New and Improved Propaganda Machines

We carry propaganda machines in our pockets. Propaganda isn't just to misinform, but to distract us and exhaust the capacity for critical thinking. When you're struggling to decide between 25 types of cereal or what colour to paint the kitchen, you can miss the bigger picture. Chomsky's been saying that for years. Propaganda destroys the quest for truth, and it's worse than ever.

Pat Loller has a quick explainer about how we're ignoring the huge shift in how propaganda operates now:

"Go make a new account or reset your algorithm on any app and see how many swipes it takes to get right-wing propaganda. . . . There are all these studies coming out saying Americans are functionally illiterate . . . you don't read, you don't get critical thinking skills, and then the propaganda that you're consuming, you don't think about. You just go, 'Oh, okay, I guess that's true,' especially if you've been consuming it since you were 15 years old. . . . These kids congregate around these figures and they play video games together. Go and look at any popular video game, and Control F search for 'woke' or 'DEI', and you'll see that the gaming sphere has been a cesspool for decades. . . .  There's all these angry young men with no critical thinking skills who are being fed a constant diet of propaganda that is literally dished up to them on their phones the moment they open an account. Is it any wonder that they're going to fall Pied Piper behind this guy who's just like, 'Hey, all of those complex challenges in your life? It's this guy's fault. Stop centering you as the protagonist in every single video game and every single movie and TV show ever made?? Girls say they'd rather meet a bear in the woods than you?? Get mad and vote for the guy who is going to hurt those people.' 

I know that because there's a movement right now on the internet and in schools to walk up to women and say, 'Your body, my choice.' They pick the hateful guy because they're full of hate. They were already lonely and angry and then people riled them up to make them lonelier and angrier, and here we are. . . . To pretend that these algorithms that are scientifically designed to be addictive and filled with bad actors isn't having some sort of repercussion - there is not a message that Democrats could have crafted that was going to crack into that sphere. . . . Until we deal with this problem and figure out a way to unpropagandize these people, they're going to get worse. And AI is not helping. Having a thing that does all your school work for you and even breaks down the paragraph text message you got into a smaller form, it's not helping literacy. We need these algorithms to not shunt every angry, disaffected young man into the same group where they just get angrier, more disaffected, until they become violent."

A university researcher in Qatar, Marc Owen Jones, tracked the origin of the TrudeauMustGo hashtag to a single US alt-right account, likely a bot, initially spread entirely by MAGA accounts. And back in 2021, the term "Disinformation Dozen" was coined to acknowledge the twelve individuals who generated two thirds of all anti-vaccination content on social media platforms, much of it targeted to racial minorities, which feels particularly nefarious (as opposed to merely misinformed).

But it's not just online propaganda that's a problem. Miranda Green wrote about where Trump voters get their news:

"Yes, there's social and partisan sites, but there is another influential strategy that isn't getting enough attention: Manipulated, pay-to-play and all out fake news sites. I've been covering a mix of those for years. Here's a primer. 

What did residents in key counties in Arizona, North Dakota and Nevada all have in common on October 15? They received a print paper with the same front page and headline. 

The papers were all postmarked with the same Chicago address for Metric Media, a pink-slime news operation that runs more than 1,100 websites. Metric is in a network of news sites that re-print one another, echo each other's talking points and life up the voices of right-leaning think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and SBA Pro-Life. Reporting has also found it's a pay-to-play operation. 

The papers are not news. They are largely written by algorithms, don't have bylines and only cover one side -- the right leaning side -- of the topics they cover. It's misinformation, full stop. What's key here is that its owner, Brian Timpone, is exploiting a crack in the news ecosystem. As local news is diminishing and trust in mainstream national news has decreased, local readers still want news, they just don't know where to get it. That's where pink slime steps in.

Metric has been strategic this year. While it's mostly online, its one-off print papers have shown up ahead of key races. Inside, the content changes to specifically conform to issues facing those communities: oil pipelines in ND, inflation in AZ, LGBTQ issues in WI. The Tucson Standard, sent to Arizona homes October 30, nearly entirely vilified trans-rights and sex changes. 

What these print papers do that the online sites can't is to get directly in front of voters. While lots of folks say they throw them away, others share them as fact. Metric has also gotten into the business of buying real newspapers. In Ohio, it purchased the Mount Vernon News, whose coverage this year has largely focused on the negatives of a proposed solar farm nearby. The network also touches on culture war issues like same sex marriage and the right to protest. 

What's interesting about these networks of news is that many trace back to the oil and gas industry and power players. Experts say the reason is because many conservative donors made their money this way -- and they see mainstream coverage of climate as a threat. 

Anne Nelson said, 'It's because the legitimate journalism is turned against them. And I would say the vast majority of professional journalists, both print and broadcast that is not ideologically twisted, believe that climate change is real. So they have had to create their own, right, where they control the so-called facts. And the real shame is how effectively they've been able to make it masquerade as legitimate journalism.'

In fact, Timothy Dunn, the billionaire CEO of a leading Texas oil and gas company, has held a managerial role in the metric network. But fossil fuel companies and utilities are using a similar playbook. In Florida, two power companies paid a consulting firm to hire newspapers to attack a pro-solar politician. In Alabama, the state's largest monopoly electric company purchased a historic Black newspaper, then didn't write about soaring power bills. In California, Chevron launches its own newsroom when other papers shuttered; it doesn't cover itself critically. In Texas, a formerly Black-owned, progressive newspaper has re-emerged as a 'pink slime' media site that launders conservative propaganda. 

Why does this matter? As the public and media look inward to determine how best to get facts to Americans, it's important to look at how the other side is doing it. These 'papers' show there's still a belief that news has power; it just depends on who is disseminating it. 

Theobius wrote about how close the Canadian Cons are to MAGA interests: 

Before his death Sheldon Adelson was visited by Stephen Harper. Adelson gave heavily to far right causes including 'Freedom's Watch', an organization conceived at a Florida RJC March 2007 meeting and with the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) and American Enterprise Institute (AEI).

AEI member, William J. Baroody Sr., and several staff including Karl Hess, were advisers and speechwriters for presidential nominee Barry Goldwater in the 1964 presidential election. This connects to Project 2025 and Pierre Poilievre. Goldwater was also supported by the John Birch Society and Human Events which employs Jeff Ballingall. AEI staffed the Reagan White House. AEI member David Frum, George W. Bush's speechwriter and ally of Stephen Harper going back to the Reform Party, was a founder of the secretive Civitas Society, which came out of the KKK and Nazi infiltrated Reform party. It is a concentration of ultra far right, wealthy, evangelical, anti-LGBTQ, racist, sexist people in Canada. Several are identified as likely foreign agents. They're sponsored by Meta. 

The origins of MAGA and the Conservative Party of Canada are the same: On Nov. 2, 2018, The Munk Debates hosted Trump advisor and Breitbart editor Steve Bannon debating David Frum, brother of Stephen Harper appointed Senator Linda Frum and Bush speechwriter and participant in Harper's and Conrad Black's 'The Northern Foundation' with KKK member Urmas Aarne Polli. 

Everything about Harper is really weird when you look closely. 

Then he went on to list more and more connections and Biblical references and missing money surrounding the Hula Valley Nature Reserve, but suffice it to say something has always been amiss there. 

And you've got to know Doug Ford is in the mix, possibly hoping Musk will help him win the next election. I don't know if that's a real thing or how it works, but why else would he pay $100 million for Starlink system?? Vote counting equipment is already part of the books for elections, signed by Greg Essensa, Chief Electoral Officer of Elections Ontario.

Robert Reich made a short video a couple years ago talking about InfoWars, and explaining that suing people like Alex Jones might be the answer, but that was before The Onion actually bought InfoWars, which is all sorts of awesome!

Here in Canada, Professor Timothy Caulfield, Dr. Jen Gunter, Dr. Melissa Lem, and Anthony Morgan are using a two-pronged approach to address misinformation that hinges on education: "If we can learn to be not a distracted driver, we can learn to not be a distracted health care consumer."

1. pre-bunking, debunking and nudges --> teach the scientific method and how to identify good science and understand stats (see Together Against Misinformation for videos) presented in different ways for different people: "Participants with right-leaning political views were less influenced by prebunking messages, suggesting that nudges might be more effective for this demographic."

2. enhance critical thinking skills, improve media literacy, and nudge regulatory policy

I'm all about teaching everyone how to understand studies and think critically about issues, but even when I had a captive audience of 90 kids per day, the online arguments were already forming the kids' ideologies, unbudgeable with any clearly delineated studies to the contrary. I'm not sure how many of us CAN learn to stop being distracted drivers. The will to be better people seems to be running thin when it runs up against the much more satisfying desire to hate on our enemies. 

We're going to need all hands on deck for this dilemma or else expect the technocrats and billionaires to win every elections. Education won't enough to beat back this dragon - we need lawsuits, tech counterforces, and policy to rein in the internet, if that's remotely possible.