Do you believe that social media companies should allow posts spreading misinformation about election results, as suggested by Rep. Jim Jordan?
07.06.2025 18:01
The messages of people like MLK, Hampton, and JFK, were a threat to a certain ill-bred collective of the ruling class. Now silenced, the rot they opposed returned. Trickle-down Economics. The reduction of everything, and that included human life, to a commodity ripe for exploitation. It saw Eisenhower’s education budget slashed by half at the same time, then half that again buy the two Bush lads. And a whole slew of other regulations go out the window, too.
Gatekeepers of reality
Yes, Murdoch’s media empire is a problem. It has tentacles everywhere, grabbing pussies by their idiocy (ie, stupidity combined with the arrogance of ignoring, often repeated, warnings). Audiences enter the rabbit hole and are then dragged down to hell by their willingness to cast aside critical thinking. In Australia a couple of weeks ago, the Ten News outlet claimed 2-in-3 US voters had indicated they intended to vote for Trump. Think about that for a moment.
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Not the US. Not its allies. Russia. The ‘Commies’ that the GOP use to hate and oppose. It’s why they call the Democrats ‘Commies’ even though there’s no supporting evidence. Social Welfare under a Capitalist Economics model is not Communism, and if you want to oppose sane socio-economics that stabilise your own country, then why do you support Corporate Welfare? In case you missed it, Trickle-down Economics does the exact harm the political right insists Socialism will do to the population.
The problem with Western society, in response to bad conduct by big business, is that their people take their marching orders from politicians. Politicians are too often compromised by party allegiances or by being corrupted by big business, and all of them follow the lead of the US. A country that has let itself be directed by rights without responsibilities. A country that is willing to sacrifice around 40,000 people a year to gun violence so individuals who shouldn’t have guns can have guns.
But some of it is much, much worse. They may well lose all their money, and relationships with relatives that they need for support. The kind of support that could help them avoid, or recover from, being dragged into cults as a result of mis- and dis- information they engage in… that is then echoed and magnified through toxic social media. Consider Charlottesville, then COVID, and then Jan 6, 2020, Capitol Hill. People died. For what? Who benefited most? Sounds like investigating crimes, right?
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Rudd is a serious asset. He is someone who believes in bridging divides through a process of mutual respect, and positive engagement, founded upon a desire to co-operate where we can, but disagree where we must. That we must not sacrifice the things that make us who we are. And, to that end, right now, he is also very influential in negotiating the AUKUS alliance, and US built and supplied naval assets to help secure that mutual defence of territories. Think about that.
At the time of writing this, Truth Social was valued at around US$4B. Reddit reportedly has much, much better figures and is only worth US$6.4B. When it entered the market, Truth Social shares shot up to US$78 each, then dropped back to US$58. Despite the fact the company only generated US3.4M in revenue for the first 9 months of 2023 (according to filings), lost US$49M in the same time period, and had just 494K active monthly users (compared to 75M at X, and 7.2M at Threads), down 51% over the last year.
Given that she just admitted the toxic vendetta and involvement of Sky ‘News’, she’s kind of playing fast and loose with the term ‘journalism’. It’s not in the public interest to lie and manipulate. It’s not in the public interest to undermine Australia’s voice in the US should Murdoch get his way and dupe enough US voters into putting Trump back in power. It’s not in the public interest to manufacture stories rather than report evidence supported fact to inform people rather than misinform them.
Why The Simpsons stopped producing Maude Flanders episodes?
Oh, and as for Jim Jordan, no, you shouldn’t listen to anything that arsehole says. Ever. None of it can be trusted. And he’s off his fecking axel. So, housekeeping out of the way, let’s get into the dangers of misinformation. And, in order to really do a decent deep dive, you’re going to need some context and adjacent examples. Again, some of these may trigger folk who have limited cognitive skills, and or a rather tenuous grasp on reality and sanity. The rest of you should be perfectly fine.
It doesn’t matter whether you like Rudd or not. Chances are, your dislike for Rudd is heavily influenced by decades of Murdoch’s agenda, and the legitimate media being too lazy or incompetent to push back against it. Rudd is currently the Ambassador to the US. Probably most well known for his efforts to find a way to move forward on reconciliation, and Treaty, with the Aboriginal people of Australia by making a long-overdue apology… for all the horrific abuses and racism they were subjected to. Yeah.
And the media organisations that helped him and his accomplices spread their lies? Commit their crimes? Interfere with investigations? Obstruct justice? Intimidate witnesses? Spread all of the mis- and dis- information that has indoctrinated and radicalised at least 75M US voters? They are complicit. Many of them knowingly did the wrong thing. Many of them still are. Where is the accountability?
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Bearing all of that in mind, certain toxic individuals have discovered that catering to the mindless and toxic culture of fuck-knuckles can be incredibly lucrative. While a user may enter the realm of your social (media) construct with at least some level of intelligence, they can be encouraged to discard any critical thinking abilities they may have had within a few short weeks. The more vulnerable they are, the easier they are to manipulate and impose cognitive dissonance and malignant narcissism.
In the US, we watched Murdoch and his ilk manipulate pissed off people who were afflicted by the absence of freedom, equality, justice and liberty, and all of the ill-education and toxic media that fed into their sources of misinformation, into voting for the very politicians that helped inflict it. That Very Loud and Obnoxious ‘Silent Majority’ Minority continue to back the epitome and culmination of the very toxic culture that they hate and want ended. And here we are.
Think about this. Rudd wanted a Royal Commission into Media Ownership because of the monopoly Murdoch had on Australia, and the damage it is doing to democracy as a result of the misinformation it was spreading. None of what Rudd said about Trump was inaccurate. Sharri Markson, one of the hacks that works for Sky News, then boasted about what they did. It’s not clear if Rudd was actually furious, and chances are her subjective claims were the usual hyperbolic, toxic bullshit.
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All of that should have set off alarm bells and littered the paddock with little red flags on all the lines that were crossed. And it’s nowhere near as bad as where the US has gone now under Fox News, and the toxic predators they have helped elevate into politically appointed positions. Sleeper agents that infect the highest levels of society, and are, right now, seeking to install a dictatorship. All of this toxic culture, and society eroding activities, are being normalised by radicalising the most vulnerable to promote extremism by rejecting evidence, fact, and reality through social media.
Commodifying misinformation and hate
Welcome to The Swamp
Sadly, while they’re getting about unsupervised in society until they remove themselves from their very shallow, suspiciously warm end of the gene-pool, they find ways to move into your proximity. And if you are in their splash zone, things can get real unpleasant. A lot of these nongs infect the internet, lurking in the shadows, festering, until they can inflict themselves on better people. Social media is a favourite stalking ground. Lots of prey. A great way to spread the disease of their idiocy.
Murdoch and his ilk have literally created ‘The Swamp’, and their cultists are now part of that. They are literally believing mis- and dis- information that maintains the things they claim to hate. The Big Lie was not Trump’s claims the 2020 US Election was rigged. It was simply the consequences of the real Big Lie. The one Reagan set in motion by opening the gates of hell and letting all his little demons run loose in society, pointing at their victims and projecting their own evils. Trump and the claims of Election fraud were simply the consequences of that.
An absence of accountability
What are the dangers of misinformation
Seriously, have a look at the responses to answers. The brief, too often idiotic and extremist ones that seek to tribalize the reader will get a lot of views and upvotes. The longer ones that refer to evidence based fact, and encourage critical thinking, will get far fewer views, and may not get any upvotes at all. No matter how good they are. Because answers written by intelligent people who do that will only attract intelligent people who think the same way, if not the same things.
“Well, I can reveal that Rudd is furious about it,“ she smirked, her tiny brain unable to even contemplate the potential damage to global security her part in that stupidity may have caused, “and is blaming us, here at Sky News, for sending Nigel Farage that question. Well, Rudd can’t expect us not to ask Trump about these comments when Rudd spent years calling for a Royal Commission into our company and endlessly criticised our public interest journalism.”
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This is where we discover the pitfalls of the rights without responsibilities and accountability. Free Speech has no value if you have nothing of value to contribute. If your contribution does not help individuals, communities, or societies to move toward positive change, it is a waste of effort, and often counter-productive. If it only delivers more negativity and harm, then you are part of the problem, and your use of Free Speech, and you yourself, are a burden on individuals, communities, and societies.
History is littered with Dunning-Kruger candidates who were afflicted by cognitive dissonance and an inability to get past false equivalencies. They tend to get themselves Darwin Awards, one way or another, or on the list for Endangered critters. A lot of them tend to ascribe to extremist political views, out past the point where ideologies are replaced with pathologies. At the heart of this phenomenon is a basic lack of intellect combined with ill-education, misinformation, idiocy, and hubris.
And all the flashing blue and red lights that fill the airwaves with warnings. Not just that a malignant narcissist should never be given a social media or political platform, and should be given prison time instead of air time. But for the simple fact all the legal shit he got himself into has left him desperate for cash, so he’s fudging figures, making false flag investments, and plans to dump the stock to screw whoever’s left holding it. For more details on this ‘investment’, you might want to read the link above.
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Stop and really think hard about this
Remember when Trump tried to leverage Ukraine, an ally, into providing false evidence against Biden, a political rival, in exchange for resources to fight back against Russian terrorist actions? Remember how right-wing media backed Russia, framed Ukraine as the enemy, and convinced the world to call that terrorism a war? Remember how Trump made a deal to put the Taliban and ISIS back in power by withdrawing US forces after the 2020 Election to make Biden look bad in case Trump lost the election?
Rupert Murdoch rose to power at the age of just 21, in the wake of his father’s very convenient death. He immediately set about dismantling his father’s legacy, a news media empire founded on a drive to inform the public of facts supported by evidence. Everything Rupert Murdoch has done has been to increase his wealth and power. And, like Trump, that road has been paved with the blood and corpses of his victims and sycophants alike. He has no issue sacrificing an asset to further his toxic agenda.
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But this raises some very interesting questions. Like, why do people that lived through the Subprime Mortgage Scandal, and were apparently harmed by it so much they started a movement against ‘The Swamp’, now worship Trump and fall for his scams, like this ‘Truth Social’? How do they watch Trump get exposed for all his business frauds and other crimes, and not notice the similarities to what people like Samuel Bankman-Fried did? Why are the authorities not intervening to stop this grifting?
Remember all the news and social media coverage of those ill-effects? Of all the flaws, corruption, and social and systemic injustice that inflicted? Remember the coverage of Rudy Giuliani, Kari Lake, Alex Jones, Fox News and other right-wing idiots getting sued for defamation? For all the lies they were proven to have made. Remember all the easily, laughably disproven false equivalencies, opportunistic and objective reporting, lies, of people like Jones, Carlson, Farage and their ilk? How they presented those events in their ‘stories’? How their dupes responded by proliferating that in social media?
Think about that. What kind of people would seek to cater to those afflicted by malignant narcissism, or even just gravitating toward that mental health problem? What kind of people would want to engage with that product? Well, people that want their worst personality issues enabled and rewarded. Like predators that inflict themselves upon, and abuse, women, children, the disabled, and elderly. And control every aspect of the lives of their victims. Brace yourself, and have a good hard look at what right-wing politics does, how close they come to crossing lines, or flat-out ignore them.
Will Canadians still buy American products?
This is a war against the most disadvantaged, and toxic media has been murdering the facts, and doing worse. Just like the very worst of corrupt authorities in government, the public services, and religious cults, toxic media agencies seek to isolate and silence the victims in order to conceal and enable predators, crime, systemic failure, and injustice.
We had qualified, legitimate scientists, of credibility and integrity, provide all the warnings we needed. Then we had dipshits in politics, then toxic news and social media, spewing forth ill-educated and very, very dangerous misinformation. In countries that made smart choices, and listened to actual experts of reputable standing, the negative impact was limited. Then the US, where they ignored that. Over a million dead people. 4% of the global population, but around 15% of the fatalities. Think about that.
What followed, inevitably, was the intended plan of that Trojan Horse. Inequality didn’t end as a result of the promise of that economics model. Inequality escalated. The bulk of taxation was shifted onto the working- and under- classes, while the bulk of the country’s wealth moved into the coffers of the ruling elite. Austerity measures were enacted, upon the most disadvantaged, to make up the short-fall in revenue from the wealthiest people and corporations paying a pittance of their massive windfalls.
Now think about how Murdoch’s friend and former employee, Farage (a right-wing nutjob whose claim to fame is screwing the UK by championing Brexit), fed Trump very subjective interpretations of what Rudd has said about Trump. How Trump didn’t fact check any of it, admitted he didn’t know who Rudd was, then launched into his default personal attacks and threats. And then how Sky News, the Australian branch of Fox News, boasted about how they set all that in motion. To get even.
Trump’s version of Bitcoin
Seriously, there seems to be some reluctance on the part of authorities to hold Trump, Musk, and other bad actors to account. Almost like they have some kind of wealth-privilege immunity to the law, for crimes that are thousands of times more harmful than the kind that would see poorer folk sent to jail immediately, and black folk shot in the back or otherwise murdered simply based on an accusation. We, as a society, really need to talk about this with more than toxic skid-marks on social media.
Now go and have a look at the responses to answers. The ones seeking to radicalise people through hate and conflict will usually do exactly that. Many of the longer answers simply disable comments. No answer is an offer for a debate. It is what it is. Especially if it’s an opinion. Still, some people are unable to let others have their own opinion, or absolutely must challenge people they disagree with, evidence based fact, and reality in general, so will share an answer, block the author, and troll them that way.
Stop and consider the following questions for a moment. Your car breaks down and you don’t know how to fix it, where do you go for help? A reputable mechanic? Your house is on fire and you can’t put it out, what do you do? Call for fire fighters? You suddenly stop functioning the way you should, where do you go for help? The internet? What about a doctor? What kind? There’s something going on you want to know about, to get the facts, where do you go? Yeah.
He and his mad little cultists will happily attack legitimate media, accusing them of false reporting and demanding public funded agencies be defunded and privatised… even as almost everything Fox News and other right-wing extremist agencies do is corrupted by subjective interpretation, outright lies, and efforts to misinform and radicalise their audience. Most notably, we saw this exposed in the Dominion case against Fox News, and the damage that misinformation did in regards to the 2020 US Election.
Imagine what might happen if the US government responded to gun violence in the US the same way. Dollar for dollar, for the tens of thousands killed in the US, every year. Even today, Trump, the guy who is ultimately responsible for Jan 6, 2020, and who is finally facing legal ramifications for just some of his many, many crimes, who was literally a POTUS, is avoiding accountability. He is being given advantages no other defendant, who has committed even a fraction of the same offences, is given. Consider the precedents that sets, and how many defendants will invoke those in the future.
Meanwhile, Trump’s ironically named Truth Social is revealing another side of the dangers of mis- and dis- information. While Murdoch’s various outlets spread their usual objective interpretation of reality as ‘news’, the latest actions in regards to this pseudo-business ponzi-grift reveal an age-old scam that is still catching suckers. And this one is really worth having a good hard look at. Bizarrely, despite the obvious nature of what’s happening, authorities are allowing it to continue.
The same kind of thing happens in the US. One of the most destructive has been the appointing of new members of SCOTUS. The outcomes demonstrate why this is never a good thing. The opposition, serving as naysmiths, and the news media, is right to run critical reports on such things. So how did Sky News, the local Fox News equivalent, respond? They echoed the LNP. It’s hard to tell whether it is the LNP or Murdoch calling the shots. The criticised the bastardry in a well-deserved attack.
The consequences
The Fairness Doctrine was a set of regulations that required the news media to back up their reports with supporting evidence. It was designed to prevent extremists and threats to National-Security from manipulating and radicalising the audience with misinformation. It’s why we also have defamation laws. Free Speech with responsibilities. The thing that has been eroded in regards to the vast majority of US rights, mostly for those with wealth and power: responsibilities.
But has Murdoch learned anything? Yes. He, like Trump, has learned the law doesn’t apply to him the same way it does ordinary mortals. The US$787M penalty was sod-all for the likes of Murdoch. And given he and his employees literally helped radicalise, and mobilise, people and efforts that almost ended US democracy, threatened National Security in regards to classified documents, and other vile acts, that have led to millions suffering and dying (as a result of gun violence, COVID, and reprisals against those identified as ‘enemies’), the penalty did fuck-all to deter such reprehensible behaviour.
Well, since democracy relies upon informed voters, I’m going to point out the blatantly bloody obvious by asking you the following rhetorical question: does misinformation about a topic help anyone make an informed decision about that topic? You don’t need to respond. The answer is obvious. But, given the events in the US over the last decade, there’s a very good possibility that at least 75M US citizens got it wrong, so if you’re up for it, you get an extended ramble-rant on the topic.
One of the Fox News hosts recently expressed shock about rival network staff criticising their own employer for bad choices. Why? Because he said they should simply follow orders. Forget integrity. As a result, even if a right-wing agency like Fox stumbles across an important issue, and doesn’t automatically apply an objective slant to politicise it, their credibility is shot, so intelligent people won’t listen. They can’t be trusted. That’s a problem.
While some misinformation is laughably obvious and relatively harmless, like the whole Flat Earth bullshit, and the inferiority based ‘importance’ of tanning junk or deep-dive dunnies, others can have catastrophic repercussions. Before Trump and his MAGATS, perhaps one of the greatest dangers of misinformation was in regards to vaccines. What went from unvaccinated kids, suffering the ill-effects of their parent’s monumental arrogance and stupidity, really went sideways when COVID arrived.
As evidence of this, I give you the slow build-up of news media responses to anti-vaxxer lunacy. Air time that added that air of legitimacy. Not for ‘debate’ on the matter, but because controversy leads to conflict ,which leads to increased clicks ,which leads to more revenue and profit. You cannot debate facts. 2+2=4. Now for another opinion. No. Just no. Piss off. You want to do some debate on math, consider the outcome of misinforming millions of US citizens about, and then the outcomes of, COVID.
Racism. Jim Crow Laws. Misogyny. Reproductive Rights. Child abuse and paedophilia in the Churches. AIDS. Gay Rights. Marriage Equality. Wars. Poverty. Healthcare. Veterans Affairs. Education. Firearm Regulation. Mass Shootings. School Shootings. Migrants. Dreamers. Segregation. Housing. Living Wages. Unions. Impeachments. Classified Documents. SCOTUS Appointments. Lobbyists. An endless tide of idiot bickering designed to corrupt and reduce life in the US to an inviable, stagnant cesspit.
The MAGATS, regardless of their vile behaviour, are still people. Broken and or toxic people are the way they are because we failed, as a society, to prevent them from being manipulated and radicalised by toxic people at large in our communities. Now, as a consequence, they do stupid things in order to harm others, and in the process occasionally harm themselves too. Some of it is small. They fall for things like Trump related grifts, and lose money and friends.
Rights and responsibilities
Now, for those of you who haven’t being paying attention over the last 40 years, The Swamp was the direct result of a President called Reagan. Sure, the horrors exposed during the Social Justice Era were bad. A word that fails to encapsulate just how destructive that really was to the most disadvantaged. But Reagan set in motion an agenda so toxic it was deliberately planned to undo what little was accomplished during the events that saw the rise, and then murders, of too many great leaders.
It contributed to the deaths of over 1M US citizens as a result of politicising a response to a global pandemic. It is estimated that 2/3 of the deaths were actually right-wing adherents to the messaging encouraging them to push back against COVID medical responses from a party that bent knee to an idiotic POTUS ‘genius’ who literally suggested people drink bleach! And the pet-media who promoted him, who were complicit in his insanity?
And at the rotten heart of it all, we find Fox News and other vile right-wing threats to humanity. They even attack the facts I’ve referred to here, and whoever tries to inform others of them. Unleashing a hoard of misinformed dipshits to replicate, and vomit forth, the same bullshit to dismiss reality and replace it with misinformation. I recently saw one such fucktard posting memes that claimed Obama was the one that was responsible for the spread of misinformation. False equivalencies demonstrating another reason why toxic media needs to be regulated. Let’s explore that.
Do you believe that social media companies should allow posts spreading misinformation about election results, as suggested by Rep. Jim Jordan?
The damage this does to individuals
The damage that kind of fucking idiocy does
Sounds a little over-the-top until you consider the evidence
Consider the following example. Recently, the ALP, the left-wing Party currently in majority in the Australian Federal Government, walked into several minefields left by the previous LNP right-wing dominated Federal Government. Toxic agendas that ignored or violated the law that the ALP must now clean up. In their efforts to do so, they, too, have made blunders. Desperate to remedy one on illegal migration and deportation, they attempted to ram a Bill through parliament without time to debate it.
They are attacking people who are angry about the same things. The systemic and social injustice they can see and desire to change, but are opposed to because… woke. You may want to look up the definition of that word. It could change your life. Are you starting to get the dangers of misinformation yet? They want people who are doing the wrong things held to account… but they don’t want their guys held to account. The claim evidence against their guys and beliefs are fake, and their lack of evidence about their targets is simply more evidence of a massive cover-up.
I’m not going to get into the details about anti-vaxxer misinformation because you can find more than enough on your own, and I try to avoid debating with idiots. First, because you cannot reason with unreasonable people, second, because if you descend to the same levels of stupidity as an idiot, passersby won’t be able to tell the difference, and third, if you give any airtime to halfwits then you lend an air of legitimacy to their insanity.
The news media are supposed to be the guard rail that protects the people when authorities are incompetent, corrupt, or otherwise fail. Instead, we are now forced to rely upon entertainers and comedians (the most recent evolution of fucking court jesters!) to deliver us the sanity, and philosophy, once delivered by leaders chosen based on their intelligence and meritocracy. The Nay-Smiths, the Tenth Man, the Devil’s Advocate, and whistle-blowers, who the very worst Plutocratic Fascists we have in power seek to silence, and replace with colon-crawling sycophants.
But greed only breeds more greed. The malignant narcissism of that infecting ruling-class mentalities with more of the same victim blaming and other anti-social attitudes. Politics and a politicised SCOTUS and DOJ saw corruption and incompetence rise, along with efforts to undermine elected democratic representation through the use of lobbyists. And all of that was possible because Reagan also repealed The Fairness Doctrine. This is important, because it directly contributes to the social media issue.
Remember when Trump cosied up to dictators around the world, tail between his legs, and triggered a Trade War with China? Remember how the Australian right-wing Federal government at the time did the gutless thing and nodded along? How that screwed exporters in Australia and the US? Remember when Trump pretty much withdrew from the Pacific and threatened to pull out of NATO? Remember when he threatened migrants and Mexico? Remember who all that stupidity helped?
Enter the various grifts of Trump. Casinos that lose money, business fraud to prop up the bullshit image of him being a successful property tycoon, cheating at golf to ‘win’ awards, barely edible steaks, worthless Trump University qualifications, tacky sneakers, IP infringing and worthless NFTs, surrender “Never Surrender” mugshot merch, reducing the House of God to a marketplace by corrupting and selling Bibles Trump and his cult have never read and forever violate, etc. Now Truth Social.
Now, fair warning. I enjoy reading, writing and thinking. It’s what an INFJ does. We like to really get into interesting and important topics. I like to try and have a positive impact. Like Common said, what have you contributed? That means the rest of this answer is going to require reading and critical thinking that may conflict with the echo chamber to which you ascribe. That means really engaging in issues like cognitive dissonance, false equivalencies, cancel culture, and the Dunning-Kruger Effect. The sass is free. It’s what intelligent people use in the face of the absurd.
One can only assume the ‘research’ involved a ‘reporter’ going to a Trump convention, grabbing three schmucks decked out in MAGA paraphernalia, asking who they intended to vote for, and stopping when the third one turned out to be a Gen-Z kid on a dare, with a YouTube station punking MAGATS. Point is, people who are convinced by agencies like Fox News that anybody who reports otherwise to what they claim is a liar. And grifters like Trump love uneducated idiots for a reason. People will believe what they want to believe. Because a lot of them are putzes.
If you don’t like that, or the inability to troll in comments (beyond sharing my answer with your idiot skid-mark on the underpants of the social media pages of history, and then blocking me), this is where you bail. And, by all means, if you want to share it, as a troll, that’s fine. It may help someone learn, if they read it. They may become a better person because of that. And don’t fret. I care less about the opinion of half-wit drongos than whatever crud happens to be on the bottom of my boot.
But what’s worth noting here is that Rudd graduated from the Australian National University with honours in Chinese studies, and is fluent in Mandarin. That’s handy given China’s aggressive efforts to expand into, and claim, the international waters of the South China Sea. Especially since Trump pretty much withdrew the US from the globe, including a region the US has protected since sacrificing so much to end the threat Japan presented in the same region 80 years ago. You may want to compare that with Trump’s deal with the Taliban when he ordered the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan.
None of this is new. This kind of toxic culture and extremism has been inflicted on our species for thousands of years. The invention of the Guttenberg press and literacy simply allowed the messages to reach a larger audience. The rejection of critical thinking and media literacy by a majority population of the barely literate in a social media environment, more so. But, after reading this, do you believe that social media companies should allow posts that spread misinformation about anything?
The Centre for Countering Digital Hate released research data indicating engagement in hateful content was up 49.5% since the takeover. Of 300 samples of reported content, 86% was left in place, and 99% if the author was subscribed to X Premium. Musk, who claims to be a champion of free speech, encouraged this to profit from the hate. But also because it reflects his vile personal opinions. His efforts to punish the researchers with a SLAPP Suit were thrown out by Federal Judge Breyer.
News media misinformation feeds into the social media ecosystem. The problem with misinformation in a society with an overabundance of limited education, and a lack of any real desire to apply critical thinking, is it feeds into extreme levels cognitive dissonance, false equivalencies, and the Dunning-Kruger Effect. We have watched, for forty years, as Murdoch helped shape countries in his own image, where those with power and or malignant narcissism are winners, and all of their victims are losers.
Free Speech is worthless if you have nothing of value to contribute
When does toxic misinformation cross a line into complicity with crimes?
The people that mobilised to enact their fucking idiocy on Jan 6, 2021, Capitol Hill, and all the other acts of mob stupidity leading up to that, including their refusal to listen to legitimate experts regarding COVID, were able to do that because of a combination of misinformation and social media. Let me ask you this: if a foreign power spread that misinformation, and mobilised forces, to do the same kind of harm to the US, how would right-wing politics respond?
Problem is, they had no issue when the LNP did the same things themselves. Search for information about Robodebt and you’ll get a very good example. Consider the different stances of legitimate news media and the right-wing versions like Sky News. Consider how that played out on social media. As a result of the staggering hypocrisy, and blatant lies and manipulation of agencies like Sky News and their toxic stable of pseudo-reporters, none of what they say can be trusted.
A country that cherry-picks from its Constitution and Bible to suit self-centred desires. It has become so toxic their education system has failed to teach much more than misinformation, fear, and to try not to be a statistic in a control shoot. Too many now lack the cognitive and critical thinking skills to realise guns and violence are a last resort, not a first response. To them, it has become normal. Toxic news and social media, and the politics that breed that, does more harm than those fucking guns.
They’d demand retaliation. How do we know? September 11, 2001. Pseudo-Islamic terrorists attacked the US, exploiting weaknesses in the country’s security and culture, to murder around 3,000 people. In response, the US invaded the Middle East, investing an estimated US$3T and sacrificing thousands more US lives, and unknown tens of thousands of locals, to build infrastructure, remove weapons and drugs, deliver education, and stabilise the region.
As a direct result of that act of pseudo-journalistic bastardry, we now have every extremist right-wing dumb-arse demanding Rudd apologise… and join them in Trump’s lower colon. Trump is a malignant narcissist. You do not enable that. An Ambassador’s job is to negotiate on behalf of our country, not be some ill-educated, ill-bred fucking noddy to a despot. Especially when that despot has betrayed and abandoned allies, and even his own people, out of spite and his own toxic self-interests.
Consider Facebook and Twitter. Since they were busted for failing to moderate and remove mis- and dis- information, hate speech, and content that has literally led to crimes and deaths, they have finally been raked over the coals by authorities. Too little, too late. The response? Rebranding. No real and positive change. Twitter saw the very worst response. Musk purchased the company and rebranded it X. Since his takeover, we have witnessed an effort to double down on pure fucking evil.
[Correction: Just realised Truth Social was valued at around US$8B, and the US$4B was Trump’s share. Since that initial idiocy, however, the business report dropped. It made just US$4.1M in revenue, accrued US$58M in losses, and saw the stock price drop to just US$48.66 as of yesterday, down US$20 on it’s opening high around a week ago. On top of that, Trump is now trying to use legal action to steal the shares owned by Truth Social’s cofounders. He’s going to lose, but his standard BS is never a good look.]
Ultimately, every individual is the gatekeeper of their own version of reality. The problem is too many of them outsource their brains to devices and those that control the narrative. Consider Quora. You get all sorts of questions ranging from intelligent… to idiotic pseudo-questions designed to spread bullshit and gaslight the audience. Now consider the answers. Most are brief brain-farts. Knee-jerk reactions of little, if any, real value. Few of them challenge the audience to consider the bigger picture.
How do we know? Murdoch’s latest attack. He weaponised his media empire against Rudd. A former Australian Prime Minister that got in Murdoch’s way. Rudd made the mistake of talking about the dangers of people like Murdoch, pointing at the mountains of evidence of poor conduct and damage that mis- and dis- information has inflicted on countries all over the world. Rudd championed an effort to reign in that abuse of power. Murdoch was willing to sacrifice the planet to get even.
Where do you go to get informed?
The Fairness Doctrine
The removal of those guardrails was designed to allow right-wing affiliated news media to ‘reframe’ facts, to create an alternate reality, alternate facts, that isolated and silenced victims for the purpose of concealing and enabling predators, crime, systemic failure, and injustice. Chiefly to help Trickle-down Economics accomplish its true purpose, but a practice that quickly extended into every other issue as right-wing politics politicised it.
Murdoch and his mob feed the same kind of enemy-State mis- and did- information to the public. You get the same shite replicated on social media sites. The authors were all complicit in what led up to, and happened, on Jan 6, 2021, Capitol Hill. And far too many other things, like the horrors of the US response to COVID. And, here we are, with Murdoch and his ilk, trying to get even with someone that dared to challenge their toxic culture and bad behaviour, even though the consequences could have disastrous outcomes for everyone on the damn planet. Global warming was bad enough, but now…
And the worst part? Too many of them have jobs in vital areas of society. The police. Child Protection. Hospitals. Law firms. Politics. The media. And once in positions of power, they start abusing it. The more they have, the worse it gets. They will hire more of their ilk, and set about circumventing or dismantling the guardrails. Protecting themselves from accountability. Inflicting themselves on others as a result of being insulated from reality by their wealth, privilege, and or circumstances.