Disinformation Is Tearing America Apart
Disinformation Is Tearing America Apart
America is undergoing a devastating erosion of trust that threatens the foundations of democracy.
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Disinformation is the deliberate use of lies to manipulate people, whether to extract profit or to advance a political agenda. Its unwitting accomplice, misinformation, is spread by unknowing dupes who repeat lies they believe to be true. In America today, both forms of falsehood are distorting our perception of reality.
In a democracy, the people need a shared set of facts as a basis to debate and make decisions that advance and secure their collective interests. Differences of opinion, and even propaganda, have always existed in the United States, but now, enemies of democracy are using disinformation to attack our sovereign right to truthful information, intellectual integrity, and the exercise of the will of the people. Online disinformation is particularly insidious because of its immediacy, its capacity to deceive, and its ability to reach its target.
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Conservatives never have facts and reason on their side, so they just drop them and stop caring for reality.
Speaking the truth and being right-wing are always mutually exclusive!
Not just the right.
Yeah but mostly.
Kinda irrelevant though. The Democratic party is our only real opportunity to defeat the Republican party. If the behavior of establishment Democrats, the ones who control the party, is knee capping our ability to do that it must be addressed.
Well yeah I totally agree there, I’m not a love it or leave it type. We should hold the people we support to the highest standard and be openly critical of issues, hypocrisy, and injustice. But it is mostly the other guys doing those three things be a pretty wide margin :P
Not sure why you're being downvoted. Wasn't it shown that e.g. Russia is targeting our side just as heavily?
The left don't fall for it as easily and they don't spread it as virulently, and when they do it's for what? Policies that generally benefit and are agreed on by enormous majorities of real people.
Did I miss the left not falling for Hunter Biden's laptop was not genuine? Or maybe the Steele dossier? Or maybe cloth masks will protect us from Covid?
The cloth masks were supposed to be a simple thing society could all agree to do for a while until better, medically proven masks were readily available. While they probably provide a benefit by reducing transmission, even if only by a small amount, they certainly don't hurt. This was all that was available at a time of overflowing hospitals, supply shortages, and rapidly increasing infection rates.
Republicans, a club of mostly white guys who have publicly declared themselves the nemesis of science, immediately embraced obviously false claims arriving in their AOL email inboxes that the masks were actually harmful and that by wearing them, they were endorsing an impending government takeover by a new world order run by black antifa Jews... or some shit, I mean Jesus fuck you guys will believe anything. So anyway, those same Republicans loudly shouted "oppression" and to this day they won't stop talking about it even though the rest of the world can't stop thinking about just how batshit crazy these people went in the early days of the pandemic.
Entire international medical community : "While we really prefer if you would just stay home for a bit and cut down on social gatherings, we know you're still going to go out. But if you could please at least wear this. It's cheap, readily available, and we're desperate to do anything to slow this thing down. We think they probably help in certain circumstances like if you're infected but don't know it yet. If we all work together and exercise basic precau..."
Republicans: "This is literal slavery. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm late to church."
Now do Hunter Biden not being a political figure so who gives a shit about some laptop when what you're really concerned with is the porn on it.
Or do the Steele Dossier always being presented as political oppo research to which anyone has reasonable suspicion of Trump having a boner for Putin as demonstrated by his actions.
I have not seen a single actual real left-leaning person who gives even half of a shit about Hunter's laptop, I think the most I heard about the Steele dossier was basically "we should look into that and see if it's legitimate or not," and cloth masks were never supposed to be a COVID killer, just a reasonable step to reduce transmission, much like the masks surgeons wear in surgery, and they remain even today a reasonable step to reduce airborne pathogens.
Did you just pop in from Bizarro-world?
edit: To be clear, we on the left do fall for misinformation and are coerced effectively constantly, but you chose terrible cases of this as examples.
Seems like maybe you missed the press about the Biden laptop being Russian disinformation, or the President himself calling it that during the debate?
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/19/hunter-biden-story-russian-disinfo-430276
The fact that the NY Post's Twitter account was suspended, and Twitter did not allow the link to the article shared on the platform even via DMs. While FB deamplified the news may have had an effect on the election. So obviously some left leaning individuals cared about it very much and wanted the news about it shut down prior to the election.
Conflating the actions of "left-leaning" politicians and political agents with left-leaning voters is disingenuous. I'm sure those up to their ears in the muck care about what's happening in the swamp; those of us on dry land only care about what leaves the swamp, not most of what happens in it. I have real-world conversations about politics with people frequently; I have never once heard the laptop come up in these real-world conversations with left-leaning friends and colleagues as anything more than footnote. I'm sure mileage varies, I won't claim to speak for everyone, but personally I doubt my experience in this regard is uncommon.
Liberals too, yeah.
Rational people don't go into politics.
People that believe in liberty have to go into politics if we are to maintain any of our liberty. Get your propaganda out of here.
"People that believe in liberty"
Like I said, rational people don't go into politics.
Liberty is not an obtainable goal but an ideal, defined as "the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one's way of life, behavior, or political views".
This idealistic principle is fundamentally incompatible with Democratic Society, because my liberty to breathe clean air is an oppressive restriction to those who want the liberty to pollute it and vice versa.
Any political idealist who promises to support "liberty" without clarification should be treated with suspicion, as that sort of rhetoric is only useful for distracting from more specific policy goals.
Eh, there's a difference between believing in liberty, and believing in all the liberty.
Hence, the need for clarification. "Liberty" is a meaningless buzzword unless the person using it is specific about whose liberty to do what.
I dunno, I think it's pretty clear that it's basic freedoms within the law. Words like Libertarian takes over after that, going into dismantling a lot of the existing laws.
It's all over the writings around the founding of our country, at any rate, so it's not going anywhere no matter how much people fuck around with it.
Seems to me like the founders had a very specific kind of liberty in mind and a very narrow fraction of the population it would apply to..
Pretty much, yea. Things like that are why we have an amendment process though.
Sure, but the amendment process is predicated upon broad agreement between the dominant political parties and hasn't been used in 30 years, for an amendment about congressional salaries that took over 200 years to be ratified.
As justice delayed is justice denied, I don't think we can rely on constitutional amendments as sufficient. It took almost 200 years to finally ban poll taxes despite this country's constant rhetoric about liberty and justice being for all.
I believe in Liberty above all else. I also believe you cannot be moral and a politician, and that voting is an immoral act.
I sympathize with your view, but cannot buy in to it
Liberty to what and for whom?
For everyone. I give no fucks who you are, live your life as you see fit.
That's not Liberty, that's not even Anarchism.
What you're describing is the Law of the Jungle.
Always easy to tell when people are commenting in bad faith.
Right? Saying they're for "Liberty" without offering a clue as to what they mean by such a vague term.
How's that ceasefire deal coming lol?
What about whataboutism?
Disinformation comes from both sides. Don't let yourself be propagandized into defending a political party to the death.
The vast majority of Republicans believe things that are factually untrue.
The same doesn't apply to any other political demographic in the US. There is significantly more right wing grift out there than lib grift cuz libs are probably more intelligent.
Literally every single right wing commentator out there used to be a lib until they realized Republicans were dumber so it was easier to dupe them out of their money.
I'm also seeing the entire Democratic party aside from Tlaib saying there's no Genocide of going on. What do you make of that?
And Biden will get you that ceasefire any day now..