Comments on: Some thoughts about “fake news” and “quality of discourse” https://habitablezone.com/2016/12/04/60609/ Tue, 07 Apr 2026 19:18:10 -0700 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: RL https://habitablezone.com/2016/12/04/60609/#comment-37770 RL Tue, 06 Dec 2016 02:26:04 +0000 https://www.habitablezone.com/?p=60609#comment-37770 Spamming death threats to the employees of the community pizza place: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/cometpingpong/" rel="nofollow">https://www.facebook.com/cometpingpong/</a> Look at the comments... Spamming death threats to the employees of the community pizza place:
https://www.facebook.com/cometpingpong/

Look at the comments…

]]> By: RL https://habitablezone.com/2016/12/04/60609/#comment-37769 RL Mon, 05 Dec 2016 23:15:01 +0000 https://www.habitablezone.com/?p=60609#comment-37769 Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and deserves to have that opinion treated with respect, right? http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Man-With-Assault-Rifle-Arrested-at-Comet-Ping-Pong-in-NW-DC-404634716.html <blockquote>A gunman investigating a fake news story about Hillary Clinton running a child sex ring out of a Washington, D.C., pizzeria was arrested after firing inside the restaurant, police said. The gunman had an AR-15 rifle and a handgun, they said. Police said in a statement that 28-year-old Edgar Maddison Welch of Salisbury, North Carolina, was arrested Sunday at Comet Ping Pong on Connecticut Avenue NW. No one was injured.</blockquote> The employees have been harassed and sent death threats because of this new president's fact free followers.... Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and deserves to have that opinion treated with respect, right?

http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Man-With-Assault-Rifle-Arrested-at-Comet-Ping-Pong-in-NW-DC-404634716.html

A gunman investigating a fake news story about Hillary Clinton running a child sex ring out of a Washington, D.C., pizzeria was arrested after firing inside the restaurant, police said. The gunman had an AR-15 rifle and a handgun, they said.
Police said in a statement that 28-year-old Edgar Maddison Welch of Salisbury, North Carolina, was arrested Sunday at Comet Ping Pong on Connecticut Avenue NW. No one was injured.

The employees have been harassed and sent death threats because of this new president’s fact free followers….

]]> By: hank https://habitablezone.com/2016/12/04/60609/#comment-37768 hank Mon, 05 Dec 2016 15:47:10 +0000 https://www.habitablezone.com/?p=60609#comment-37768 There is nothing conceptual or philosophical about this issue, and it certainly isn't a function of the communication technologies involved. It's as old as the hills. It's deliberately-generated rumours and carefully crafted lies put out by old-fashioned rumour mills, a propaganda technique that's been around since Christ was a corporal. You start a story that supports your side, or discredits theirs, and by the time it's debunked it's done its job, and you've had time to concoct a new one. And some will never realize it was a lie. The latest story going around in the news was about the Clintons operating a child sex ring out of a restaurant, and the establishment was getting death threats on the phone and by email. A few days ago a heavily armed irate citizen marched into the place and shot it up, which finally brought it to national attention. We all know the pattern, chain emails with embedded bogus Billary, birther or Benghazi bullshit, supermarket checkout line tabloid journalism, all repeated so constantly and stridently that it becomes accepted as fact by those desperate to believe it. They become evidence of the depravity of the other side, which justifies anything, even an outright lie, if it can be employed to frustrate the evil being promulgated by the evildoers. Some people are so degenerate and corrupt they must be stopped, in any way possible, right? Anything's fair in love and war, right? And this is war because they are socialists and atheists and hate freedom. This form of Big Lie propaganda has been around long before it was codified by Goebbels and perfected by Stalin. It's always the Hun troops that indulge in rape and bayonetting babies, which is why we must be ruthless in opposing them. Anything goes, or we are guilty of appeasement and cowardice. Even those who don't believe it must spend more and more time refuting it to those who refuse to listen to the refutations. And that's not just an unfortunate consequence, it's designed to do that. This problem cannot be addressed by website design or chat-room format, or measured discussions and sober deliberations about the nature of communications protocols. Propaganda professionals will exploit whatever medium is available, from truck-mounted loudspeakers to garish wall posters to hieroglyphics on stelae. Fucking around with the media isn't going to stop that. And just because the message is ridiculous doesn't mean the people who spread it are. They know exactly what they're doing. There is nothing conceptual or philosophical about this issue, and it certainly isn’t a function of the communication technologies involved. It’s as old as the hills. It’s deliberately-generated rumours and carefully crafted lies put out by old-fashioned rumour mills, a propaganda technique that’s been around since Christ was a corporal. You start a story that supports your side, or discredits theirs, and by the time it’s debunked it’s done its job, and you’ve had time to concoct a new one. And some will never realize it was a lie.

The latest story going around in the news was about the Clintons operating a child sex ring out of a restaurant, and the establishment was getting death threats on the phone and by email. A few days ago a heavily armed irate citizen marched into the place and shot it up, which finally brought it to national attention. We all know the pattern, chain emails with embedded bogus Billary, birther or Benghazi bullshit, supermarket checkout line tabloid journalism, all repeated so constantly and stridently that it becomes accepted as fact by those desperate to believe it. They become evidence of the depravity of the other side, which justifies anything, even an outright lie, if it can be employed to frustrate the evil being promulgated by the evildoers. Some people are so degenerate and corrupt they must be stopped, in any way possible, right? Anything’s fair in love and war, right? And this is war because they are socialists and atheists and hate freedom.

This form of Big Lie propaganda has been around long before it was codified by Goebbels and perfected by Stalin. It’s always the Hun troops that indulge in rape and bayonetting babies, which is why we must be ruthless in opposing them. Anything goes, or we are guilty of appeasement and cowardice. Even those who don’t believe it must spend more and more time refuting it to those who refuse to listen to the refutations. And that’s not just an unfortunate consequence, it’s designed to do that.

This problem cannot be addressed by website design or chat-room format, or measured discussions and sober deliberations about the nature of communications protocols. Propaganda professionals will exploit whatever medium is available, from truck-mounted loudspeakers to garish wall posters to hieroglyphics on stelae. Fucking around with the media isn’t going to stop that. And just because the message is ridiculous doesn’t mean the people who spread it are. They know exactly what they’re doing.

]]> By: RL https://habitablezone.com/2016/12/04/60609/#comment-37767 RL Mon, 05 Dec 2016 15:23:53 +0000 https://www.habitablezone.com/?p=60609#comment-37767 Carson to put inner city kids to work building Grain storage pyramids http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ben-carson-hud-donald-trump_us_58454b8ce4b09e21702f7d43 Carson to put inner city kids to work building Grain storage pyramids

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ben-carson-hud-donald-trump_us_58454b8ce4b09e21702f7d43

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