Unfortunately with the return of Trump, lies and disinformation will be the norm.
Musk wants to shut down NPR/PBS may favorite stations who I trust.
It is so sad, we are witnessing the destruction of our democracy, everything we have achieved in the last 50 years is on the chopping block.
The confirmation hearings are so depressing, the republicans are all bowing to the king.
Nobody has the guts to stand up and fight for their constituents.
All they care about is their worthless jobs, bunch of cowards.
Trump's nominees are as unqualified as he is, a bunch of rapists, vaccine denier, liars, conspiracy theorists. It is pathetic, the whole world is watching this spectacle in horror.
The real villains of this piece are not so much President-elect Trump and the lies he tells, but the Right Wing media outlets led by FOX News, that enable and/or create these very same lies. Indeed, if it were not for the shameless "fact-free" drivel endlessly spouted by FOX News and its lesser imitators, the lying of GOP politicians like Trump would not be tolerated. Even by staunchly conservative audiences. "Haitian immigrant are eating the dogs and cats in Springfield;" "Democrats are aborting (murdering) babies *after* they are born;" "January 6th was a day of love;" "The (non-FOX News) media is the enemy of the American people." And conservative media consumers implicitly believe this nonsense.
You are right of course ,they are Trump's megaphone but Biden and the Dems have allowed it to go on without fighting back. Biden had the bully pulpit for 4 years and never used it. So many mistakes were made. Mainstream media also sane washed Trump and was very critical of Biden..
What exactly do you think Biden could have done to Fox or media without running into the First Amendment right? And I witnessed many people tried to address the lies involved in the Trump mess. Senators and congressmen LIED TO OUR FACES even when we the public saw with our own eyes what had occurred. Where was the public with addressing this inconsistency of Fox and the media? Blaming it on Biden - Marjo is a copout........ this is and has been brought on by the VOTERS.......
The Oligarchs and Fortune 500 crowd *tolerate* Biden and the Dems; but prefer GOP rule mainly because of the sweet tax breaks--never mind if it bankrupts the nation. The MSM reflects this elitist consensus by essentially deplatforming Biden and sanewashing Trump. Because of his stutter, Biden has never been a strong communicator. For that we must look to AOC, Mayor Pete and other effective voices from the younger generation.
We need the Dems in the Senate to stop the nominations in their tracks. Do to this appalling freak show what tubberville did to promotions of our military officers. And we need our military loyal to the Constitution to stop these traitors and defend the Constitution, a thing that has been sorely neglected since the orange traitor decide he wanted it all.
Interesting point. Tuberville was performatively grandstanding with his anti-military filibusters. But he's in a very safe seat and can get away with such antics, like an MTGreene. And in the end Tuberville hurt himself and his career within the GOP with his idiocy.
But I disagree that we should fight every Trump nomination just because we can. Only commit ammo to fighting the really unqualified ones, especially Hesgeth and Gabbard.
Btw, what other nominees do you think should be fought tooth-and-nail?
I am not fond of any of them, since the real qualifications they have are loyalty and not expertise. But the worst are Hegseth and Bondi. Hegseth will not think twice about unleashing the military on American citizens, and obeying unconstitutional and illegal orders. Bondi is an election denier and a loyalist and will not keep the Justice Dept. free from political persecution of anyone who 'crosses' the incoming president. She will do his bidding contrary to our laws.
The big media outlets are owned by megacorps or rightwing billionaires. They will do or say whatever they have to, to protect their cash stream. The purpose of power is power. The purpose of great wealth is to gain even more wealth. Our society will be destroyed not by people who don't have enough but by those who already have too much. And by the way, Jaime Harrison has been a disaster as DNC chairman...
They are all sharing in the rape and pillaging of the US coffers. There will be a lot more billionaires now. Since when have there been Republicans and Democrats with integrity. Maybe a few but not enough. The 'people' aspire to be rich and look to them as role models. Unfortunately money does not confer honesty and integrity on its possessors, just the opposite. And the obvious: the rich are just craftier and greedier than everyone else, not smarter.
In fact the word truth is so misused by the Republican party with their "alternative facts" that I have felt we need to develop a new word to use in place of truth, which really means "lies" when Trump and his folks use it. Since the Latin "Veritas" is co-opted by some right wing organization, perhaps we should use the Greek "alētheia."
It was meant to be a possible word to use instead. I could also have made up my own, like "alduna." The alduna of the matter is that Truth is being misused. The alēthia of the matter is that truth is being misused.
Well said Margo - my sentiments precisely. When I read or watch dystopian stories - like 1984 or the Handmaid's Tale, or even the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich - I see how once a people find themselves in the grips of an all-controlling menace, it is too late. It has to play out to the end where everybody loses. The key is to not fall prey to it in the first place. And we are watching this take place right under our seeing eyes. And a stupid stupid American electorate has enabled this. It was not that hard to distinguish between the lies and truth. Americans failed that test; have been failing it for some time.
I took a different approach. I've posted twice about my disgust for his cowardice. I called him out by name to see if I would be blocked & I haven't which surprised me. It doesn't do much good, I only have a few people on my feed & very few of them give a rat's ass about politics so I get no response from very many. But it did feel good to call him out for his cowardice. Won't help, if anything, I guess it will put me on some list to get dealt with later on but at this rate & at my age it isn't going to make much difference if I'm on a list!
Great instructions Mort. Thank you! But i would like to know if the pictures I have on Facebook are lost. It's the only thing that stops me in my tracks!
When I left FB I (or to be more specific my techie husband) down loaded my photos from FB onto my computer. I'm sorry I can't tell you how to do it but I imagine there's a google page that can. Good luck!
Unfortunately, I am the admin of a FB group that is on the cusp of achieving a win for our town (stopping a housing development on land within our UNESCO World Heritage Site). Deleting my personal account stripped all of my postings on the group page, so I reactivated (you have 30 days after deletion to change your mind), deleted everything from my personal page, including friends. Once our group has completed our task, I'm gone.
Just imagine if all democracy loving people on FB left. I'm wondering why people don't.
I, too, am an admin ... actually for several clients who use FB for marketing. I discourage clients from using it when appropriate, but some are determined. In any case, deleting your friends is the right move. FB is like a global spider's web. When an advertiser pays to "boost" a post, a thread is pulled that pulls threads across the FB web through users' friends networks. With no FB friends, you are useless to Zuckerberg because he can't use your friends network to make money.
As we enter the Great Grifting of America, we cannot continue to believe that guys (and it is GUY/BROS) who are worth + $100 or $300 Billion actually care about the value of truth vs lies. When they go home from work every day, what they are worried about and what most Americans are worried about are just not anywhere in the same slice of reality.
I mean Elon Musk worries about how soon he can colonize Mars. Jeff Bezos worried about dismantling a bridge in Italy so he could sail his mega yacht out of port. Mark Zuckerberg had to worry about why he's so out of touch that he thought his occular devices would be the next BIG thing.
But they don't want the Federal bureaucracy in their pants, so they'll pay Trump whatever it takes to keep out.
For his part, I think Trump just wants to come out of the next 4 years worth $30-$40 billion in cash.
We, on the other hand, want to come out of the next 4 years with the country we know and love.
I agree. Musk, Zuckerberg and Bezos live in their own worlds, insulated from everyday concerns such as rent/mortgage, car payments, having to get authorized for a medical procedure.
They just want MORE, and to continue to be unaccountable.
I left Facebook and all other things Zuckerberg a few months ago along with Amazon and all things Bezos. I will not support anyone who supports the convicted felon.
Unfortunately, there is no way to effectively counter the vast wasteland of lies on a platform like that. The only remedy is to kill the platform by bleeding it dry and the only way to bleed it dry is to dry up the advertising. Advertisers want "eyes" and the less eyes there are, the less likely they'll view Facebook as a place to spend their money.
I never signed up for Amazon Prime, but I did use Amazon regularly. I have recently stopped doing so. Now, I only use the Amazon website to search for products, then I take note of who makes the product and then buy the product from either the manufacturer's website or some other website that sells said product.
Psychologically speaking, it's hard for individuals to believe that anything they do will have an impact against a Goliath like Facebook or Amazon. But the reality is that small changes by a lot of people can make a tremendous impact. After all, how did these platforms get so big to begin with? One person at a time.
Mega-rich folks are not impervious to market forces -- in fact it's the one thing that makes them take notice -- and the more quickly the rest of us understand it, the more quickly we gain collective power.
That's a very admirable idea, but I'm afraid you would have to spend every minute of your life doing it and then end up subjected to death threats by people who don't want to know the truth.
Good luck with trying to counter the disinformation, but the algorithms used to disseminate posts almost guarantee that false claims will be more widely disseminated than facts.
Having the Big Tech multibillionaire broligarchs as his most potent enablers magnifies and amplifies Trump's incessant lies exponentially, from BIGGEST all the way on down. Welcome to fascism, America.
Barbara, nice to see you here! What can any of us do about disinformation? It’s only going to get worse. Look how much time Newsom is spending on trying to counteract it.
I am gone from the Metaverse. FB 2016, instagram and threads day after the election. X in 2022
Glad Barbara is on The Contrarian team! Although I never use FB or X or Twitter it may be possible to mount a grassroots fact checking project. If a huge number of people call out a false statement maybe it will be even better than the site policing itself. We’re already commenting or calling out loads of untruthful stories or misleading statements. Why not take it to the next level?
This line in the article "one of the goals of disinformers is to cause people to become skeptical of everything" really tells the story for me. Everywhere we turn these days someone is trying to scam us, lie to us, get us to abandon core values, or simply take advantage of us. It is no wonder so many of us feel disoriented and disillusioned. Quitting the fray (for example leaving FB) is one valid strategy, but somehow we have to find the strength to build new institutions that build trust and hew to facts so we can actually navigate a perilous future.
If you haven't already, I would suggest reading McQuade's book, Attack from Within. It is an excellent study on disinformation and she includes action steps we can do to combat it.
I am on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads mostly to see posts from my kids and grandchildren. Zuckerberg caved! Nothing was for anything but to appease the liar president-elect and his MAGA cult. The spreading of misinformation is a strategy promoted by them.
I am disheartened by all this, and will fact-check myself. We are in for more chaos. I only hope my adult kids and my college-age grandchilden fact check too.
Feeling powerless. Have stopped all things liars, oligarchs and gaslighters. There are people I no longer speak to. Feels very disquieting, singular, dangerous.
This is how other societies of good people have felt as their freedoms became oppressed by corrupt authoritarian governments.
I quit using Facebook some time ago and deleted it from my devices. It was filled with ads and junk. Now it is filled with lies that will end up hurting our country. I wish I could find a way to delete my membership but I have been told it cannot be done.
Unfortunately with the return of Trump, lies and disinformation will be the norm.
Musk wants to shut down NPR/PBS may favorite stations who I trust.
It is so sad, we are witnessing the destruction of our democracy, everything we have achieved in the last 50 years is on the chopping block.
The confirmation hearings are so depressing, the republicans are all bowing to the king.
Nobody has the guts to stand up and fight for their constituents.
All they care about is their worthless jobs, bunch of cowards.
Trump's nominees are as unqualified as he is, a bunch of rapists, vaccine denier, liars, conspiracy theorists. It is pathetic, the whole world is watching this spectacle in horror.
The real villains of this piece are not so much President-elect Trump and the lies he tells, but the Right Wing media outlets led by FOX News, that enable and/or create these very same lies. Indeed, if it were not for the shameless "fact-free" drivel endlessly spouted by FOX News and its lesser imitators, the lying of GOP politicians like Trump would not be tolerated. Even by staunchly conservative audiences. "Haitian immigrant are eating the dogs and cats in Springfield;" "Democrats are aborting (murdering) babies *after* they are born;" "January 6th was a day of love;" "The (non-FOX News) media is the enemy of the American people." And conservative media consumers implicitly believe this nonsense.
You are right of course ,they are Trump's megaphone but Biden and the Dems have allowed it to go on without fighting back. Biden had the bully pulpit for 4 years and never used it. So many mistakes were made. Mainstream media also sane washed Trump and was very critical of Biden..
What exactly do you think Biden could have done to Fox or media without running into the First Amendment right? And I witnessed many people tried to address the lies involved in the Trump mess. Senators and congressmen LIED TO OUR FACES even when we the public saw with our own eyes what had occurred. Where was the public with addressing this inconsistency of Fox and the media? Blaming it on Biden - Marjo is a copout........ this is and has been brought on by the VOTERS.......
The Oligarchs and Fortune 500 crowd *tolerate* Biden and the Dems; but prefer GOP rule mainly because of the sweet tax breaks--never mind if it bankrupts the nation. The MSM reflects this elitist consensus by essentially deplatforming Biden and sanewashing Trump. Because of his stutter, Biden has never been a strong communicator. For that we must look to AOC, Mayor Pete and other effective voices from the younger generation.
We need the Dems in the Senate to stop the nominations in their tracks. Do to this appalling freak show what tubberville did to promotions of our military officers. And we need our military loyal to the Constitution to stop these traitors and defend the Constitution, a thing that has been sorely neglected since the orange traitor decide he wanted it all.
Interesting point. Tuberville was performatively grandstanding with his anti-military filibusters. But he's in a very safe seat and can get away with such antics, like an MTGreene. And in the end Tuberville hurt himself and his career within the GOP with his idiocy.
But I disagree that we should fight every Trump nomination just because we can. Only commit ammo to fighting the really unqualified ones, especially Hesgeth and Gabbard.
Btw, what other nominees do you think should be fought tooth-and-nail?
I am not fond of any of them, since the real qualifications they have are loyalty and not expertise. But the worst are Hegseth and Bondi. Hegseth will not think twice about unleashing the military on American citizens, and obeying unconstitutional and illegal orders. Bondi is an election denier and a loyalist and will not keep the Justice Dept. free from political persecution of anyone who 'crosses' the incoming president. She will do his bidding contrary to our laws.
The big media outlets are owned by megacorps or rightwing billionaires. They will do or say whatever they have to, to protect their cash stream. The purpose of power is power. The purpose of great wealth is to gain even more wealth. Our society will be destroyed not by people who don't have enough but by those who already have too much. And by the way, Jaime Harrison has been a disaster as DNC chairman...
I love Joe, and all he did, but he is NOT a salesperson.
They are all sharing in the rape and pillaging of the US coffers. There will be a lot more billionaires now. Since when have there been Republicans and Democrats with integrity. Maybe a few but not enough. The 'people' aspire to be rich and look to them as role models. Unfortunately money does not confer honesty and integrity on its possessors, just the opposite. And the obvious: the rich are just craftier and greedier than everyone else, not smarter.
Not rape, please stop misusing that word! It just encourages more anger & distrust.
In fact the word truth is so misused by the Republican party with their "alternative facts" that I have felt we need to develop a new word to use in place of truth, which really means "lies" when Trump and his folks use it. Since the Latin "Veritas" is co-opted by some right wing organization, perhaps we should use the Greek "alētheia."
Good one! So, as a non-Greek-speaker, to apply it to GOP & RW-media serial fabulism, what form of "aletheia" would we use?
It was meant to be a possible word to use instead. I could also have made up my own, like "alduna." The alduna of the matter is that Truth is being misused. The alēthia of the matter is that truth is being misused.
Agreement with all of this.
One minor tweak: I'd call it not just 50 years, but 92, all the way back to FDR's first actions in 1933.
The rich and powerful have been salivating to kill it all off since that very moment.
Well said Margo - my sentiments precisely. When I read or watch dystopian stories - like 1984 or the Handmaid's Tale, or even the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich - I see how once a people find themselves in the grips of an all-controlling menace, it is too late. It has to play out to the end where everybody loses. The key is to not fall prey to it in the first place. And we are watching this take place right under our seeing eyes. And a stupid stupid American electorate has enabled this. It was not that hard to distinguish between the lies and truth. Americans failed that test; have been failing it for some time.
I deleted my FB account the day after Zuckerberg's statement!
I took a different approach. I've posted twice about my disgust for his cowardice. I called him out by name to see if I would be blocked & I haven't which surprised me. It doesn't do much good, I only have a few people on my feed & very few of them give a rat's ass about politics so I get no response from very many. But it did feel good to call him out for his cowardice. Won't help, if anything, I guess it will put me on some list to get dealt with later on but at this rate & at my age it isn't going to make much difference if I'm on a list!
I have no desire for my data to go to Zuckerberg. It’s insecure in his hands and it only goes to supplement his moneybags.
Me, too.
Me too. Please, somebody, help? I never use it so I don't understand the workings but I have two (!) pages.
I deleted mine too.
How do you delete it? I looked and could not find out how.
It isn't as simple as one might think:
Tap your profile photo in the Facebook app and select Settings & privacy.
Go to Accounts Center > Personal details.
Select Account ownership and control.
Tap Deactivation and deletion and select your account.
Tap Delete account and follow the on-screen instructions.
I did this several times, that is why it took 45 minutes to get it done. Alas, I am done with Facebook. Thank you for your time Mort Potter.
Great instructions Mort. Thank you! But i would like to know if the pictures I have on Facebook are lost. It's the only thing that stops me in my tracks!
When I left FB I (or to be more specific my techie husband) down loaded my photos from FB onto my computer. I'm sorry I can't tell you how to do it but I imagine there's a google page that can. Good luck!
Unfortunately, I am the admin of a FB group that is on the cusp of achieving a win for our town (stopping a housing development on land within our UNESCO World Heritage Site). Deleting my personal account stripped all of my postings on the group page, so I reactivated (you have 30 days after deletion to change your mind), deleted everything from my personal page, including friends. Once our group has completed our task, I'm gone.
Just imagine if all democracy loving people on FB left. I'm wondering why people don't.
I, too, am an admin ... actually for several clients who use FB for marketing. I discourage clients from using it when appropriate, but some are determined. In any case, deleting your friends is the right move. FB is like a global spider's web. When an advertiser pays to "boost" a post, a thread is pulled that pulls threads across the FB web through users' friends networks. With no FB friends, you are useless to Zuckerberg because he can't use your friends network to make money.
Me too
As we enter the Great Grifting of America, we cannot continue to believe that guys (and it is GUY/BROS) who are worth + $100 or $300 Billion actually care about the value of truth vs lies. When they go home from work every day, what they are worried about and what most Americans are worried about are just not anywhere in the same slice of reality.
I mean Elon Musk worries about how soon he can colonize Mars. Jeff Bezos worried about dismantling a bridge in Italy so he could sail his mega yacht out of port. Mark Zuckerberg had to worry about why he's so out of touch that he thought his occular devices would be the next BIG thing.
But they don't want the Federal bureaucracy in their pants, so they'll pay Trump whatever it takes to keep out.
For his part, I think Trump just wants to come out of the next 4 years worth $30-$40 billion in cash.
We, on the other hand, want to come out of the next 4 years with the country we know and love.
The BIG game starts Jan 21. Buckle up
I agree. Musk, Zuckerberg and Bezos live in their own worlds, insulated from everyday concerns such as rent/mortgage, car payments, having to get authorized for a medical procedure.
They just want MORE, and to continue to be unaccountable.
I hate the word disinformation. Why not call it lies or propaganda or, at very least, ridiculous untrue stories.
Call them lies 'cause that's what they are, lies.
I have NEVER been on facebook (meta). I won't even check out a business using facebook, I guess I was in the right place a long time ago
I’m torn between leaving the platform vs staying and countering the false information.
I left Facebook and all other things Zuckerberg a few months ago along with Amazon and all things Bezos. I will not support anyone who supports the convicted felon.
Unfortunately, there is no way to effectively counter the vast wasteland of lies on a platform like that. The only remedy is to kill the platform by bleeding it dry and the only way to bleed it dry is to dry up the advertising. Advertisers want "eyes" and the less eyes there are, the less likely they'll view Facebook as a place to spend their money.
I never signed up for Amazon Prime, but I did use Amazon regularly. I have recently stopped doing so. Now, I only use the Amazon website to search for products, then I take note of who makes the product and then buy the product from either the manufacturer's website or some other website that sells said product.
Psychologically speaking, it's hard for individuals to believe that anything they do will have an impact against a Goliath like Facebook or Amazon. But the reality is that small changes by a lot of people can make a tremendous impact. After all, how did these platforms get so big to begin with? One person at a time.
Mega-rich folks are not impervious to market forces -- in fact it's the one thing that makes them take notice -- and the more quickly the rest of us understand it, the more quickly we gain collective power.
Bezos makes most of his money from AWS and its large government contracts, not from Amazon selling Chinese tat.
That's a very admirable idea, but I'm afraid you would have to spend every minute of your life doing it and then end up subjected to death threats by people who don't want to know the truth.
Good luck with trying to counter the disinformation, but the algorithms used to disseminate posts almost guarantee that false claims will be more widely disseminated than facts.
Follow the money. It’s everything to these soul-less losers like Yuckerberg.
It’s always money!
Having the Big Tech multibillionaire broligarchs as his most potent enablers magnifies and amplifies Trump's incessant lies exponentially, from BIGGEST all the way on down. Welcome to fascism, America.
We are plunging into the abyss of post-truth America. This is WAR.
Barbara, nice to see you here! What can any of us do about disinformation? It’s only going to get worse. Look how much time Newsom is spending on trying to counteract it.
I am gone from the Metaverse. FB 2016, instagram and threads day after the election. X in 2022
Glad Barbara is on The Contrarian team! Although I never use FB or X or Twitter it may be possible to mount a grassroots fact checking project. If a huge number of people call out a false statement maybe it will be even better than the site policing itself. We’re already commenting or calling out loads of untruthful stories or misleading statements. Why not take it to the next level?
This line in the article "one of the goals of disinformers is to cause people to become skeptical of everything" really tells the story for me. Everywhere we turn these days someone is trying to scam us, lie to us, get us to abandon core values, or simply take advantage of us. It is no wonder so many of us feel disoriented and disillusioned. Quitting the fray (for example leaving FB) is one valid strategy, but somehow we have to find the strength to build new institutions that build trust and hew to facts so we can actually navigate a perilous future.
What can be done about this? Is there a solution? Is there anything at all an ordinary user with normal standards of honesty and decency can do?
I was driven here from the Washington Post by Bezos. Is it safe here? Is it enough to just be here instead of Meta?
If you haven't already, I would suggest reading McQuade's book, Attack from Within. It is an excellent study on disinformation and she includes action steps we can do to combat it.
Feeling paralyzed, like we’ve lost the fight…
the mountain of disinformation, misinformation, lies, and b.s. has misled voters so that they have given our country over to the Hitler Republicans.
I am on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads mostly to see posts from my kids and grandchildren. Zuckerberg caved! Nothing was for anything but to appease the liar president-elect and his MAGA cult. The spreading of misinformation is a strategy promoted by them.
I am disheartened by all this, and will fact-check myself. We are in for more chaos. I only hope my adult kids and my college-age grandchilden fact check too.
What can those of us who don’t use Facebook or X fo to combat it? If I had stock in either company, I would sell it. What to do?
Feeling powerless. Have stopped all things liars, oligarchs and gaslighters. There are people I no longer speak to. Feels very disquieting, singular, dangerous.
This is how other societies of good people have felt as their freedoms became oppressed by corrupt authoritarian governments.
And here we are…
I quit using Facebook some time ago and deleted it from my devices. It was filled with ads and junk. Now it is filled with lies that will end up hurting our country. I wish I could find a way to delete my membership but I have been told it cannot be done.
Judi,
See Mort Potter's reply (to someone else) above. He provides step-by-step instructions to guide you through the deletion process.