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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsEnhanced Misinformation Techniques
2/2/15
When the Senate released its shocking report on CIA torture late last year, it renewed a debate from the Bush years about the merits of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques.
Polls released afterward suggested that most Americans thought that torture was effective and, in some cases, justified. Yet the report was very clear: Torture produced virtually no valuable intelligence.
So why did so many people get the wrong idea? One possible explanation is that they heard it over and over again on TV.
In a new study, Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting found that major news programs interviewed twice as many torture defenders as torture critics in their coverage of the Senates report...
http://fpif.org/enhanced-misinformation-techniques/
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)down to the pollution of discussion boards on the internet.
Excellent OP. Thanks.
RiverLover
(7,830 posts)is only just beginning.
I guess we should be thankful? corporate media broadcasted a total of 154 minutes of Climate Change news in 2014. That's total coverage for the year by ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox.
They are disgraceful. And Americans are easily manipulated by them.
Android3.14
(5,402 posts)I've seen it more and more. At least with a billboard you knew it was propaganda, but now it has become all subterfuge.
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)Q:What does Brian Williams do for 10 million a year?
A:Be the pretty face and gravely voice of Blind Trust.
Nay
(12,051 posts)research into the most effective ways to manipulate people. They've got the methods down pat, folks, and they're using them on us every day. And not just to sell us Jello.
questionseverything
(9,657 posts)sponsorship of the "propaganda" state
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the hacks that confirmed sock puppets were used on the net to sway opinion......some of the programs made it possible for one person to control and present up to 100 personas
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hat tip to oct...
Octafish (43,923 posts)
8. Why you should care about journalist Barrett Brown's sentencing today
By Barry Eisler, Opinion, Dec 16, 2014
EXCERPT...
In 2009, Barrett founded Project PM, dedicated to investigating private government contractors working in the secretive fields of cybersecurity, intelligence, and surveillance. He was particularly instrumental in using documents obtained by the hacktivist collective Anonymous to expose secret collaboration between the government and various contractors. The covert factions Barretts work threatened are powerful, and fought back. Two years ago, Barrett was arrested and threatened with 100 years in prisonyes, you read that correctlyallegedly for threatening an FBI agent, concealing evidence, and linking to a website that contained stolen credit card numbers. The allegations themselves are sufficiently preposterous, and the threatened sentence sufficiently draconian, to make it clear that Barrett, like William Binney, Thomas Drake, Daniel Ellsberg, Jeremy Hammond, Jon Kiriakou, Chelsea Manning, Jesselyn Radack, Edward Snowden, Aaron Swartz, Thomas Tamm, and many others, is in fact being persecuted as an example to anyone else who would dare challenge Americas Deep State.
CONTINUED...
http://boingboing.net/2014/12/16/opinion-why-you-should-care-a.html
In this case, I'm surprised by how many side with the FBI over the First Amendment.
"The heart grows stronger by facing the evils of the world." -- Ludwig van Beethoven
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)Thank you.
RiverLover
(7,830 posts)& spying. Thanks for posting.
And thanks to Barrett Brown for his sacrifice. May it not be in vain.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)merrily
(45,251 posts)It's also very interesting to me that, a few days ago, DUers were debating the merits of mistrusting government and media.
Pseudo skepticism, paranoia, loopy conspiracy theories, etc.
Whom the PTB would destroy, they first depict as mad. (with apologies to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow).
Far more dangerous to us than the skeptics and cynics, IMO, are the unconditional apologists.
*Speaking of terminology, calling torture "enhanced interrogation" was itself an enhanced misinformation technique. People recoil from the word "torture" and the images it elicits, but who doesn't love enhancements of all kinds? "You came up with better ways to interrogate suspected terrorists, did ya? Cool!"
RiverLover
(7,830 posts)And your posts always make me think. Some days that's easier than others.
merrily
(45,251 posts)Android3.14
(5,402 posts)You are referencing a Longfellow quote, it seems. I am related to HWL, and would be curious what quote you are referencing.
merrily
(45,251 posts)Apologies being due, of course, because I paraphrased.
Android3.14
(5,402 posts)Now I recognize the quote. I was ignorant it was a Longfellow bit.
merrily
(45,251 posts)Scuba
(53,475 posts)Ain't that the truth?
Android3.14
(5,402 posts)And the sad part is that, once the paid shills shovel the shit out there, we have people that just eat it up like crack cocaine for the soul.
zeemike
(18,998 posts)Not on the moral grounds that it is wrong morally.
Because they can argue effectiveness but not the morality of it.
That is how the misinformation works...control the argument.
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)merrily
(45,251 posts)tech3149
(4,452 posts)No other problem can be dealt with until this issue is beaten.
RiverLover
(7,830 posts)as opposed to those "reputable" mass manipulators aka Broadcast News.
I don't know how we can change the paradigm though, when journalists are being spied on & threatened, & their sources are being jailed.
salib
(2,116 posts)Making it all to common for us to come to keenly emotional but simpleton inspired conclusions.
MisterP
(23,730 posts)the goal is to generate *unrooted, uncoupled* but intense reactivity, an unearned emotion, an addictive but hollow agitation that keeps the carousel spinning
obxhead
(8,434 posts)Fictional TV dramas and false news.
This is why people are so gullible.
Hero's torture the terrorist then go save the day with a drone.
BubbaFett
(361 posts)that portrays the police as intelligent, working in digital palaces (taxpayer funded?).
The funny part is that cops are some of the dumbest people on earth and their workplaces often resemble sewers without wall sized flat panel touchscreens.
If you don't see it yourself or hear it in your neighborhood, it's probably propaganda.
The best way to reclaim your mind is to banish television from your world.
hunter
(38,322 posts)My television is strictly a movie player, and has been for a couple of years now.
Broadcast, cable or satellite television, it's entirely unwatchable to me.
Television "news" is especially horrible, it's raw propaganda on all the networks, and the advertising is over-the-top obnoxious and irritating.
We used to laugh about "news" as it was presented in the Soviet Union.
But the owners of U.S.A. mass media have turned television propaganda and deception into a precise science. Even the "entertainment," the sports, the sitcoms, the police dramas, etc., are infused with the propaganda of the oligarchy.
JEB
(4,748 posts)valerief
(53,235 posts)tularetom
(23,664 posts)by saying he isn't as bad as Fox. Well, yes he is, he's every bit as bad as Fox, he's just smoother and more subtle about it. He works for Comcast, widely acknowledged to be the worst corporation in America for customer service. He's not going to tell you anything Comcast doesn't want you to hear.