First 911 and now Trump
So, the story of our lives so far: First 911 and now Trump. The former resulted in the War on Terror, the War on Iraq and the War on Humanity. The latter may well have much more of an impact … WWIII anyone? OK, sorry, I’m fear-mongering; tut, tut.
Anyway, I must say the most fearsome issue these days is Trump only by proxy ... the most fearsome issue is the demise of truth in public discussion, the media, especially social media (and elections) (SMH). This may be the most depressing news clip you'll see this year:
CNN anchor Alisyn Camerota sat down with a group of Donald Trump backers to talk about the 2016 election and the false allegations - made by the President-elect - that "millions" of undocumented immigrants had voted illegally on November 8.
The most important line in that entire clip is when the woman sitting in the back row urges Camerota to "Google it" and then says she saw it on Facebook.
"Here's the thing: Facebook is using an algorithm to provide you "news" that it thinks you want to see. So, if Facebook has identified you as someone who supports Trump, it will pump in things like this deceptively-edited clip that you will, almost certainly, take as gospel truth. You likely won't dig deeper into the story to make sure that the clip is legit; it affirms your view that Obama and Democrats are bad and are encouraging illegal behaviour and, therefore, requires no checking. It's literally too good to check.
"David Simas, Obama's political director, has described this phenomenon. "Through the same social media, you can find people who agree with you, who validate these thoughts and opinions," Simas said. "This creates a whole new permission structure, a sense of social affirmation for what was once thought unthinkable."
"You see that affirmation happening right in the CNN clip. Paula is affirmed by the woman in the row behind her who also "saw" Obama telling undocumented immigrants to vote. No matter that it isn't true. They both saw it. Are you saying their eyes are deceiving them? Or that they're lying?
"It's hard to overestimate how dangerous this all is for a healthy democracy. When we can't collectively agree on a set of facts, we are in deep trouble. We're a hell of a lot closer to that than many people are willing to admit. And that's depressing as hell."
Chris Cillizza, Washington Post
Anyway, who created this misinformation in the first place: Fox Business:
Go to Snopes
for the background story. The unedited video, posted by mitú, a media
network geared toward young Latinos, can be viewed here ... watch it 'til the
end, this little interview (and the interviewer) is just brilliant:
I have an essay TRUTHINESS in my book with no title, instead three definitions for the term en.light.en.ment
