Just say no to the urge to tart up tweets with emotional propaganda, it just aids Trump

    Tweeted photo inaccurately indicates boy 'caged' by federal government

    by W. Gardner Selby @ Politifact  on June 15th, 2018

    Say a boy was 'caged' in a wire enclosure.

    — Tweets on Monday, June 11th, 2018 in a post by a filmmaker

     

    A photo tweeted in opposition to federal authorities separating children from parents detained at the U.S.-Mexico border showed what looked like an unhappy boy in a cage.

    The photo wasn’t taken of a boy in custody, we found. Rather, the child was in an open-topped enclosure temporarily erected for a June 2018 Texas protest of the separation of children from parents.

    We rate the tweeted version of the photo False.

    Truth-O-Meter article, "Trump correctly tweets that Democrats mistakenly tweeted photo of child migrants being held in 2014," PolitiFact, May 29, 2018 

     

    Comments

    Some good work on trying to understand

    How Trump Voters Decide Who to Trust

    Google keywords, fact-checking the news, and the occasional sophistication of conservative media analysis

    by Francesca Tripodi @ Medium.com, June 12

    With the cavaet that I would rather see the headline changed to Some Trump Voters. And that her article is more applicable to how we got to the stage where we have not just separate, but divisive, narratives always going on.

    A few excerpts:

     While concerted disinformation campaigns by another country are indeed worrisome, we should give equal pause to brushing off President Donald Trump’s win as the result of siloed thinking or media illiteracy. Implying that Trump supporters were tricked into voting for him because they don’t know what truth looks like sets them up as cultural dopes instead of conceptualizing conservatives as an active audience.

    While not all Christians are conservative nor all conservatives religious, there is a clear connection between how the process of scriptural inference trickles down into conservative methods of inquiry. Favoring the original text of the Constitution is closely tied to the practices of “constitutional conservatism,” and currently members in all three branches of the U.S. government rely on practices of scriptural inference to make important political decisions (for example, Senator Ted Cruz, Vice President Mike Pence, Justice Neil Gorsuch).

    My research shows that highly educated and economically comfortable conservatives regularly fact-check news stories

    This is the most important part of her piece, though, KEYWORDS:

    Few people I spoke with understood that the keywords they use to find information online can actually shift the ideological slant of their search results. Even after doing research, I’ve seen how voters walk away from Google armed with alternative news and alternative facts. One woman discussed the phenomenon directly, telling me, “I’ll Google the keyword, key phrase, a name, event, whatever, to try to see if there’s anything out there. Sometimes all I get is the same things I read on Twitter.” She didn’t realize the extent to which her search results were tied to the keywords she entered or how Google algorithmically orders information. Rather, she used her results to validate her beliefs, as though Google failing to return an alternative perspective meant that one did not exist.

    And Trump provides keywords with every utterance....

    But even if we got rid of him, even if he disappeared, what's not gone is the problem of googling for bias confirmation by all sides.


    Bingo on the subject of keywords, and more generally about how people "search" for information and the patterns they use.  We are all creatures of habit, so we not only do the same things over and over we use the same vocabulary - search terms.  Which is exactly why repetition works so well when you want people to believe something; the words, formulated to be targeted and simple, become a mantra of sorts.  Trump is an expert at it.

    It irks the hell out of me, though, when the media picks up the football.  Latest example (or at least the last one that pissed me off) is the term "war games" to describe what used to be military exercises with South Korea.  That's the North Korean phrasing, their propaganda, and has been for years.  Yet from the Times to WaPo and everywhere in between the decades long exercises are now being described as "war games", or worse.  Sometimes without the bother of quotation marks (why bother, really.)  Grrr.

    So, yeah, when people read/hear a phrase often enough it doesn't even matter if they used to know a different one, or perhaps even a more nuanced description of some complex subject.  In the end it's just a witch hunt.


    Trump is an expert at it

    That's what really hit me here,  like it's something I didn't  truly realize before, not really the enormity of it..All my readings about propaganda, decoding spin, experts at rhetoric, semiology, imagery. I used to complain a lot in past years about how blogging enabled a lot of people to no longer want to decode political spin, but rather, they felt empowered to be their own spinmeister, how so many now thought they could spin better than the pros, spin readers.

    .I didn't realize the enormity of the ramp up of this with search engines, how we are starting to spin ourselves!

    But Trump, that's how he controls narrative, combined with the power of the presidency. This is one of his few talents. The old days, you had someone spin something politically, then if you cared about not being spun, you went to the fact checkers and policy explainers and policy papers and eventually dig out some truth. But with him, he'll just reframe with more keywords! Constantly! Over and over. It's not even spin anymore, it's more like constant mis-direction away from a line of thought that matters, away from a line of thought that helps you figure things out. If you spend time debunking the mis-direction, you're still on his framing/keywords.

    I should say that I saw your recent comment elsewhere expressing apprehension about too much use of Twitter. I used to feel viscerally, that following the blogging thing, where everyone gets to spin, that Twitter was extra bad news, because it was reducing that to 80-character-spin. And what I see now, this is why I feared that, because: someone like Trump, who is so good with the "keywords" manipulation is the ultimate at it (and so stupid in so many other ways.)

    But subsequently I got comfortable with it. Like with everything else, like Google, it's how you use it, it can also be a really good tool to get at truth. With Twitter, you just have to find tweeters to follow who are similarly concerned about transforming knee-jerk reactions to "breaking" to finding some truth. That kind of tweeter uses it as the start of a process, where you're just not forging an understanding alone with your own brain, but throwing your thoughts out there to mingle with others. Analysis teamwork, as it were. Like I have always used posting news on blogs, you throw it out there to see if people are seeing the same in it or not. 

    But if you're using twitter to curate a narrative you already want to tell, or to get "megadittoes" from like-thinking minds, yeah, it's enormously dangerous and contributing to the situation. To follow someone because they will think for you and not just lead you to the right keywords but curate the links you read--yes a dangerous step up but it is a dangerous step up from something we already had: political bloggers giving you their frame of the news.

     


    P.S. Remember the Maine, to Hell with Spain! comes to mind now. In the old days there were "keywords", catchy slogans provided by yellow journalism trying to stir people's emotions and prejudices. The internet just enables everyone to be their own yellow journalist. Ironically I felt it helpful to google surprise this. The reading of this section reminded me how "the truth" sometimes washes out history-wise, neither the bunkers nor debunkers or even the de-debunkers wins all:

    [....] Pulitzer and Hearst are often adduced as the cause of the United States' entry into the Spanish–American War due to sensationalist stories or exaggerations of the terrible conditions in Cuba.[20] However, the vast majority of Americans did not live in New York City, and the decision-makers who did live there probably relied more on staid newspapers like the TimesThe Sun, or the PostJames Creelman wrote an anecdote in his memoir that artist Frederic Remingtontelegrammed Hearst to tell him all was quiet in Cuba and "There will be no war." Creelman claimed Hearst responded "Please remain. You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war." Hearst denied the veracity of the story, and no one has found any evidence of the telegrams existing.[21][22] Historian Emily Erickson states:

    Serious historians have dismissed the telegram story as unlikely....The hubris contained in this supposed telegram, however, does reflect the spirit of unabashed self-promotion that was a hallmark of the yellow press and of Hearst in particular.[23]

    Hearst became a war hawk after a rebellion broke out in Cuba in 1895. Stories of Cuban virtue and Spanish brutality soon dominated his front page. While the accounts were of dubious accuracy, the newspaper readers of the 19th century did not expect, or necessarily want, his stories to be pure nonfiction. Historian Michael Robertson has said that "Newspaper reporters and readers of the 1890s were much less concerned with distinguishing among fact-based reporting, opinion and literature."[24]

    Pulitzer, though lacking Hearst's resources, kept the story on his front page. The yellow press covered the revolution extensively and often inaccurately, but conditions on Cuba were horrific enough [....]

    And you know what? This has given me some hope! Why? BECAUSE I used to fear the results of Wikipedia from it's startup days from the start, as just another dangerous spin machine! But guess what--over the years, over the process, they've done damn good! I am often as not pleasantly surprised by the sophistication of entries now.

    So maybe there really is something to this blockchain thing? Maybe it will really work out well? cheeky


    I should say that I saw your recent comment elsewhere expressing apprehension about too much use of Twitter.

    To be clear, I meant specifically here at Dag - especially when tweets are posted "In The News".  At best, they're a snippet from someone with a link to the story to which they're referring ... why not post it the other way around: the link, with the tweet as a comment or follow-up?  Just my opinion, not a big deal.  ;-)

    Trump knows how to work the room, and he's especially good at leaving the impression that he wants to leave without actually using words to do it.  Yes, he creates the drumbeat with catch phrases and oft-repeated one-liners (after endless trial balloons to gauge the reaction on Twitter and in the media), but he keeps the rhythm going by stroking the band he's formed.  Yet he's only as good as the "room" lets him be.  A surprising case in point: when he spoke (link includes a tweet - HA!) with House Republicans yesterday and mocked Mark Sanford ... his first "joke" received silence and his subsequent remarks even provoked a few boos.  And those people are ass kissers.  What ya wanna bet he doesn't do that again?    


    Oh, on why I do it "In the News", I do it because I think It's far far easier and also better to put a tweet from the source that already summarizes an article that I've read than retype the whole thing and do a paste. It's a single action to be able to share it from the tweet, while it's much more work to post it the old way. And I only use them if I like the summary the tweet provides. If I think I can summarize better, if I liked the article but I think the Tweet summary is ignoring an important excerpt, then I do it the old fashioned, more time consuming way. Also, when I use a tweet from someone that's not the article source, who is adding a comment to the article summary, it's because I found their comment a useful addition to the source.


    Got it!  wink (And just because I'm a stickler for details, I wasn't just referring to you.)


    Ok, great. On your Trump point, somewhere I saw someone say (and yes, on Twitter, one of the reporters feeds I like to check) that the lying keywords skill comes from that he's basically been a salesman for over 50 years. That pegged it well for me. Makes me think back to when I got stuck for a year stint as a part-time manager/sales person in a retail store where pay for salespeople was strictly draw against commission.  The most successful sales people did the lying sack of shit thing. It takes extra skill at doing it to not come across smarmy like a used car dealer. Though to a lot of us Trump is at used car dealer level, to others he's not, is the problem, I guess.


    This is not a problem of the Left. Trump is kidnapping children. Sessions and Sanders say this is Biblically based. 666% disagree with kidnapping. Only 27% agree with kidnpapping. 46% of Republicans have no problem with kidnapping. Trump is targeting his base.

    https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/6/18/17475740/family-separation-poll-polling-border-trump-children-immigrant-families-parents

    We have pictures of children being kidnapped. We have have audio of children who have been kidnapped. 

    The bogus photo of the little boy in the cage was reported as bogus by left wing media 

    http://wgntv.com/2018/06/18/the-truth-behind-this-photo-of-an-immigrant-child-crying-inside-a-cage/

    If amid all the facts detailing the kidnapping, people are not upset, they are evil. 

    Trump blames this on Democrats. That is a lie.

    During WWII a population remained silent while families were ripped apart. That population is not viewed favorably today. People who are silent will be judged by historians, if not in real time.


    Keywords are already operating.

    Trump says that Democrats are responsible for an act that he took. That is a lie

    Trump says that people just have to show up at designated sites to ask for asylum. A lie. People are being turned away.

    Sessions says this is Biblical. Huckabee Sanders agrees. Even Franklin Graham and Catholic Bishops know this is a lie

    https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/gavi-greenspan/catholic-bishops-franklin-graham-denounce-separation-illegal-immigrant

    Laura Ingraham says the children are in summer camp.

    Ann Coulter calls the children child actors.

    We should just let Trump keep voicing his keywords. The public is on our side.

    Edit to add:

    Governors are refusing to send National Guard to the border to enforce the kidnappings

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/19/us/national-guard-trump-children-immigration.html

    Edit to add:

    Toddlers are being held in “tender age centers”. Just like in authoritarianism countries, the press is no allowed access.

    http://time.com/5316764/toddler-immigrants-tender-age-shelters/

     

     


    I posted this before there was more substantial photos/video/sound on topic.

    If I was aware at the time how close to accurate the spin was that this guy decided to use, I would not have chosen to point it out. 

    But make no mistake that I have not changed my mind that it was very wrong and should be decried.

    When you say "the left doesn't do this", I guess you're signifying that you don't think this guy is on "the left". That the left are all boy scout truth tellers.

    Every time someone does something like this gives rise to proof for those of an opposite mindset about conspiracies. It is the reason people think all news is fake.

    Fake news is not a good thing, I don't care who is doing it. I repeat: fake news is not a good thing.  It's a very bad thing. It's propagandizing to convince others and I think that's bad. It's damn easy to argue it's how we got where we are today.

    Don't want to be accused of making you a straw man, so I preface what I am going to say by saying I don't know for sure if you think this.

    But this is one thing I believe strongly: fighting back against fake news, agitprop, political spin and propaganda from one side with fake news, agitprop and political spin from the other side is an enormously destructive thing to do. And I am against that. I will never defend someone for doing that because their heart or goals are supposedly in the right place or because they agree with me and my goals.


    The Left is not responsible for everything done by someone on the Left. The photo is bogus. The photo will be used by the wingnuts. There is nothing that can be done about that. In the shows I am watching and the article I read, people are outraged. The bogus photo should not distract us. We are now talking about “tender age centers”. We have an authoritarian government. We have a government working hand in hand with Vladimir Putin. The bogus photo is a distraction. MSM pointed it out as a distraction.

    There are evil people in power in the authoritarian government. There are stupid or evil people who support the authoritarian government. We have seen people be silent when a group of people were placed in camps. We have watched as people stayed silent during lynching and Jim Crow. We have seen people observe women being harassed and assaulted. In this moment, we cannot afford to be distracted.

    There are probably children who will never see there parents again. This is on Donald, Melania, Ivanka, the dolt Brothers, McConnell, Ryan. Sessions, Sanders, Nielsen, etc. They will not stop this evil if we don’t push back. The bogus photo is unimportant.

    Edit to add:

    United Methodists are criticizing Sessions based on the rules of the Church

    http://time.com/5316396/united-methodist-church-discipline-jeff-sessions-child-separation/

    Corey Lewandowski mocks a 10-year old girl with Down’s syndrome cage by border agents

    https://www.rawstory.com/2018/06/dare-corey-lewandowski-mocks-girl-syndrome-caged-border-agents/

    This is how the Trump base is activated. We are under attack. We need focus.

     

     

     


    Hot tip: people like me don't respond well to lecturing or preaching. I cannot be "activated" by what someone anonymous on the internet tells me to do using declarative sentences as if he is my dear leader (to be 100% clear: that's you I am referring to, not Trump.) 

    As a matter of fact, normally that tends to turn me off from his/her cause. But I try to keep my emotions in check and not let that happen just because this guy/gal on the internet won't adjust his declarative sentence rhetoric'instructions.

    Just like since I have read my history books, I am not going to run to the barricades because of a stirring song someone just wrote.

    My humble opinion, for the umpteenth time: my issues with you are all about how you address people here. It is insulting to their intelligence, and I respect your right to do that, it's beyond me why you think it will do any good. All I can think of is that what sounds to me like you instructing me about reality, you are instead trying to work out in your own mind what's happening. That's the kind interpretation and I strive to 

    But I just can't not wish you would adjust your rhetoric from declarative sentences to showing some doubt and some humility sometimes. That is what I have found most useful about using forums like this for nearly 15 years, learning to communicate better. With you that's aggravating because it's a constant fail because you respond like a robot preacher with declarative sentences.


    I don’t care if you activate or not. In fact, the way you tend to dismiss issues regarding race, I don’t expect you to be an ally. I am not trying to convince you of anything. I am merely pointing about my disagreement with your argument.

    Edit to add:

    I provided links and discussion that addressed keywords. I think the Democrats are winning by pointing out the keywords used by Trump and his minions. You launched a personal attack. I returned the favor. 

    Example:

    Trump says that immigrants are”infesting” the United States

    https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/06/trump-immigrants-infest/563159/

    I think those words will activate the Left


    ok, then in response to me don't say things like we cannot afford to be distracted and we need to do this and do that because that connotes you are lecturing me on how to behave, don't you see? This is about your rhetoric, the way you write replies in comments makes it seem like you are sermonizing, like you are not open to discuss anything, you are my parent or dictator or boss or preacher telling me what I must think. Very offputting. If you just said instead something like "I think the smartest thing the left could do right now is...." it's not personalizing it, not preaching, to the person you are talking to. When you use "we" when you are replying to a person's comment, it definitely means "you and I." When you use strings of declarative sentences they read like instructions from a totalitarian regime for what one must think, no nuance allowed.  If you are using the royal we in a blog post, people get that there. But when you are discussing one on one, it's very irritating, it's almost like you're a boss man or a preacher telling me what I must to think and do. Not to mention you are presuming something about me by making me part of your "we". You could at least put a question mark when you are doing that, "am I presuming we differ on this race issue?" That avoids the strawman thing.  It's all about whether you want to try to communicate well or not.


    p.s And if you aren't interested in improving communication with others here, I don't get what you are trying to do by venturing into discussion. Rather than just sticking with posting links in "In the News" threads.  There, if you want to put your own spin and narrative along with the links, people could disagree and there's not any need to answer or discuss at all, just see what people think and how they reacted to your spin. That's like a writer reading the reviews and learning from them.

    But once you delve into real discussion, most people are not going to take sermonizing well. Unless they are dittohead fans of your narrative (that's what amen, amen amen is all about). Sermonizing or preaching is the opposite of genuine heartfelt discussion.


    "the way you tend to dismiss issues regarding race" - this is crap and you know it. AA disagreeing with you doesn't equal dismissing all racial issues


    We disagree. Pictures of Trump with Rosa Parks don’t count.


    That's a rebuttal?


    You want to do this really? Yeah that’s my rebuttal. We have been through this before. I come here for discussion. Out in the real world, I’m focused on getting out the vote. I’m doing outreach that AA dislikes. Trump and the GOP are a clear a present danger. Either Democrats are going to be elected or Republicans are going to be elected. If you are not working to get Democrats elected, you are of no value.

    Richard Painter, a former GW Bush ethics lawyer, realized the shitshow, and became a Democrat

    http://www.startribune.com/former-george-w-bush-ethics-lawyer-to-run-for-u-s-senate-as-a-democrat/481182291/

    Steve Schmidt, a senior adviser to McCain’s Presidential campaign, is going to vote for Democrats

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/today-i-renounce-my-membership-longtime-gop-strategist-steve-schmidt-announces-hes-leaving-his-party/2018/06/20/5918d7ee-747d-11e8-b4b7-308400242c2e_story.html?utm_term=.365d0c300f6d

    ​I applaud the people who protested Kirstjen Nielsen at a D.C. Mexican restaurant 

    https://splinternews.com/democratic-socialists-ruin-family-separator-kirstjen-ni-1826971802

    I applaud the people who protested Pence in Philadelphia 

    https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Vice-President-Mike-Pence-Heads-to-Philadelphia-for-GOP-Fundraiser-Amid-Outrage-Over-Immigration-Policy-485933101.html

    I applaud the woman who yelled “F-U” to Trump

    https://www.theroot.com/i-will-always-be-here-for-people-cussing-out-donald-tru-1826971566

     

    ​A person who puts up pictures of Trump with some black people as a sign of hope is not an ally.

     


    That didn't rebut anything, despite its length, and I syill don't grok the reference to some "photo with black people", but whatever the reference, I doubt it proves AA dismissing all race issues.


    I don’t consider you an unbiased reviewer. She personally. attacked me. Not a peep from you. I respond, you clamp down. In the past, she has mentioned black family members, when I attempt to respond about my black family members, you end the discussion.

    I’ll dig up the photos of Trump with Rosa Parks, etc. the argument was along the lines that everything’s OK cause Trump is for sale to anybody..

    Edit to add:

    There have also been arguments along the lines that black outreach was unnecessary, but we should appeal to white voters.

     


    I'll trade you 3 family members for 2 family members. Does an outreach trump a reacharound? 

    (Trump take a photo with who? Rosa Parks? Like what?


    You always got jokes

    There was a post where AA included photos of Trump with black people including Rosa Parks. The accompanying text suggested that because Trump photos with black people, he could be “turned”.He would sell out to anybody. I thought that the argument was weak, if not dismissive.

    There have also been comments about outreach to black people as something that should not be done. 

    I find some comments on racial issues dismissive, you don’t. Life goes on.

    I’ll try to go back and dig out the references but it’s a busy day. In response to another post that deals with Trump’s racist language, I noted that responses to protests against police abuse spend more time attacking the messengers, BLM,NFL players, than the actual homicides. 

     

     


    I find it impossible to believe AA persuaded by Trump's "some of my best friends are..." schtick. Maybe you just didn't get the point of whatever she posted.


    Could be, I have seen her criticize outreach to black voters. Again, I will try to go back and copy and paste links when I get free.

    This may be delayed by a blind tasting of Chilean wines tonight.


    Jesus, why don't you skip the links and taste the Paraguayan and Argentinian as well. Life's too short for stupid internet fights, and not long enough for wine sampling.


    We are snobs. One country at a time.


    AA (1) your post is chock full of declarative sentences. Sauce for the goose is sauce..?

    (2) It has 30 personal pronouns.... excessively... personal..?

    (3) You have declared as an Independent.

    (4) RMRD has made it loud and clear he is with the Democratic Party, and why. 

    Elie Weisel, Nobel speech, 1986, on "silence", "neutrality" and "taking sides":

    And that is why I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. 


    You are mixing the immigration topic with my criticism of writing, journalism and political modus operandi on the internet. This was intended as a thread on "meta". It is not about the immigration thing.

    Whoever likes rmrd's style of work on this site is welcome to praise his and pan mine and everything inbetween. Yes, I do agree with goose for the gander. I welcome criticism of any of the ways I communicate, welcome it. (How else would any of us children learn to communicate better with each other?)

    As to the thread itself, you who has such a good understanding of the historic use of propaganda should know what I am talking about and why and why that dishonest use of photo bugged me until real photos and sound came out that concurred. Frankly, I'd be real real disappointed if I found out that you believed "the left" should fight right propaganda with their own. Especially the emotionally manipulative kind. (Kinder, Kuche, Kirch and all...)


    I am very very serious about the latter, that goes the way Orwell was trying to warn about. I am of the opinion that the royal "we" would be making maybe the yugest mistake in the history of civilization (especially at this point in time with this bad actor in control of this country with the kind of Russian pals he has,) to respond in kind.


    Bannon interview, 2 days ago:

    KARL: The President's never lied?

    BANNON: Not to my knowledge, no.

    KARL: He says things that are not true all the time.

    BANNON: I don't believe that.

    The Democrats don't need, and have never had a policy, to lie to the American people. Lies, distractions, fear and hate are the Republicans core methodology.  The truth will work, if enough people care about it, the country and it's future and vote out the Republican Party. 


    People are acting like Trump and the Republican cult is simply a form of normal politics. No credible source is using the bogus photo to justify their opposition to separating children from their parents. They are using facts.


    Who are these people? I don't see that at all, I see the Republican party, the entire country and the entire world in chaos because of Trump and his hardcore fans. Edit to add: With the majority of the fourth estate screaming bloody murder every single day, so much so that many are now arguing that that is the wrong way to approach this, that it's feeding the troll.


    You begin with the Republican Party is in chaos. Trump is preparing some type of executive order. Then you say protest is feeding the troll. Who are the people arguing about troll feeding, is it the same ones who complain about every protest?


     The truth will work, if enough people care about it, the country and it's future and vote out the Republican

    Count me cynical. New Yorkers have tried it many times over decades and haven't seen that happen. I put my priorities on truth, a good fourth estate and individual truthful politicians and not on two big tent money-sucking party establishments with vested interests in payback and insuring bureaucratic machines survive. Loyalty to party uber alles especially disturbs me > it's that "support my team, good or bad" thing.

    Yeah the Dems winning the midterms will help in this instance enormously. With the help of Independents, the biggest "party" in the country, many of them liberals.


    p.s. on With the help of Independents. So best not to turn them off with agitprop vs. agitprop.


    Telling the truth is not agitprop


    Who said it was? Cut the crap, the whole purpose of this post was just the opposite.

    Edit to add: show actual links to anything I said on this site, I am confident that readers will not see my words like you often like to try to twist them. Not cherrypicked quotes out of context, but links to actual full conversations.


    The fourth estate is not spreading lies. The MSM pointed out that the bogus photo was, in fact, bogus. What false story is the media promoting that is agitprop? 


    Go back and read my blog as intended please Stop strawmanning.In the title, I am asking people not to do what the MSM had to correct here. A major problem is ordinary people on social media who are spreading "faux news". They do it within their friends and family tribes on Facebook and Twitter and the like. Then I went into why and how Trump fans distrust the MSM.

     Doh? Or maybe you don't believe all this is happening.

    Especially when I bother to do a blog entry, which I often don't do, I refuse to do the strawman thing with you. Either you address what I have actually addressed in this blog or I am going to ignore what you say from this comment forward.

    It's bad enough when you railroad other threads, I'm not going to enable you do it on mine.


    AA, Trump says that immigration has resulted in a 10% increase in crime in Germany, in actuality, crime is down 10% and at it’s lowest since 1992. At its best, MSM corrects. The only reason I came across the bogus photo is because you posted it. I looked for sources and saw the MSM cleaning it up. Random people will post random stuff. Wingnuts will lap some of it up. Fox and other sites are willing to spread lies. Tucker Carlson actually told Fox viewers not to believe other sources.

    This is not about trusting something because it comes from one tribe it is that the photo was bogus and I have seen much mention of it other than the MSM calling it bogus. In the full scope of things, the photo is unimportance. Wingnuts don’t believe MSM because that is what they are told to do by sources like Fox. You are the one taking the discussion of the rails.


    With the development of SEO (search engine optimization), anyone involved in Web development or content became versed in keywords, easily parsed phrases and "metadat". Just like Powerpoint's pribably infected our ways of persuasion off the podium, SEO is prolly the direction that made Twitter so successful. There was a Sayles movie Brother From Another Planet, and points the alien FBI-lookers would do what seemed like modem download to each other (back when we had modems). Everybody's self-marketing and doing marketing lingo 24x7. The kids don't just ask to spend the night at their friend's - they elevator pitch it, with all the proper buzzwords. God help us.


    Thanks. Democrats have the moral ground on this issue. The more Trump opens his mouth, the more it becomes clear that he is on the wrong side. Let Trump voice his keywords.


    I agree that we need to watch our own side for spin and lies and call it out. But Twitter is almost nothing but spin, bullshit, and lies. Quite often mean nasty cruel lies and vicious attacks. To point out a lie on twitter is like a dog bites man story.

    I pay some scant attention to twitter for the same reason I watch an occasional viral video. I almost never find any value in it but I want to know a bit about what the mob is doing. I know you find some value in twitter. I think that's fine though I have no clue why. 


    What i like about it. I bounce around reporters and analysts' feeds and you get to see behind the thought processes of the people you follow as stories are developing. They use it to talk to each other as things are developing, i.e. "how about this, do you think this is related?" or "is this the same thing as he/they did last year?"

    I try to stick with those analyst types I think are genuinely just trying to analyze. 

    And of course when I run across something that's naughty trashy fun and is truly funny, I am susceptible like anyone else, then it's just infotainment and looking for tribe.

    But you can easily avoid the tribal thing with twitter by following individuals you respect and then bounce around to maybe even a few you don't respect as much.

    I think it's nearly a totally inefficient waste of time to read on topic there via looking at hashtag, trending, "what news", that's where you fall into the tribe vs. tribe and all the nastiness. (Unless you are looking for that, and sometimes you might be, like with a tv show you just watched, it's fun to read all the quips, for lonely people who watch alone who have no watching partner for whatever reason, it's great.)

    It's all how you use it. For example, I find it a great tool for finding news links I've missed from the past. You are of course getting those from the patterns another brain has been seeing after watching for a while. So you have to be careful not to fall into just their narrative of things.On the other hand, seeing that, you learn what their motivations are, if they spin, why they are spinning. 

    You mix it up by bouncing around the same people you might read in long form, see what they are saying to/from colleagues, how they think, before they set down that long form piece. Rarely, rarely, even bother to delve into the responses from the masses to their tweets, that's a waste. It's what they tweet to each other and what they retweet from people they respect. It's very similar to what we do here when we exchange info on "In the News", trying to figure out a story. I am beginning to find it enormously helpful and a good source of doing the kind of news junkie thing I like to do, especially as sites like this are becoming less active.

    Edit to add: to add to my explanation of fun that can be had for certain topic things, think like one of Richard Day's "live threads". Sometimes quips and repartee are just what you are in the mood for.


    Peter Fonda, an actor, threatened to put Barron Trump in a cage. He was upset about the kidnapping immigrant children. No one could stop the nitwit Fonda from making an insane threat. No one other than Peter Fonda is responsible for his insane statement.

    https://deadline.com/2018/06/peter-fonda-apologizes-threatening-trump-tweet-melania-secret-service-1202414611/

    Progressives/Liberals are not responsible for Fonda’s rant


    Just posted on another thread but reposting here (for future reference) because it's related:

     


    Photography and Fake News

    Opinion by editor Jörg M. Colberg of Conscientious Photography Magazine, July 29, 2018

     


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