> "The Republican version of Burisma story – essentially, that former General Prosecutor Viktor Shokin was Elliott Ness, and Joe Biden intervened to fire him specifically to aid his son’s company – is also not supported by evidence. What Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and his cohorts have done to date is take a few unreported or under-reported facts and leap straight to a maximalist interpretation of corruption on Joe Biden’s part.
This isn’t right, ..."
It feels like we're learning again how terrible propaganda is, and how to deal with it in a new medium.
I do not claim to be fair or smart or scalable enough to tackle the problem of propaganda, and in fact, I think at times propaganda can be used for good.
However, Matt Taibbi has failed at least as much as Twitter and Facebook have in handling this.
Propaganda needs context. Twitter and Fb were not prepared to provide the context, and so they removed the story. Matt provides some context, but it is buried deep in his post, in the absolutely least likely place for it to be read: the paragraphs right before the last paragraph.
When dealing with propaganda, provide the context front and center.
---
The answer for bad speech is famously 'more speech'. But what is the answer for poisoning the well of public discourse? I think this is the most important question of our day, the crux of the information age. Information is cheap, speech is cheap. I know society has gotten over it in the past, and I have some faith that we will again, but don't pretend it is easy.
The NYT's media columnist had some behind-the-scenes reporting on the Trump campaign's attempt to get the Hunter Biden emails into the Wall Street Journal. The WSJ reported out the story and provided the necessary context. The story ultimately concluded there was no evidence of malfeasance on Joe Biden's part.
The kind of reporting the WSJ did here is worlds apart from just leaking a bunch of documents without any context, and I'm glad we have real journalists doing it this time.
This isn’t right, ..."
It feels like we're learning again how terrible propaganda is, and how to deal with it in a new medium.
I do not claim to be fair or smart or scalable enough to tackle the problem of propaganda, and in fact, I think at times propaganda can be used for good.
However, Matt Taibbi has failed at least as much as Twitter and Facebook have in handling this.
Propaganda needs context. Twitter and Fb were not prepared to provide the context, and so they removed the story. Matt provides some context, but it is buried deep in his post, in the absolutely least likely place for it to be read: the paragraphs right before the last paragraph.
When dealing with propaganda, provide the context front and center.
---
The answer for bad speech is famously 'more speech'. But what is the answer for poisoning the well of public discourse? I think this is the most important question of our day, the crux of the information age. Information is cheap, speech is cheap. I know society has gotten over it in the past, and I have some faith that we will again, but don't pretend it is easy.