Gamified fake-news. A dutch state-sponsored game to teach children about journalism.

Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford in playing to be journalists in “All the President’s Men.”

Think about that one for a moment.

Keep thinking, try to see it...

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OK, how on earth do I write this article in a serious manner without being slammed for writing fake news?

The problem is, that it really exists.

So I now need to write it as fake as possible to make a point but add the actual resources to make it as real as possible but still make it clear how crazy this is that they made it into a game.

Lets start with the fact,

https://wijzijndrog.nl/serious-game-over-propaganda

DROG is a group of specialists and experience experts in the field of disinformation. They want to make as many people as possible immune to deception and polarization through disinformation. That is why they give workshops, speak at conferences, conduct research and work on a broad campaign of actions.

Now that seems to be a good thing, but is it? Isn't this putting things all out of perspective by making a game out of it?

Now can you tell me what I 'lied' about? Or even find mistakes?
Or turn my mistakes into 'alleged lies'? Or even twist my lies and mistakes into a truth?

The problem is that mainstream news is doing this EVERY SINGLE DAY. Even dutch NOS (Nederlandse Omroep Stichting) The dutch evening news has been doing this shit time and time again. So how will children be able to learn about what is real if there is no real example of real news anymore?

Of course there is wikileaks, the only place that has released real news that has released 10 million real documents.

This now makes me want to turn it on it's head and say that the game sucks. The real game should have done things different.

To really spot fake news take any news article of the real news, and dissect it. And see how much propaganda has been pushed by real news outlets.

For instance when our dutch politicians where pushing the Russian hack narrative and the real news was on the bandwagon to push that narrative even further.

DROG seems to be ignoring all of that. And just teach how to make fake news, but fail to teach how to do real journalism. And that's ofcourse an important issue, as they claim to be stimulating journalism. But if they teach fake news and fail to teach journalism they are the ones controlling the narrative, and propaganda will be in THEIR HANDS all along.

So what can we do? I'm not a journalist, and here I am, looking at fake journalism in the making. WTF? Am I seeing this wrong?

To me it is unclear what DROG is trying to accomplish.
It really looks like a bunch of wannabe journalists trying to put themselves on the map by using the term fake-news by IGNORING the real fake news that the 'real news' is releasing on a daily basis and buy teaching children to make fake news instead of teaching them real journalism!

OOPS now I'm a BAD JOURNALIST? How does that work? When I'm not a journalists pointing out how 'real' journalists divert people from REAL journalism by making fake news a game, so that they can still make fake news because they have the privilege to do so. As they are the ones who explained what fake news is, so then they must be REAL journalists, right?

However, how can they ever be REAL journalists if they fail to educate REAL JOURNALISM? HA!

Yeah, I had to turn this article into a little rant for a sec.

Fake news is a real problem, but it will never go away when you teach how to make fake news when failing to teach journalism.
Journalism seems to be no longer a job to me. Journalism seems to be more of a thing that every child needs to learn. JOURNALISM, not 'making a game to teach children how to make fake news'.

I know, I'm a bit controversial when attacking 'real' journalists who try to teach children about fake news, to make a point about journalism. But that's my point.

Why not teach them REAL JOURNALISM!

I'm having a hard time to figure out journalism myself. And wikileaks actually shown me the most valuable part. But I'm not there yet, there is far more to journalism then that. Or is there?

The strange part is that nowadays only the sources that come out of wikileaks have the real value of TRUST. The information that wikileaks has to offer has a level of trust that no other news source can offer.

What is missing is a Dutch wikileaks. with actual Dutch documents that are verifiable and published by a source we can trust.

Is this a call for a dutch wikileaks?
I guess so! But how would that work? What do we need? And how can we make sure that the state funded national security industry does not meddle with that information?

This would require several independent competitors? National and across the borders. Some kind of truth network.
But that in itself could create all kinds of new problems.

The very person who could have some good answers and solutions is currently fighting another fight in the Ecuadorian embassy. And that person is also just a human. With a family. And even the ones who disagree with him have to realize that this man is paying a heavy price for our freedom.

DROG does not mention any of this. The name of the man I described does not seem to appear on the DROG website at all. And to make my point again, I'm now doing the very thing that 'real' journalists do.
Silence the crap out of certain words that someone does not want to see mentioned in certain news outlets.

SELF CENSORSHIP

Another thing that DROG fails to pay attention to. But hey, they are REAL JOURNALISTS, right? They have to play by certain rules, perhaps?

What are those rules? And why do they not even try to report about those rules? Is it because they are unwritten rules?

What will it be, a game to play fake news writers or educating people about real journalism?

I think there is a huge difference. And I doubt if I will ever be able to master it. Yet I try, and I learn a lot about fake news by trying to figure out what real journalism is about. And I now will have to give it a try to write a real fake news article to figure out if that teaches me anything new.

That will be fun.

The people who read my quirky articles now really need to be alert about my writings as it will take a while before I do this.

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