This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was published here and on the website for the Brennan Center for Justice.
Related, larger look at the context of info warfare we’re currently in:
https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2018/11/28/the-digital-maginot-line/
It was a pretty good troll. On Friday, Elizabeth Warren’s campaign ran an ad on Facebook saying that the social media giant had endorsed President Trump.
It hasn’t, of course — as the ad acknowledged a few sentences later.
Someone should pull Warren’s stunt, but don’t retract or correct it. Put Zuckerburg in the position of supporting the right of politicians and campaign staff to lie on his platform, yet at the same time having to correct and defend himself from those very same lies.
We used to have one until Reagan killed it and brought on the birth of Fox Noise, et al. It was called the Fairness Doctrine and it would need to be updated for today’s cyber world.
O/T Why aren’t Democrats screaming about this from the rooftops?
So, while everyone has been pre-occupied with the furor over impeachment, Trump has issued an order that serves as a kind of Privatization Lite.
While the executive order spells out few details, it calls for the removal of “unnecessary barriers” to private contracting, which allows patients and doctors to negotiate their own deals outside of Medicare. It’s an approach long supported by some conservatives, but critics fear it would lead to higher costs for patients.
Well, FOX News was not created until after the “Telecommunications Act of 1996” was pushed through by the new Republican Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton.
Prior to this there were tight restrictions on the ownership of TV and Radio Stations (and Newspapers) under the “Telecommunications Act of 1934” which had clamped down on monopolistic (and foreign) ownership of Telecommunication and Media in general due to so many failing in the Stock Market crash of 1929.
Once those restrictions were lifted (and Rupert Murdoch BOUGHT his US Citizenship) he was able to buy up enough TV assets to create FOX News under his now-legal News Corp umbrella organization.
This also allowed entities like Clear Channel Communications to buy up 80% of the AM and FM Radio stations in the US, further monopolizing the Reich-Wingers stranglehold on Rural American Media.
If laws had not enabled the creation of a Fascist Nazi media to serve them, Rural Americans would have filled the void with one anyway.
But he wouldn’t have stood a chance if the Fairness Doctrine were in force.
IMO this whole thing comes done to the convergence of 21st century marketing science and the near universal (at least in prosperous countries) access to the internet. By using marketing tricks honed over centuries it is now possible to manipulate the vast majority of people with falsehoods spread almost instantly over the net. IMO this is never going to stop now, the genie is out of the bottle. The only way to do anything is for countries to start reigning in the runaway social media companies with some laws with teeth in them. Let’s see how these companies can compete with something like IBM’s consent decree, or AT&T’s divestiture forced on them by the US. Sadly, this is unlikely to occur since the government is controlled by the 1% and they have a vested interest in the status quo.
So true. Rush Limbaugh and Fox ‘News’ are just the tip of a country killing iceberg
This is an excellent idea. It can be done. All the voting rights groups should support the idea and bring it to the forefront of conversation nationwide.
The Fairness Doctrine only applied to the major networks that broadcast over the public airwaves.
Since FoxNews is a cable-only channel, the FD would not apply even if it were still in effect.
Not true.
I lived in “Rural America” for many, many years and the vast majority of people there are good, kind, decent people. Their minds (and lives) have been systematically poisoned over the last 30 years by Reich-WIng Media’s Monopolistic, Incessant drumbeat of Hatred, Paranoia, and Bigotry, pouring out of EVERY media outlet available to them due to the consolidation of media into the Reich-Wing Empire, while at the same time they were being ignored by the Coastal Media and Democratic Establishment as they myopically focused on regaining the Presidency at the expense of the local, state, congressional, and senatorial seats.
In Rural Areas, AM Radio is KING. It is the ONLY thing that reaches out that far on a consistent basis, and it is totally dominated by the Hannitys, Limbaughs, and Evangelical Grifters now (it did not used to be that way back before the 1996 Telecom Act.)
The only other media they really use is the Internet, and then only for things like Facebook and the local Co-op’s and the USDA web sites.
This has created a near-hermetically-sealed environment where nothing ever gets in but the Hatred and Paranoia of the Reich-Wing Bubble.
I was surprised to see, on my Upper Midwest DirecTV menu, that there is an RFD tv channel, whose entire mission is directed at the farmers in the midwest. Its schedule includes programming on farm prices, reruns of Hee Haw and Mollie B’s Polka party. It’s got viewership in the mid hundred thousands (e.g., around 500 - 600,000 viewers). Oh, and they also run shows about trains.
What little I’ve seen of it isn’t hyper partisan.
years ago when I was teaching civics I had a student who challenged me when I presented some factual information to the class. I can not remember just what the topic was but I do remember that this confrontation opened up a great learning experience for the whole class.
When I told the student that he was not right in his statement his retort was, “I have a right to my opinion.” To this I entered into a discussion of the difference between “opinions” and “facts.” Facts are those things that are provable such as the Constitution gives the “Sole” power of impeachment to the House of Representatives. An opinion is that the President has not committed an “impeachable” offence. It is perfectly alright to suggest that in your he has not gone over the line. It is not alright to say that the House of Representatives is not allowed to impeach the President.
It seems that this standard of stating facts while sometimes a little hard to evaluate versus opinions should be used when accepting political adds. I would go further to say that the more complete and solid the fact base is to an opinion expressed the better the opinion. If your opinion is based on Alternatives to facts your opinion is not worth anything ans should be ignored.
This has been a problem in the general discourse since the 2016 election and probably long before. Most have been operating on feelings being facts. It’s not. But those who work this way cannot be convinced.
Rural America, according to several studies, voted largely for Donald Trump. I could list the litany of deplorable deeds and crimes he was known to have committed before the campaign but it would run for pages. Many he proudly confessed to, presenting them as badges of honor, like avoiding the payment of taxes, and committing bankruptcy in time to walk away with money while investors and contractors were left holding the bag. Yet tax paying rural businesspeople voted for him in droves. He bragged on tape about committing sexual assault against women, with impunity due to his wealth, fame and power, and rural women went in droves to the polls to vote for him. He denigrated a decorated war hero and POW as being somehow unworthy of respect due to his capture, and rural veterans voted for Trump in overwhelming numbers. I could add a few more, but it’s unnecessary.
Good, kind, decent people didn’t vote for Donald Trump.
There is a difference between freedom of speech and freedom to spend millions using cutting edge behavioral science to manipulate people’s minds, but I am completely incapable of discerning what the legal argument might be.
For a really good discussion of issues relevant to this topic, I will once again refer people to Ezra Klein’s interview with Peter Pomerantsev on the podcast The Ezra Klein Show that came out October 14 - it put words to many of the feelings I have been experiencing watching the last decade of politics in America with a sense of foreboding
If we’re to broach the subject of somehow regulating manipulation of behavioral science for political ends, what of the other uses? Do we say Budweiser is TOO manipulative in convincing people to buy beer? Your local community college’s advertising is “tricking” people into enrolling? The Marine Corps’ ads are employing trickery in duping people into enlisting? For good or ill the Constitution doesn’t have an amendment requiring people to analyze what those enjoying the First Amendment are throwing at them.
It’s a tough issue to get your hands around.
Also, the Fairness Doctrine was in place long before the advent of digital media. To that, i ask is FB digital media, or is FB a digital media platform? There’s a difference. FB does not “report” news content. FB only allows the public to “convey” news, or family photos, or pretty much anything, to the entire world. Regulating FB, a platform that is used my billions of people around the world, and policing the truthfulness of content placed on that platform could be a restriction on the individual’s 1st Amendment right to convey that content. At the same time, though, we do have laws regulating pornography. I don’t believe FB can be used to publicly convey porn to the world. They do have their own internal restrictions on that form of content. (I don’t do FB, so i do plead a degree of ignorance on that claim.) Still, pornography is much more dangerous to the world than lies about political candidates that change the course of elections. There could be dire consequences to the sanctity of our world if millions of people see Janet Jackson’s nipple, on TV, FB, or even in real life. On the other hand, the spread of false information about politicians and campaigns and elections can’t be nearly as devastating. IOW, the survival of our free world can’t possibly rely on everyone understanding the truth. I mean, there’s no way a con man would ever get elected as President if his campaign was based entirely on lies. Voters would have to be stupid to elect such a dipshit criminal con man. 