'How Google's Ad Business Funds Disinformation Around the World' (propublica.org) 206
Today ProPublica published "the largest-ever analysis of Google's ad practices on non-English-language websites," saying their report shows Google "is funneling revenue to some of the web's most prolific purveyors of false information in Europe, Latin America and Africa," and "reveals how the tech giant makes disinformation profitable...."
The company has publicly committed to fighting disinformation around the world, but a ProPublica analysis, the first ever conducted at this scale, documented how Google's sprawling automated digital ad operation placed ads from major brands on global websites that spread false claims on such topics as vaccines, COVID-19, climate change and elections.... The resulting ad revenue is potentially worth millions of dollars to the people and groups running these and other unreliable sites — while also making money for Google.
Platforms such as Facebook have faced stark criticism for failures to crack down on disinformation spread by people and governments on their platforms around the world. But Google hasn't faced the same scrutiny for how its roughly $200 billion in annual ad sales provides essential funding for non-English-language websites that misinform and harm the public. Google's publicly announced policies bar the placement of ads on content that makes unreliable or harmful claims on a range of issues, including health, climate, elections and democracy. Yet the investigation found Google regularly places ads, including those from major brands, on articles that appear to violate its own policy.
ProPublica's examination showed that ads from Google are more likely to appear on misleading articles and websites that are in languages other than English, and that Google profits from advertising that appears next to false stories on subjects not explicitly addressed in its policy, including crime, politics, and such conspiracy theories as chemtrails. A former Google leader who worked on trust and safety issues acknowledged that the company focuses heavily on English-language enforcement and is weaker across other languages and smaller markets....
The former Google leader suggests Google focuses on English-language problems partly because they're sensitive to bad PR and the posibility of regulatory scrutiny (and because English-language markets have the biggest impact).
Google is spending more money to patrol non-English content, a spokesperson told ProPublica, touting the company's "extensive measures to tackle misinformation... In 2021, we removed ads from more than 1.7 billion publisher pages and 63,000 sites globally. We know that our work is not done, and we will continue to invest in our enforcement systems to better detect unreliable claims and protect users around the world."
But in some cases Google's ads appeared on false online article published years ago, the article points out, "suggesting that the company's failure to block ads on content that appears to violate its rules is a long-standing and ongoing problem... [T]he investigation shows that as one arm of Google helps support fact-checkers, its core ad business provides critical revenue that ensures the publication of falsehoods remains profitable."
Platforms such as Facebook have faced stark criticism for failures to crack down on disinformation spread by people and governments on their platforms around the world. But Google hasn't faced the same scrutiny for how its roughly $200 billion in annual ad sales provides essential funding for non-English-language websites that misinform and harm the public. Google's publicly announced policies bar the placement of ads on content that makes unreliable or harmful claims on a range of issues, including health, climate, elections and democracy. Yet the investigation found Google regularly places ads, including those from major brands, on articles that appear to violate its own policy.
ProPublica's examination showed that ads from Google are more likely to appear on misleading articles and websites that are in languages other than English, and that Google profits from advertising that appears next to false stories on subjects not explicitly addressed in its policy, including crime, politics, and such conspiracy theories as chemtrails. A former Google leader who worked on trust and safety issues acknowledged that the company focuses heavily on English-language enforcement and is weaker across other languages and smaller markets....
The former Google leader suggests Google focuses on English-language problems partly because they're sensitive to bad PR and the posibility of regulatory scrutiny (and because English-language markets have the biggest impact).
Google is spending more money to patrol non-English content, a spokesperson told ProPublica, touting the company's "extensive measures to tackle misinformation... In 2021, we removed ads from more than 1.7 billion publisher pages and 63,000 sites globally. We know that our work is not done, and we will continue to invest in our enforcement systems to better detect unreliable claims and protect users around the world."
But in some cases Google's ads appeared on false online article published years ago, the article points out, "suggesting that the company's failure to block ads on content that appears to violate its rules is a long-standing and ongoing problem... [T]he investigation shows that as one arm of Google helps support fact-checkers, its core ad business provides critical revenue that ensures the publication of falsehoods remains profitable."
A fence at the top... (Score:5, Interesting)
Until they're held legally responsible for what they're doing, they won't stop. It's far too profitable to spread lies & misinformation, as Joseph Pulitzer & William Randolph Hearst discovered & made their fortunes in the late 19th & early 20th centuries. It's time to rein Google et al. in like we did with that "yellow journalism" a century ago.
Re:A fence at the top... (Score:5, Interesting)
A good read in this context is "The lost honour of Katharina Blum" [wikipedia.org], which makes exactly that the topic of the book: An innocent person gets discredited and slandered by a tabloid to the point where she eventually shoots one of its journalists.
And the internet media today are pretty much what the unfettered yellowpress was: A sensationalist slandering machine.
Re:A fence at the top... (Score:4, Interesting)
P.S. I do realise that a lot of what I've said also applies to newspapers & TV stations, & yes, it should. Many newsrooms have sacked their fact-checkers in the race to make money out of publishing click-bait. It's a race to the bottom & we pay for it with our public discourse & democracies while they make out like bandits. In the light of this, it's easy to understand why some countries choose to restrict or block many social media companies. It's not always entirely about authoritarian control.
Re:A fence at the top... (Score:5, Insightful)
We already have historical examples of this happening. The Weimar Republic had such laws in place and they shut down many Nazi publications in the 1920s and some prominent Nazi party members even received prison sentences for violating those laws. Unfortunately they did nothing to prevent those ideas from spreading and worse yet gave the Nazis an easy claim that they were being persecuted and that it must obviously have been for the very reasons they were claiming. When they eventually gained enough political power the same laws were used to prevent criticism of the Nazi party and to shut down opposition of their message. Soon the only truth you were allowed to utter was the one they had decided was true.
The best defense against bad ideas is an educated public that is free to argue against them. It's hard to claim any kind of victim hood when not one stops you from speaking your peace and everyone else is just as free to speak theirs and point out how ridiculous your ideas might be. Preventing them from being shared in public doesn't stop them from spreading, it only leaves them to fester in the dark. For anyone who truly thinks Trump and his ilk (or substitute your own equivalent) are so awful and must be prevented from speaking, you really should ask yourself if you'd be comfortable with them holding power with the kind of tools in place that allow someone to decide what kind of discourse is no longer free. As many have discovered throughout history, the guillotine they helped erect will gladly take their head as well.
Re:A fence at the top... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Are you arguing that the USA's slander laws & media regulation have undermined US democracy & turned it into a fascist state?
Uhh I don't know how to tell you this, buddy...
Though to be clear, slander and libel laws have nothing to do with it.
How do we solve this? [Re:A fence at the top...] (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds great until it's subverted by whoever is in power to get establish what the truth is and to punish everyone else who dares to say otherwise.
Yes, that is indeed the problem.
The price of freedom is that you get a few cranks who get to say whatever they want.
Unfortunately, what we have found is that it's not just "a few cranks." The army of trolls evil trolls spreading disinformation for lolz is bad enough, but the worse problem is deliberate lies being spread by organizations and countries to manipulate political goals and spread hate and schism.
We have discovered that this is not a theoretical problem, it is a very real problem and very destructive.
I wouldn't require Google or anyone else to do business with them, but you're incredibly foolish to think that the very tools you create to safeguard the truth or democracy won't be subverted by the worst sort of people.
This is a hard problem. Allowing disinformation to be spread unchecked is destructive. Stopping it, however, is liable to be misused.
How do we solve this?
Censorship is a cure worse than the disease (Score:3)
Far better to have some garbage than to allow private companies decide what we read, for profit.
For google, search for
origin of covid tuntable
There is only one site on the internet with those words, and you will not find it on Google. You may or may not agree with the content, but to censor it is odious.
https://www.originofcovid.org/ [originofcovid.org]
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Until they're held legally responsible for what they're doing, they won't stop.
It's this. Market pressures mean that companies tend towards the most profitable thing. Even if Google did stop this, someone else will step in and go worse. We need to recognize that "speech" by companies is not the same as speech by people. If someone is doing their job and being paid to speak in a certain way without complete personal freedom to say what they want without penalty then that is not "free speech".
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What if a person was doing it, not google?
You cannot draw some kind of magical distinction there.
The private sector must have the right to censor on its property, just as people must have the right to speak while on their property (including public property)
You cannot regulate the right to censor without abridging Freedom of the Press.
Attempts to do otherwise are either misguided, or a direct attempt at putting speech into the control of the Government.
If you can tell a
Re: A fence at the top... (Score:2)
"This company has performed an illegal action and will be terminated."
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On the other hand, no company should be allowed to have discriminatory rules. if they don't have employees who are willing to make a cake for a gay wedding then they should buy someone in who is willing to do it.
And if no one is willing to do it...? How hard should the company work to make this happen? If you try hard enough, you can conceive of a "cake" that no business should be required to decorate because of how batshit insane or offensive it is. And that would be "discrimination." Tough beans, in my opinion.
As a blanket rule, no, businesses shouldn't be required to bring someone in who is willing to do whatever is asked for, because it's tyrannical and idiotic to impose that cost on a business. If it's so easy to find a gay cake baker, let the customer do that instead of saying the business should do the research, hiring, papework etc to ensure one customer gets his cake. In this particular case, there *were* other bakeries in the area that would have done the cake the activists wanted, but that wasn't good enough - the activists needed the christian baker to submit and be humiliated. Fuck those power-hungry bully activist pieces of shit, fuck their weaponizing of the law, and fuck their stupid cake.
I disagree with blanket rule too. But there should be no blanket rules for both side. That is, customer will is not free for all nor is business decision free for all. How much freedom a company should get for refusing to serve a customer should depend on how much that company or companies dominated the market and how hard is unsatisfied customers formed their own company to compete or serve themselves. For cake baking, the barrier of entry is extremely low thus a reasonable person will expect a bakery to
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For cake baking, the barrier of entry is extremely low thus a reasonable person will expect a bakery to be free to choose their customer. For banks or credit card companies, the barrier of entry is extremely high thus a reasonable person will expect them to be neutral to everyone. For small internet forums / newsgroup, the barrier of entry is relatively low thus it is reasonable to expect they can be selective in who can stay in their small community. For global internet giants such as Google and Facebook, the barrier to compete with them is extremely high thus it is reasonable to expect their moderators to NOT impose their personal political opinion into their users.
Just to say that, although I'm not 100% sure I agree - some people in a small village might easily find that they only have one cake baker within hundreds of miles, generally I'm pretty okay with the ideas behind this solution. Basically it's reasonable to require evidence of actual harm and not just hypotheticals. People setting up conflict for conflict's sake are a plague on humanity. Thus, although I don't agree with the letter of what AC said before you, I'm with them in the spirit that setting up "the
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I am never about limiting Google / Apple / Paypal / VISA / MasterCard etc. to speak in their own voice by themselves. I am only against they exercise / abuse their market power in cartel-like manner to silence wrongthink. If you have any good idea how to break Apple-Google duopoly in smartphone and mobile app market or the cartel nature of banking and payment service, I am fully welcome with that. And if you succeed, then we may stop caring the lack of their customer neutrality.
But before that happen, we
Algorithms maximize outrage [Re:A fence at the...] (Score:3)
It's this. Market pressures mean that companies tend towards the most profitable thing.
This is a real problem. The product that Google sells is access to eyeballs. What keeps peoples' attention glued to the screen is outrage, and so the algorithms for what Google shows people are crafted to favor outrage.
Unfortunately, the people who craft disinformation know that, and have evolved to craft lies that maximize outrage.
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Until they're held legally responsible for what they're doing, they won't stop. It's far too profitable to spread lies & misinformation
indeed but, otoh, the people spreading the misinformation are known yet aren't held responsible in any way. misinformation is as old as humanity, it's ubiquitous and can both grossly coarse or very subtle ... this is a very tricky subject, it is not possible to tackle but the most blatant offenses, there are lots and lots of actors involved and it simply can't be blamed on google alone.
the only real solution to this imo is raising the general level of education and basic skills in critical thinking. for som
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I believe in free speech & I see no crime in lying to reporters. It's the publishers' responsibility, nay, duty to make every reasonable effort to ensure that what they publish is factually correct
duty. what is a publisher? because this encompasses now from google to individual tiktok users just the same as the the bbc or fox or the ny times. "the journalists oath" has never been much more than a mix of good intentions, self-righteousness, excuses and propaganda spin, implying that it had any substantial effect in the truthfulness of the emitted narratives is really innocent thinking, but today it is completely moot and diluted in a world of universal access. i say the only long term solution is maki
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Re: A fence at the top... (Score:2)
The same should go for ads.
Users shall be able to flag ads. LinkedIn actually let you do that. You'll get different ads, but you'd get rid of the ones that are problematic.
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Some proof (Score:5, Interesting)
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+1, there amount of lies and deceptive statements from Youtube here so that they could continue to profit from dangerous lies is mind-boggling, what Youtube have done has likely contributed to the loss of lives from Covid and also (IANAL) looks treasonous to me.
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It's arguably not treason unless it's willful aid to the enemy. Not doing enough diligence to determine whether someone is the enemy is a grey area.
OTOH when someone gets paid to disseminate a piece of content, I would argue that's no longer merely something someone else posted on their service, but something they are willfully disseminating, so Section 230 should not apply. I propose that the payment should determine the nature of the interaction. This idea will of course be wildly unpopular among those fo
Nevermind the misinformation. It killed the web. (Score:5, Interesting)
No, that is nonsense (Score:2)
You can't blame Google for capitalism, and SEO was a thing before Google even existed, it just wasn't broadly known like it is now. Google is actually responsible for plenty, let's just hold them accountable for the things they actually do (like accepting money to perpetrate fraud.)
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God forbid people don't give you something for free anymore. Honestly did you think the Internet would stay a set of volunteer nerds posting stuff on Geocities forever? Back in the days where a Slashdot post will knock you off the internet?
You know half the time those servers didn't suffer under bandwidth constraints, they were voluntarily and rapidly shutdown by the operators who didn't want the resulting bill from their service provider.
Poogle and Fecebook shit on YOU! (Score:2)
In Soviet Russia.
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That only works as a thing if it's the other way around in the rest of the world.
Re: Poogle and Fecebook shit on YOU! (Score:2)
Google and Facebook don't exist in Soviet Russia.
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Google and Facebook don't exist in Soviet Russia.
Nothing exists in Soviet Russia, since Soviet Russia doesn't exist any more.
Fascist Russia is a different thing.
All ads are disinformation (Score:3)
That's why we block them.
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The tracking is the root problem, not the ads. All commercial tracking of people needs to stop.
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The tracking is the root problem, not the ads. All commercial tracking of people needs to stop.
I agree with your latter sentence, but not your former one. Both things are problems, in different ways. That they are combined doesn't change that.
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Indeed. Why risk it. Block them all. Pihole is your friend.
https://pi-hole.net/ [pi-hole.net]
Best,
Never let morals (Score:2)
get in the way of profits, isn't that right Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc?
A bit of a stretch (Score:2)
Google's data is like a tool, like a hammer, that can be used for many purposes.
Someone's misinformation is another person's strongly held beliefs. Who is to decide what is true or false? Each of us individually must
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Belief is by definition not fact. If it were fact, there would be no reason to 'believe' in it.
Sheesh (Score:2)
Free speech != amplification (Score:2)
Seriously, is it a right for your garbage to be delivered to everybody?
Youtube:This Flashlight is Basically a Light Saber (Score:2)
Re:disinformation or disagreeable information? (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh please. Try to spread your conspiracy bullshit somewhere where people are stupid enough to believe it.
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... somewhere where people are stupid enough to believe it.
Haven't been paying attention to Slashdot lately, huh?
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We're still a far cry from Reddit.
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Well, the bar on the internet isn't that high in general.
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Oh we're glad you're doing the watching. And we have total faith in you. You're really, really, really important. Really. And so is your opinion.
Re: disinformation or disagreeable information? (Score:4, Insightful)
If you think you can do better, I welcome your well reasoned argument.
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You do realize that the US is one of the few, if not the only country in the world that has as much "free speech" protection as it has, right?
Most other countries recognize there's a limit to it.
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That is a strawman and a total bad faith interpretation of what they are saying and I think you know that.
Also do you think the majority of those people are coming in for the speech or because the USA has economic oppurtunity? Like it or not these arguments we are having are ones of luxury. Esoteric discussions about the limits of free speech are worthless if you are dirt poor.
Are people in EU and other nations that much more restricted in their speech? What can we say that they cannot?
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Are people in EU and other nations that much more restricted in their speech? What can we say that they cannot?
In the USA, truth is an absolute defense against libel/slander. In the UK for example, it is not. If your goal in sharing a fact is to do harm to someone, that is illegal in the UK. But what if they deserve harm? What if what they are doing is doing a great deal of harm, but isn't illegal, and you are trying to stop them?
Also in the UK, it's still illegal for any non-citizen to engage in "seditious speech", and even citizens were punished for such speech during the celebration of colonial oppression which f
Your ignorance is showing (Score:2)
In the UK it is a complete defence to a claim to show that the statement is true. Section 2(1) Defamation Act 2013 states that
“it is a defence to an action for defamation for the defendant to show that the imputation conveyed by the statement complained of is substantially true”.
https://www.carruthers-law.co.... [carruthers-law.co.uk]
'Also in the UK, it's still illegal for any non-citizen to engage in "seditious speech", and even citizens were punished for such speech during the celebratio
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In the UK it is a complete defence to a claim to show that the statement is true.
I see you didn't read down to the part "The defendant must be very careful relying on truth because even if the publisher knew that the allegation was true, it may find it difficult to persuade the judge with enough evidence that that is the case. It is likely that the defendant will be penalised in damages if not successful." It is NOT enough for your statement to be true, by your own citation. You also have to convince a judge that you knew it was true! That's why it is not an "absolute" defense, just lik
Indeed, your ignorance is showing (Score:2)
You don't seem to know what "absolute defense" means.
Yes, still have to be able to prove it in court.
You can't get out of a slander (or libel) case by asserting "what I said is true," no more than you can get out of a murder trial by saying "I didn't kill him." Like everything else in the legals system, you have to prove it in court.
Messy (Score:2)
Your argument used the term 'seditious speech' but now you are referring to a few questionable incidents during official ceremonies; disrupting the funeral cortege has the moral integrity of disrupting a religious service, whilst the official proclamation should be respected as that. Yes, do have your own public gatherings to make your point, but don't disrupt others' gatherings, especially when the people are mourning.
The motivation for the arrests in Scotland had no 'colonial' element to it; you're using
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Your argument used the term 'seditious speech' but now you are referring to a few questionable incidents during official ceremonies
hahaha "questionable incidents" you guys have a euphemism for everything, don't you?
Re: disinformation or disagreeable information? (Score:4, Insightful)
American Exceptionalism doesn't mean we are exceptiopnal by default, just because of the words on the paper.
To many of us that that exceptionalism has to be earned continually, the work is never done and frankylu for many of us that means more than just "say what you want". For me the fact that any human living in these borders is without a home, food, education or medical care is the farthest thing from "exceptional" and while that's my opinion it's just as valid as yours.
"American exceptionalism" [Re: disinformation...] (Score:2)
American Exceptionalism doesn't mean we are exceptiopnal by default, just because of the words on the paper.
Correct.
The phrase "American exceptionalism" does not mean "America is exceptionally great." It means "Americans should be excepted from international laws."
Re: disinformation or disagreeable information? (Score:5, Insightful)
For a free speech to work, it requires a sensible and well informed audience. As we have very good evidence right now what happens if you don't have something like that. Because without, it can be used for exactly that tyranny. As we can also see right now.
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It also requires politicians who are reasonably moral and who won't resort to any form of lies and cheating to win in elections. That has long since ceased to be the case as well
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It most of all needs politicians who don't use fear to get people to vote for them even though they have nothing to give but to be against whatever "the establishment" does, because everything else they do is to the detriment of the people who they try to bullshit into voting for them.
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It's not like the right would do any better, we can only choose between worshipping diversity and worshipping some OCD patient sky daddy. Education isn't really an option.
Re: disinformation or disagreeable information? (Score:4, Insightful)
That explains the rationale for the Left going out of its way to destroy education (with empty virtue signalling about how much they care about education) wherever they happen to take root while winking at big tech's tyranny engine.
The reich wing literally deliberately began to compromise education under Reagan, the former worst president of all time, explicitly to avoid the creation of an "educated proletariat". And this led directly to your comment. Nothing succeeds like success, huh?
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I'm not the one who thinks my opinion is important.
But then again, I don't have to pretend it is. That's the beauty about reality, it doesn't care about your opinion.
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Red Herring. Moving Goalposts. Straw Man.
Nice! In 2 lines, too!
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The only useful response to bullshit is more bullshit!
Re:If there's ONE word I never want to hear again. (Score:4, Interesting)
If it is factually wrong and repeated over and over in an attempt to either destabilize a government, gain monetary profit or just to cause trouble, what would be a more appropriate term for it?
I'm willing to use another word for it, no problem. Words don't have power, they only describe something, that's all.
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"I'm willing to use another word for it, no problem."
But see, that's the whole point. No one needs "another word" for it, we don't need any word for it. Just slinging some dismissive word in the general direction of a problem is a knee-jerk reaction, it's not a solution. It's intellectually lazy.
Re:If there's ONE word I never want to hear again. (Score:5, Insightful)
If it is factually wrong and repeated over and over in an attempt to either destabilize a government, gain monetary profit or just to cause trouble, what would be a more appropriate term for it?
Lie. It's called a lie. Such as "fraud" in the 2020 election. Every time someone says it, they're lying.
Kids using cat litter boxes in school because they identify as cats [cnn.com]? A complete and outright lie [nbcnews.com] deliberately designed to be a dog whistle.
What the right is doing with all this lying is what Goebbel's said about England:
The English follow the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous.*
Pick any subject we hear about repeatedly and there is a highly probability (90%+) it's a lie designed to appease the dullards. In the past, when people lied, they were called out for it, such as Edward R. Murrow did to Joseph McCarthy's repeated attacks on innocent people in the name of "fighting communism".
When they were called out for the lie, people would either admit they were wrong or shrink into irrelevance as a quack or nutjob. No longer. There is a large body of people ready, willing, and able to absorb any lie tossed their way so long as it fits the narrative they want to hear. The bigger the lie, the better. The more outrageous the lie, the more it is countered which means it's really the truth attempting to be suppressed.
Don't believe me? How many hundreds of thousands of people died in one year because they believed the lies that goat paste would cure them of covid or that covid wasn't a big deal to worry about? Fortunately, we don't have to worry about them any longer, but there will always be someone to step into their shoes when the right lie comes along.
* The quote everyone thinks he said was originally from Hitler in his little book [jewishvirtuallibrary.org].
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Kids using cat litter boxes in school because they identify as cats? A complete and outright lie deliberately designed to be a dog whistle.
I see what you did there.
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If it is factually wrong and repeated over and over in an attempt to either destabilize a government, gain monetary profit or just to cause trouble, what would be a more appropriate term for it? -- Lie. It's called a lie.
I think the word "lie" implies (1) the speaker knows it's false, (2) the speaker has intent to deceive.
The originators of the lies you mentioned (kids using litter-boxes, 2020 election fraud) - I'm sure they knew these things were false and intended to deceive. But for the people who pick up these lies and repeat them? I bet many of them don't know they're false, and don't intend to deceive. (Indeed I suspect that a critical evaluation of true/false isn't usually happening, and the intent is behind repeatin
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think the word "lie" implies (1) the speaker knows it's false, (2) the speaker has intent to deceive.
The people spreading these lies know they're false. They have told repeatedly what they said is not true and presented with evidence to prove it. Yet they keep repeating the lie because the dullars of the world readily believe them.
As I said a bit further up to a goalpost mover, the person stating the lie must show evidence for what they are claiming. They cannot simply say it's true and go about repeating
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I think the word "lie" implies (1) the speaker knows it's false, (2) the speaker has intent to deceive.
It's only an outright lie about the topic at hand if the speaker knows it's false. If the speaker doesn't know what the fuck they're talking about, but they put themselves across as if they did, then they're lying about whether they know what they're talking about. Either way, they're a liar, only the subject differs.
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Keep this link handy to post at those who fail to check their disinformation before passing it on
https://images.randysrandom.co... [randysrandom.com]
liars and dupes [Re:If there's ONE word I neve...] (Score:2)
If it is factually wrong and repeated over and over in an attempt to either destabilize a government, gain monetary profit or just to cause trouble, what would be a more appropriate term for it?
-- Lie. It's called a lie.
I think the word "lie" implies (1) the speaker knows it's false, (2) the speaker has intent to deceive. The originators of the lies you mentioned (kids using litter-boxes, 2020 election fraud) - I'm sure they knew these things were false and intended to deceive. But for the people who pick up these lies and repeat them? I bet many of them don't know they're false, and don't intend to deceive.
The original person (or people) who crafted the false information in an attempt to either destabilize a government, gain monetary profit or just to cause trouble, are liars.
The people who repeat the lie and spread it across the internet, if they do in fact believe it's true, are not liars, but nevertheless they are spreading lies.
If you want an insulting word, you could call them dupes, or stooges, or even fools, but not actually liars.
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If you want an insulting word, you could call them dupes, or stooges, or even fools, but not actually liars.
I don't think they're dupes nor stooges nor fools. They're repeating an existing statement to further their agenda. Checking that statement for true/false wouldn't serve their own agenda, and indeed would often undermine their own agenda, and sometimes in their worldview has the feel of something so obvious that it doesn't need checking. Their agenda is to promote a point of view, and reinforce tribal allegiance. They're willful participants in the spread of statements which they haven't (and won't) check c
Mormonism - a great example of a big lie (Score:2)
I visited Salt Lake City many years ago. First time round I couldn't see the problem. Happily I got a second bite - and realised that the whole Mormonism thing, based on conveniently disappearing gold plates, an entire race for who there is no archaeological evidence etc. is an example of a lie so big that once absorbed by it, you can't see how to escape.
Re:If there's ONE word I never want to hear again. (Score:5, Interesting)
You're still being what I would call intellectually lazy. To defeat a lie you need to come up with facts, not heated rhetoric about "goat paste" (whatever the heck that is).
The amount of facts come up to show there was no fraud in the 2020 election is enough to fill a Library of Congres. However, you're the one who moved the goalpost because you agree there was fraud in the eleciton. Therefore, you are the one who has to show YOUR evidence for said fraud. And you know what's funny? Not a single instance has been shown. None. Even when asked point blank if they were pursuing their case based on fraud [time.com], not a single attorney said they were or even had any evidence of fraud [cnn.com].
So again, if you are claiming fraud, you must show your evidence. The person who says there was no fraud does not have to do anything. You are making the claim, you support it.
not heated rhetoric about "goat paste" (whatever the heck that is).
Again, there are mountains of studies [latimes.com] done around the world showing goat paste* has zero effect on covid [verywellhealth.com]. Yet, every single time said study comes out, people such as yourself immediately get into a heated rehtoric that it's a conspiracy, that some charlatan from New Jersey said it does work and the government is just trying to get people to pay exorbitant amounts of money to prop up "Big Pharma". Yet, like voter fraud, when asked to show any evidence for said goat paste having any effect on covid, there is none. Every single study showing some supposed benefit for said paste was shown to be done shoddily or without any basis in scientific reasoning. Just like the one and only study which said vaccines cause autism, but despite being shown to be false, people still believe it.
So again, if you are making a claim, you have to show your evidence. It's called put up or shut up. Simply saying, "Uh huh, it does too work!" doesn't count.
* Goat paste or horse paste is otherwise known as Ivermectin. But you knew that, didn't you?
Re:If there's ONE word I never want to hear again. (Score:4, Informative)
You're still being what I would call intellectually lazy.
You're being what anyone would call disingenuous. You also don't get to call people lazy when you refuse to use Google.
Re: (Score:2)
You appear to have just gone off half-cocked. Sorry about the other half of your cock, but you need to use the parent link before the reply link. HTH, HAND.
Re: (Score:2)
Some fraud occurs in every election. Anyone denying that is the real liar.
No fraud of any significance occurred in the election, and most of the fraud which did occur was perpetrated by Republicans — literally everyone in a position to know whether this is true knows this already, including the Republican auditors and Trump's lawyers and Republican election officials too, but some of you like to lie about it. Especially you. You're a liar, and we all know that. I'm surprised you haven't flushed that sock puppet yet, it's beyond worthless now.
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But perhaps we could just start off with obvious disinformation which can be shown to be factually incorrect. How long befo
Re: (Score:2)
Two words: Flat earth.
It is trivial to show that it's bullshit, yet people are so absolutely willing to ignore reality and cling to their beliefs that there isn't anything you can sensibly do to get them to understand. And for some weird reason these people don't get put under guardianship but instead get to vote.
This is why I fear it so much. People who refuse to accept reality are allowed to decide what laws get applied to me. If that's not to fear, what is?
Re:If there's ONE word I never want to hear again. (Score:4, Insightful)
Is it still disinformation to say the vaccine doesn’t stop the spread of Covid?
No. Who ever set that stupidly impossible bar? My guess is nobody.
But it is disinformation to say the vaccine doesn't greatly slow the spread of COVID.
That you can’t get Covid if you’re vaccinated?
Yes, since obviously you can.
And no, nobody got "canceled" for saying those things.
However:
It is disinformation to say it's dangerous to take.
It is disinformation to characterize COVID as "a bad flu".
It is disinformation to say that the vaccine is ineffective.
It is disinformation to say that COVID deaths are overcounted.
Those are what people get in trouble for saying. And it's not just because they're full of shit.
It's because there are real-life consequences to them disseminating that material.
Every dumb fuck who believes that shit is more strain on the medical system that keeps people who tried their best alive.
That means every person spreading that, is actively increasing the strain on the medical system, and is fucking killing people. And not just the dumb fucks.
Re: (Score:2)
What scientific study has shown that the vaccine actually does greatly slow the spread of COVID
https://www.nature.com/article... [nature.com].
Nathan Lo, an infectious-disease researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, and colleagues analysed data on more than 22,000 confirmed cases of SARS-CoV-2 infection across California’s 35 adult prisons over a 5-month period starting at the end of 2021, when the first wave of Omicron began ripping through the United States. The wave started with the BA.1 subvariant, but by the end of April, BA.2 had overtaken it and was the most common cause of COVID-1
Re: (Score:2)
A cursory search of the internet didn't yield anyone (sensible) to claim that any vaccine provides a 100% protection against any kind of infection. If you happen to have something like that, please provide it because it would be quite amusing.
Outside of patent medicine, I can't find anyone claiming a 100% cure or protection against any ailment.
Disinformation, misinformation [Re:if there's ...] (Score:2)
["If there's ONE word I never want to hear again] It's "disinformation".
What about if destabilizes a very large drug company? Is it still disinformation to say the vaccine doesn’t stop the spread of Covid?
It's disinformation if it is a lie spread by people who know it's a lie in order to accomplish some political purpose, for example, if Russian hackers spread incorrect information in order to drive political wedges into American society.
It's misinformation if it's incorrect, but stated by people who believe it is correct.
It is information if it is correct.
And, it is simply debate if it is an assertion that is reasonably open to discussion of whether it or is not correct.
Hope this clarifies things.
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People want absolutes where there are none. That's the key problem here.
Safe does not mean what people think it does (Score:2)
The use of the term 'safe' for the Covid vaccines was heard as meaning 'risk free'. They aren't, of course, but because people believed that was what they had been told, the stories of bad side effects came to discredit the whole process.
Re: (Score:2)
Anything you do or don't do carries a risk. It's about the same shit as with safety belts and airbags. They save lives. They have proven to do so. But once in a blue moon there's some freak accident with one of them and people go apeshit over them and sabotage the safety equipment of their cars because these things are suddenly "killers" now.
But at least these duds only kill themselves, not the people around them.
Re: (Score:2)
Of course I get that. But the ordinary prole has ended up being misled by what they have been told. That is the fault of the communicator, however worthy their intention. It's the habit of this sort of experience that undermined the authority of those we ought to be able to trust. The UK used to have 'ministerial statements' on TV; now nobody would take them seriously because their credibility is so shot. Politicians have used slimy language to get themselves elected for many decades; now their abuse has co
Re: (Score:3)
I agree. "Disinformation" should just be called by its actual name "Lies, Lies and More Lies".
Reasonable belief is a defence it's not a lie (Score:2)
Anyone passing on the WHO's denial of the airborne transmission of Covid was guilty of passing on disinformation. But to assert they were lying just because they trusted the WHO is a step too far. Which is why the term 'disinformation' has value.
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There's an enormous difference between propagating what at that point is considered the best facts they have, and knowingly propagating an actual lie.
Re: If there's ONE word I never want to hear again (Score:3)
Remember, if I say it, its information.
But if you say it, its the one word you don't want to hear.
Also, I have a YouTube video that proves it ! (/s)
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All that word means is "internet-disseminated propaganda".
Maybe you don't think anything like that ends up in Google's ad network. That's fine, but why does using that word upset you so much? Should we make up a new name for it, like IDP, and add a trigger warning?
Re: (Score:2)
If there's ONE word I never want to hear again..
It's "disinformation". This is such a dishonestly used word, it is so obviously an attempt at thought control, just propaganda spewed out by the establishment
You are literally spewing propaganda right here.
Re: (Score:2)
But I identify as a truthful person! You have to respect my identity or you're a bigot! If you call me out for being wrong, you're a discriminatory purveyor of disinformation!
Right?!
We live in a time when teachers are honestly claiming that men can be women, and vice versa. Public discourse concerns itself with narrative and outrage, and truth is subjective and personal, if it's present at all. You'd be naive if you believed we can come together as a people to collectively find solutions to the pr
Re: (Score:2)
It's "disinformation".
I'd like to never hear it again, too. But unfortunately disinformation exists, and it is a real serious problem.
...But NO MORE PROPAGANDA.
Disinformation and propaganda serve the same purposes, and are often issued by the same entities. They differ in that propaganda is outright, while disinformation is spread in disguise.
Re: (Score:2)
What kind of false information are we talking about? Statements like "Help prevent the spread of COVID-19 - get vaccinated today!"
I heard they once claimed that Slashdot user 318230 had two brain cells to rub together.