A war on truth is raging. Not everyone recognizes we're in it.

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

Tweet text:
Nicholas Grossman
@NGrossman81
"StopTheSteal is not merely Trump’s way of being a sore loser or clinging to relevance (though it is those things). It is the most audacious disinformation campaign ever attempted against Americans by any actor, foreign or domestic."

Opinion | A war on truth is raging. Not everyone recognizes we’re in it.
Talking about America’s rising levels of polarization, extremism and distrust of institutions as if they were natural disasters or products of social media quirks misses the more immediate threat.
washingtonpost.com
6:24 PM · Jun 26, 2021

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/06/25/war-truth-is-raging-not-everyone-recognizes-were-it/

In 2015, word spread online that a routine military exercise in the southwest, called Jade Helm 15, was a plot by President Barack Obama to impose martial law and seize everyone’s guns. The paranoia was “fueled by conservative bloggers and Internet postings,” the New York Times reported. So far did the claim spread that Gov. Greg Abbott ordered the Texas State Guard to monitor the exercise.

At the time, Americans responded to such bizarre online happenings with exasperation and bemusement. But the paranoia was fueled by more than conservative bloggers and Internet postings. Former CIA director Michael Hayden later said that Russian propagandists were behind the campaign. They were probing for vulnerabilities to disinformation — and found them. “At that point I think they made the decision, ‘We’re going to play in the electoral process,’” Hayden said.

Americans are no longer so naive about foreign attacks on our information space. The news media, the government and the public did a better job of recognizing and resisting information warfare from outside adversaries in 2020 than four years earlier.

But what if a far larger, more sophisticated and more ruthless disinformation campaign against American democracy originated within the United States? Would we recognize and respond to the threat? The answer so far is no — or, at best, only partially.

*snip*

[ZZenith]

1. Yep.

And that’s a great graphic. They’ve weaponized falsehood.

[Cha]

2. It sure as hell is.. and not just from

the usual suspects.

[Solly Mack]

3. K&R

[alwaysinasnit]

4. k&r for visibility