Propaganda technique: “Firehose of falsehood”

Introversion · Sep 10, 2020

A technique that, quelle surpise, Trump seems to have learned from Putin. Some discussion of what the technique us, and some ways to (try to) counteract it:

https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE198.html

Rand Corporation said:
Since its 2008 incursion into Georgia (if not before), there has been a remarkable evolution in Russia's approach to propaganda. This new approach was on full display during the country's 2014 annexation of the Crimean peninsula. It continues to be demonstrated in support of ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and Syria and in pursuit of nefarious and long-term goals in Russia's “near abroad” and against NATO allies.

In some ways, the current Russian approach to propaganda builds on Soviet Cold War–era techniques, with an emphasis on obfuscation and on getting targets to act in the interests of the propagandist without realizing that they have done so.1 In other ways, it is completely new and driven by the characteristics of the contemporary information environment. Russia has taken advantage of technology and available media in ways that would have been inconceivable during the Cold War. Its tools and channels now include the Internet, social media, and the evolving landscape of professional and amateur journalism and media outlets.

Distinctive Features of the Contemporary Model for Russian Propaganda

1. High-volume and multichannel
2. Rapid, continuous, and repetitive
3. Lacks commitment to objective reality
4. Lacks commitment to consistency.

We characterize the contemporary Russian model for propaganda as “the firehose of falsehood” because of two of its distinctive features: high numbers of channels and messages and a shameless willingness to disseminate partial truths or outright fictions. In the words of one observer, “[N]ew Russian propaganda entertains, confuses and overwhelms the audience.”2

Contemporary Russian propaganda has at least two other distinctive features. It is also rapid, continuous, and repetitive, and it lacks commitment to consistency.

...

Sound familiar?

Here’s also a short video, that depending on your preferences will either be a mildly more entertaining way to get the same information as reading the Rand link, or annoying.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nknYtlOvaQ0&feature=youtu.be

MaeZe · Sep 10, 2020

Thanks. The video is easy to listen to.

Roxxsmom · Sep 10, 2020

QFT: The purpose of this technique is to reduce facts to just another position.

This has been going on since before Trump, but it's been raised to a crescendo during his presidency. It is exhausting.

And what is so frustrating to me, with my adorably naive faith in science and in the notion that it's possible to be at least somewhat objective, is that almost no one cares about any of that. I don't know what to do, because the tool I spent a large portion of my adult life developing and honing feels utterly useless in the world we actually live in. Just spent a fruitless fifteen minutes trying to convince someone that a story (positing that many of the wildfires on the West coast were started by Antifa terrorists) published by a right-wing biased publication that is also not known for the most rigorous fact checking might now be completely credible, and maybe they should wait for confirmation from multiple sources with better fact checking track records before they assume the firestorms are part of some "deep ~~space~~ state"* conspiracy to destroy Trump.

A waste of time, and another thing that makes me sad. Because I've known at least a couple of these people for a while (on is the breeder of my dog), and I wouldn't say they are stupid or bad people of general ill will.

This whole thing probably explains why the approval ratings have been so fixed and unwavering this time around. It may not be a feature of Trump himself and of his politics, or even character, but because we live in a world where people are exhausted by the constant barrage of bullshit. When fact checking and verification and lies have no meaning, how can anyone be presented with information that changes their minds about anything?

I have to confess it's not "just" the Right. At this point, if Trump did something amazingly selfless, noble, brave or intelligent, I'd have a very hard time believing it, even if the fact checkers all confirmed its veracity.

*Odd what my fingers will automatically type when my thoughts get ahead of my typing speed.

Introversion · Sep 10, 2020

Roxxsmom said:
I have to confess it's not "just" the Right. At this point, if Trump did something amazingly selfless, noble, brave or intelligent, I'd have a very hard time believing it, even if the fact checkers all confirmed its veracity.

But the difference there is that your reluctance to believe is based on a very, very long, documented history of Trump behaving nothing like that. So, you’re quite sensible to doubt. “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”. Which is exactly the opposite of how believers in “deep state” / Qanon conspiracies behave. They require zero evidence.

frimble3 · Sep 10, 2020

At this point, if Trump did something amazingly selfless, noble, brave or intelligent, I'd have a very hard time believing it, even if the fact checkers all confirmed its veracity.

It will be easy to tell if Trump does any of those things:
the Heavens will open and we will see and hear angels singing Hosannas. Or, standing dumbstruck with astonishment.
Either way, you will know.

Brightdreamer · Sep 10, 2020

I read a book a few years back, Fool Me Twice by Shawn Lawrence Otto, on the ongoing assault on science in America - this was published during the Obama years, and even then there were serious red flags. The author blamed a number of factors, such as the rise of postmodernism and targeted efforts to undermine the concepts of science that ran counter to profit margins (and religions), though he didn't entirely let science off the hook, most specifically for failure to treat the growing threat to the very idea of science as the emergency it was before ceding too much ground to enemies who now know the terrain far better and have already changed the rules of the game. Might be worth a read.

frimble3 · Sep 10, 2020

Just spent a fruitless fifteen minutes trying to convince someone that a story (positing that many of the wildfires on the West coast were started by Antifa terrorists)

You are fighting an uphill battle. The people you are trying to convince have 'beliefs' as opposed to logical opinions.
One of them is that 'antifa' = destructive monsters. Another is that people aren't idiots. The third is that climate change isn't happening.

They refuse to admit that as things dry out and weather gets extreme, lightning strikes are enough to start a lot of fires, and human stupidity and carelessness is enough to start the rest.
People tossing cigarettes out of vehicles, setting campfires, and, God bless'em, using pyrotechnics to announce the sex of their babies.
Some people don't like to admit that others of their species are that stupid and unthinking. It's easier for them to believe in malicious conspiracies.

Roxxsmom · Sep 10, 2020

frimble3 said:
It will be easy to tell if Trump does any of those things:
the Heavens will open and we will see and hear angels singing Hosannas. Or, standing dumbstruck with astonishment.
Either way, you will know.

More likely angels will be thudding to the ground like pesticide-killed birds, because they will faint and plummet from the skies.

Brightdreamer said:
I read a book a few years back, Fool Me Twice by Shawn Lawrence Otto, on the ongoing assault on science in America - this was published during the Obama years, and even then there were serious red flags. The author blamed a number of factors, such as the rise of postmodernism and targeted efforts to undermine the concepts of science that ran counter to profit margins (and religions), though he didn't entirely let science off the hook, most specifically for failure to treat the growing threat to the very idea of science as the emergency it was before ceding too much ground to enemies who now know the terrain far better and have already changed the rules of the game. Might be worth a read.

Yes, this has been going on for a while. And the anti science movement does have some of its seeds in the Left. I think postmodernism was more of a liberal academic idea, that reality is something we create or construct. It is rather antithetical to science, which operates from the position that there is an objective reality out there and we have at least some ability to make observations and perform experiments that allow us, even if it's asymptotically and though a glass darkly, to gain better understanding of what it is.

I'm not saying postmodernism is pointless, because it encourages people to question value-based assumptions and also may lead us to examine our means of testing hypotheses (not to mention the hypotheses scientists consider worth testing). But I used to have long, beer-tinged arguments with some of my humanities-and-arts-majoring friends in college where I was one of the only ones defending science, which they thought of as rigid, un-creative, and soulless, as well as leading to things that harmed the world more than they improved it.

Introversion · Sep 16, 2020

Speaking of a firehose of lies, some fact-checking on Trump's recent Pennsylvania town hall (video at the link -- no worries, the Orange One isn't shown):

https://twitter.com/joshscampbell/status/1306068705634287622?s=09

TL;DR: No surprises from the liar in chief, and I'm sure it doesn't shift any votes. But dammit, reality is a thing, and we shouldn't ignore attempts to gaslight us into thinking it's something else.

frimble3 · Sep 16, 2020

Roxxsmom said:
More likely angels will be thudding to the ground like pesticide-killed birds, because they will faint and plummet from the skies.

You've heard about the massive bird die-offs in the Southern U.S., then? It's a sign.

Roxxsmom · Sep 17, 2020

frimble3 said:
You've heard about the massive bird die-offs in the Southern U.S., then? It's a sign.

Birds are dying off everywhere, it seems. They're the new amphibians, I guess. Except insects were the new amphibians, because they're dying off too, which probably is affecting birds, along with all the other crap we're pouring into the environment.

When I was a kid, there were still books around positing that the dinosaurs had died off because of mammals being too successful. Then the evidence for the giant meteor impact led to that becoming the dominant theory of why the "KT" extinction event happened. And we also determined that birds were definitely the surviving lineage of dinosaurs.

But now it appears that the old theory of mammal-caused dinosaur extinction is happening after all, thanks to us.

It's going to be a pretty lonely world for us humans before too long. Assuming we ourselves can survive in such a denuded environment.

MacAllister · Sep 17, 2020

Roxxsmom said:
Birds are dying off everywhere, it seems. They're the new amphibians, I guess. Except insects were the new amphibians, because they're dying off too, which probably is affecting birds, along with all the other crap we're pouring into the environment.
<SNIP>
It's going to be a pretty lonely world for us humans before too long. Assuming we ourselves can survive in such a denuded environment.

Pretty sure we'll starve to death, before that point.

Introversion · Sep 17, 2020

MacAllister said:
Pretty sure we'll starve to death, before that point.

I’d say someone should write a book about it, but Cormac McCarthy already did. :tongue

The saddest thing about this is not how many still don’t believe climate change is a thing to worry about, but the evangelicals who think it’s a good thing because Rapture. Sigh.

Roxxsmom · Sep 17, 2020

MacAllister said:
Pretty sure we'll starve to death, before that point.

At the very least, our civilization could crash and could regress to a distantly pre-industrial age. And with the "easy" natural resources already depleted, and the environment denuded, it seems dubious we'd be able to rebuild from that.

But I fear mass chaos and famine will result in the kind of war that could hasten our own demise anyway.

I hope we're wrong about this and our species "pulls its head out" before it's too late. The way the US, and many other countries, are reacting to our tumultuous times--fighting among ourselves like starving dogs over scraps of meat when there actually ARE still renounces with which to solve problems--doesn't make me super optimistic right now.

Propaganda technique: “Firehose of falsehood”

Introversion

Pie aren't squared, pie are round!

MaeZe

Roxxsmom

Beastly Fido

Introversion

Pie aren't squared, pie are round!

frimble3

Heckuva good sport

Brightdreamer

Just Another Lazy Perfectionist

frimble3

Heckuva good sport

Roxxsmom

Beastly Fido

Introversion

Pie aren't squared, pie are round!

frimble3

Heckuva good sport

Roxxsmom

Beastly Fido

MacAllister

'Twas but a dream of thee

Introversion

Pie aren't squared, pie are round!

Roxxsmom

Beastly Fido