I've written some articles related to fake news, and I notice @dollarvigilante submitted an article on it that he does quite a good plug for steem and steemit in as well. Yet this is a discussion that is everywhere, and I've had some debates with friends on SLACK about it. It is indeed important, and it could be one of the more important battles going on at this time.
I shared the DV article with someone on slack. The indicated they "checked out" when they got to the lines about 9-11, Pizzagate, etc. It made me think of a religious zealot hearing "Blasphemy", or "Heresy" and thus choosing to close their ears and go NAH NAH NAH.
I proceeded to tell my friend that if I did that there would be no news really worth reading. It is so often filled with logical fallacies, opinion, and bias. It is difficult to find examples during this day and age where that is not the case. Instead I read everything I can. I don't agree with or believe everything I read. Yet, I also don't toss everything out. I see what fits with other information I have, what seems to logically nullify other information I have, etc. I am left with an ever changing view of my perception of truth. There is only one truth, yet there are many different perceptions of it.
The truth does not care if we are comfortable with it or not.
Source: giphy.com
If you hear something you do not want to hear, your desires do not change whether it is or is not the truth. The truth simply is.
So we must try to keep an open mind. That does not mean believe. It simply means listen, reason, consider. If we have preexisting bias such that hearing the term "9-11 truth" or "conspiracy theory" immediately causes a reaction of disbelief then we are ALREADY certain that some things are true. We have bias. This is also a common side effect of being blasted with propaganda. Propaganda can condition people with such responses. It is much like religion can condition a person to stop listening to someone if they are called a "Blasphemer" or "Heretic".
One thing the person could not dispute is when there is an event and you happen to be in one country the news there may portray the event one way, and you travel to a different country and suddenly it is portrayed very different.
The truth is the truth. It does not change due to geographical location. All that changes due to geography when it comes to the truth is what propaganda is accepted in that area.
Another word for this is fake news. Propaganda typically IS fake news. It is news shaped to illicit certain reactions, convictions, and beliefs. It is typically accomplished by LIES repeated frequently enough that they eventually are viewed as truths, or omission of important information that without the information alters the context and understanding of an event.
Both of these are still FAKE.
That doesn't mean that some of the sites being referred to as writing FAKE NEWS are not doing such. When a site has a clear bias and does not practice unbiased journalism then there is always a chance something could be taken out of context, omitted, etc to satisfy the agenda and bias of that site. Unfortunately, this describes almost all news today. The places that are championing the war against fake news are some of the worst offenders when it comes to that label.
They are only challenging it NOW, because for the first time in history people are not blindly following the FAKE NEWS they want people to follow. Their propaganda is not working.
That does not mean some of the targets they refer to may not also do fake news, or stretch the truth. It is however, the pot calling the kettle black. They would like to engage the laws to make the words of their opponents illegal. The fake news is acceptable as long as they are the ones saying it.
So if they wish to censor fake news, and silence free speech, silence freedom of press then there will not be much news left, and that would certainly eliminate EVERY mainstream media source I am aware of.
HOW SHOULD WE VIEW NEWS THEN?
Use your head, learn critical thinking (they don't teach it), and understand that parts of truth can be within many sources. By looking at multiple sources that oppose each other you can find out parts that each side wishes to omit to try to steer the narrative and each of those pieces is another piece of a puzzle that is the truth. You need to not SHUT DOWN, and work off of preconceptions. This I know is easier said than done. Difficult does not mean we should not try. Part of the problems in the world today stem from people expecting and embracing the easy choices, when the easy choices are not always good ones.
Steem On!
In the end, I think it is good that the #fakemainstreamnews are doubling down on their lies.
the percentage of people who believes the Ministry of Truth is still dropping
Soon, they will be just as fringe as that guy who says Bigfoot is controlling his brain patterns with Teletubby television!
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Ministry of Truth - thanks I didn't hear that a long time :) First time internet won elections and they know that it is important because few people e.g. like this https://steemit.com/funny/@worldfacts/15-best-youtubers-that-fight-for-free-speach-and-better-free-world-if-you-like-it-share now can change the world on better and putting socialism using force and propaganda into peoples doesn't work any more. (sorr for mistakes english is not my first language)
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It is hilarious that "1984" is required on so many high school reading lists, and yet so many people can't see what is happening around them
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Yes it is truth = reality. It is only to not changing nothing about that says e.g. Stefan Molyneux
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I see thet my answer dont show (only the films so I will add it once again: Yes it is truth = reality. It is only to not changing nothing about that says e.g. Stefan Molyneux .....(post from 3 min ago) and Michael Tsarion it is long but worth to see:
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Oh... you don't believe me when I said "Bigfoot was controlling me with Teletubbies?".... but, but,
Just kidding... never heard that one before. Some of my kids watched teletubbies... I did feel like it was sucking a few IQ points away from me whenever I saw it. Though it was cute when they were young. My two youngest dressed up as Teletubbies when they were like 3 or 4 for Halloween.
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I had to go as out there as possible, lol.
I think it more important that we give more credence to people with plausible but unlikely theories than we do to people who are known liars with a political agenda
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Most sources have an agenda today. So just listen, research, and think for yourself. :) We're in good shape as long as we don't let others do our thinking FOR US.
We don't need proxy thinkers.
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https://steemit.com/thnking/@stevescoins/critical-thinking-and-human-governance-4-links-togehter-again
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Thanks for sharing... I'll check them out today. I always can use more perspective on this topic.
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Yep: these times of fake news flying around are going to be tough times. We're going back to the days when naive people have to watch themselves more closely to avoid being gullible. Interestingly, we're coalescing more and more into "tribes" with shared beliefs.
One of the reasons it's difficult: getting good at this art makes you the type of person who "stands for nothing" and therefore "will fall for anything." Part of living in this age of fake news, an age where we'd be wise to be cagey, is to get as much truth without shucking off our ideals and beliefs.
Suffice it to say that you're in a good spot if your beliefs are either close to human-nature realistic or else flatly unfalsifiable. People with unrealistic beliefs that are also falsifiable are going to have a hard time unless they insulate themselves in echo chambers (like the progs have done.)
Well...if you bump into one of those characters, consider shoooting this back to them:
:D
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I don't actually think that is true. That to me is a false dichotomy. There certainly is a danger of that, yet I believe if you use critical thinking and learn as much as you can about it then you do not need be either of those things.
It took me about 25 seconds of watching that video before I determined why you sent it... LISTEN DON'T WATCH... "Nah nah nah nah... ni nah nah nah nah" :P
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I think perhaps I should clarify my other response to you "stands for nothing".
I always stand for something. The truth. I simply do not lock my PERCEPTION of what the truth is in stone and refuse new knowledge that refutes PARTS of what I previously thought was the truth.
None of us are brilliant enough to contain the total truth.
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The truth is the truth.
When something has been sufficiently debunked...
i'm done with it.
time to move on to a different subject.
Dead horse and all that.
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Sufficiently debunked though... we each subjectively determine what we consider to be sufficient. Yet, that is all we can do.
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I'm a former munitions weenie from my days in the military.
I have a vauge idea how things that go boom work.
The truthers apparently don't.
So why should I bother with them?
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maybe so.
My point is...I read enough about a subject to get a feel for it and those talking about it.
I make a decision based on my research.
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As to 9-11 truth where the derogatory use of the term Truther seems to have originated. I tend to like the studies by Architects and Engineers for 9-11 truth, but most of the other theories tend to have a shit load of speculation.
Knowing how things go boom doesn't really explain WTC Building 7. That one is the most dicey example from that day.
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The TRUTHERS you refer to are not truthers if they don't want to hear the truth.
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I like the alien death ray explanation. Like in Independence day that would be about how much credibility I assign to those people.
Your milage may vary..
..now about the reaction-less space drive currently being tested by NASA and the Chineese Current experimentation reveals a push an order of magnitude GREATER than a solar sail.
or..
LFTRs
Either one has the potential to change everything.
There is a LOT of new stuff happening that I want to know about. I have only so much time in the day. I have to decide what I will spend it on.
I try to avoid foolish nonsense.
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Heheh... I have a lot of things I am doing as well. I can relate.
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But what if someone spends years of their life, digging really, really deeply only to come to the conclusions it's BS? If they then choose to not engage further on that topic, they are criticized for not having an open mind. That's kind of silly to me. At some point we do have to move on and not everyone has years and years to really dig deeply into something only to find there's not much there.
I fear there may be no balance. It might be tribalism all the way.
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Both of you could be right. There definitely does seem to be quite a bit of tribalism.
How often is something TOTALLY B.S.? I tend to see more shades of gray than black and white. It can be that MOST of what you studied was B.S.... yet there could have been parts that is true. I find that absolutes usually are not true. There of course are exceptions.
So the journey to learn something can be important and can offer perceptions at truth you might not have seen from another angle. They can likewise conceal truth.
I tend to not close my mind to new information. The key though is whether it is NEW information or not.
Hearing things I dislike or disagree with and then going NAH NAH NAH could make me miss the only new information that was there.
Kind of like information prospecting... gotta throw out the junk rock to find the good ore. Yet if all I do is look and see only the junk rock, how can I ever find the good ore?
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I also wasn't planning on writing another article about it. I don't plan things like that. This unfortunately does not stop life and people from dragging me back into it. :)
I did not target ANY particular news in the article. I leave that for people to decide for themselves.
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Another great article.
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Thanks... My friend and I were kicking each other quite a bit on Slack... Enough that I actually found myself needing to apologize to him for being a bit too harsh. I felt it truly is something worth writing another article about. There are a lot of preconceptions and there is a WAR kind of starting to form around this...
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