Let's talk about disinformation about Minnesota.... - Belle of the Ranch

[TexasTowelie]

Well, howdy there Internet people. It's Belle again. So, today we're going to talk about disinformation about Minnesota.

True to form and hyper politically polarized times. Facts seem to matter less and less and things that people want to believe, even if they're obviously false, gain traction and go viral. We're going to go over one of those things, how to spot them in the future, and what it means about the relationship between the producer of the content and the consumer.

Thousands of people shared information about Nicole Renee Good. Well, at least they thought they were sharing information about her. A purported rap sheet was shared over and over again. You'll probably see it soon if you haven't already. When you see it, pay attention to the birth date and the age. The first one I saw had an age of 35 and birth date of 10-7-1980. Yep, bad at math. Born in 1980, she would have been 35 in 2015.

What makes it worse is that at some point in the process of it going viral, somebody must have pointed out the obvious discrepancy. Did that stop the spread? No. Somebody simply made an edit. So, there's also a version showing her age is 44. Somebody told me there's another one that shows her age is 37, but I haven't seen that one yet. But at no point did the birth date and age all line up with Good's actual information. At this point, it's clear it is 100% intentional. It's not an accident. It's intentionally spreading bad information.

Moving down the page, you have a booking date and time. That's not the right format. The booking number format isn't even consistent with itself within the document. Many of the purported charges don't even exist in Minnesota. My guess is this was made by somebody in the southern US based on the terminology. The “domestic abuse child endangerment law” doesn't exist in Minnesota. They have laws covering it, but that's not what it's called. That exact terminology is used in a few states in the South, though.

Another charge is battery of a police officer. Doesn't exist in Minnesota. They phrase it as assault of a peace officer.

Another claimed charge is entering remaining real property. If I had to guess, these are Louisiana charges, not Minnesota. But that's not the point. What does it say about the people knowingly circulating this? They think you're dumb. They have so little respect for you, they don't even invest in making it believable. They just throw it together and count on you being emotional and succumbing to bias. You're going to see this more and more and it's going to get more and more believable as generative AI improves. We have to start training ourselves and our neighbors to use critical thinking or we're going to become the most easily manipulated population in history.

Anyway, it's just a thought. Y'all have a good day.