–08Nov21

For decades now the GOP has been assaulting our educational system….trying desperately to curb the move to a more educated country…..the latest is in response to their lie about the Critical Race Theory….which by the way is taught as an elective in college….there is NO required subject along these lines.

According to the GOP parent’s are losing their rights……

One of the most dominant features of the modern Republican Party is its love for creating moral panic over things that either (1) aren’t actually happening or (2) are positive developments but ones that conservatives insist will lead to the downfall of society. Whether it’s immigrants supposedly taking Americans’ jobs or paid parental leave turning fathers into “doting dad[s],” the GOP has a long history of shamelessly trying to convince people that something very sinister is transpiring, and only Republicans can save them.

At the moment, the cause célèbre is the idea that liberals have stripped parents of a say in their children’s education, leading to terrible outcomes like kids being required to wear masks in the middle of a pandemic, curricula that includes accurate facts about America’s racist past and present, and—and you may want to sit down for this because it’s extremely alarming—the leaders of tomorrow being taught that the Holocaust did actually occur.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/11/republicans-parents-bill-of-rights

Just another wedge issue to avoid having any actually ideas or policies fr the voters…..all lies and yet it works perfectly on the voter…..how sad is that?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–22Oct21

Will twice be the charm for the former president?

He has started the second social media platform…the first attempt fell om his face…..

Former President Trump’s long-promised social media platform will be here soon. Trump announced the forthcoming launch of TRUTH Social in a press release Wednesday, saying the site’s parent company, the newly created Trump Media & Technology Group, aims to “create a rival to the liberal media consortium and fight back against the ‘Big Tech’ companies of Silicon Valley, which have used their unilateral power to silence opposing voices in America.” Trump remains banned from Twitter and Facebook. A beta launch of TRUTH Social is expected next month for “invited guests.” A full public debut is expected by the first quarter of 2022, Fox News reports. “Truth Social” was trademarked by Trump Group Corp. in July of this year. More:

  • Announcement: Read the press release in full here. It contains this statement from Trump, chairman of TMTG: “I created TRUTH Social and TMTG to stand up to the tyranny of Big Tech. We live in a world where the Taliban has a huge presence on Twitter, yet your favorite American President has been silenced. This is unacceptable. I am excited to send out my first TRUTH on TRUTH Social very soon.”
  • Site: TRUTHSocial.com contains a link to pre-order the app on Apple’s App Store, a form to sign up for the waiting list, and this description of the site: “America’s ‘Big Tent’ social media platform that encourages an open, free, and honest global conversation without discriminating against political ideology.”
  • App: The App Store page features screenshots of what the app will look like, and an option to pre-order it.
  • Familiar? If those screenshots are giving you a sense of deja vu, the Guardian notes that the user profile shown on the App Store page “bears a striking resemblance to a Twitter profile.”
  • Video: A subscription video-on-demand service featuring “non-woke” content is also planned, CNBC reports. The streaming service will be called TMTG+, Axios reports.
  • Trump Jr.: Donald Trump Jr. went on Fox News on Wednesday night to tout the upcoming site; he said TRUTH Social will allow people to express their First Amendment rights instead of conservatives being censored. Watch the clip here.
  • Reaction: Justin Amash, the Republican-turned-Libertarian, tweeted, “A former president seeking to reclaim power announcing that he’ll soon be sending out his ‘first TRUTH’ via his new platform ‘TRUTH Social’ is some real Orwellian s***.”
  • Minutiae: A special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) will be involved in the launch of the site; for more on the ins-and-outs of that, see Reuters and the Wall Street Journal.
  • History: Axios notes that Trump’s team was at one point in talks with FreeSpace about building a social app, and that Trump’s team and former aide Jason Miller also tried to come to a deal on Gettr, which Miller ultimately launched alone.

A meeting place for MORONs.

Maybe a better title for this new platform should be The ZOO–Where the creatures meet.O see that hackers have greeted the new “platform”…..

Donald Trump created Truth Social to “stand up to the tyranny of Big Tech,” but the former president’s new social media platform doesn’t have the legs yet to stand up to hackers. Just a couple of hours after Trump on Wednesday introduced Truth Social and its parent company, the Trump Media & Technology Group, someone breached a private version of the still-to-be-launched social media site. They went to town, first creating a fake “donaldjtrump” account, then setting up even more not-real handles under the names of Steve Bannon, Mike Pence, and Twitter’s own Jack Dorsey, reports the New York Times.

From there, the hackers went the scatological route, posting profane rants that targeted Dorsey, as well as photos of defecating pigs. Claiming responsibility for the breach: the infamous hacking collective Anonymous, with members telling the Times the move was part of their “online war against hate.” “We had a fun time trolling it to high heaven,” one hacker says. Mikael Thalen of the Daily Dot talked to a representative from the group, who told him they sussed out the name of a developer involved in the project then used the Shodan search engine to do some digging.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”