I don’t know the answer to that question … although I suspect it’s a pretty big proportion of what you’ll see, especially if you stick to legacy media sites who regularly indulge in cover-up, state propaganda, and outright lies while condemning other media as “conspiracy theorists”. Chris Bray, on the other hand, thinks there are hopeful signs that we’ve passed peak disinformation as the pandemic lockdowns get further behind us:
I’ve been trying to come up with a count: If you consume a typical amount of news media and social media product, how many individual pieces of dishonest, misleading, and calculatedly or ignorantly unreal “information” do you take on board over the course of a typical day?
Walter Kirn’s one-sentence summary of contemporary media is stuck in my head: “This is a world-concealing layer of diversionary and illogical and internally inconsistent noise, under which the world exists somewhere.” How much noise do you have to purge to merely get to zero, not at all informed but not not deeply misinformed? And if you encounter the deep thoughts of Ruth Ben-Ghiat, does the deficit merely double, or is it much worse than that?
Democracy means you must not question or oppose the head of state
I’ve been reading on The Site Formerly Known as Twitter this week that Elon Musk’s refusal to activate the privately owned Starlink network over Crimea is a violation of the Geneva Conventions, which now apparently apply to corporate product, and also high treason, for which Elon Musk should be executed. At the risk of mixing metaphors, it’s like the Internet allows strangers to use your brain as a toilet. Although, as the Twitter randos always end up explaining, I just feel this way because I’M PUTIN’S NAZI BUTTBOY.
All day, every day, 24/7/365 — well, maybe with some breaks for sleep, but only if you stop looking at your phone at night — you take on garbage. Your brain is loaded with information barriers, dressed up as information. You read and hear sentences that are designed to prevent understanding.
In a similar vein, I’m noticing a whole lot of posts on GAB that just don’t seem to smell right. There’s a “Hello fellow Dissident” vibe that I get. It’s nothing I can put a finger on. Nothing too overt. Even so, I’m suspecting a lot of these are honey pots. Sure, fellow dissident tell us exactly how you feel about (insert controversial topic) We’d like to hear you out. Maybe record what you say for future reference. No one here but us, right?
Maybe I’m just paranoid. Maybe.
JWM
Comment by jwm — September 17, 2023 @ 10:35
I’ve certainly noted a strong uptick of antisemitic/neo-nazi commenters on my own Gab posts lately. They’ve always been around … Gab was one of the few places that didn’t fall into the ideological straightjacket over the “free speech has limits”. I try to ignore them and they generally do go away, but I haven’t had anything like your “Hello fellow Dissident” experience so far.
Comment by Nicholas — September 17, 2023 @ 10:40