'Post-Truth Politics' - Collapse in Information Integrity

[Mossling]

Trump has been shitlisted by the establishment for a number of reasons so they're going after him for it. I'm not a Trump supporter, I hope hey lock him up, I just deplore bullshit partisan hypocrisy more than I loathe Trump.

But Trump's scandals are linked to the significant Russian interference in the election, which he has now recognised himself (and is trying to blame Obama for), which seems like it puts him beyond "regular politicking".

That very political system has been, and could very likely still be, under threat from a traditional foreign enemy, and via the office of the POTUS himself, which is something new.

It's not anything new

Thanks for the quick reply ;P, sorry I made a little edit to my most recent post above thinking I had some time before you replied, but doesnt change much.

, transnational elites have held sway over the office for some time. What's the difference between a "traditional enemy" and transnational corporations with inimical interests to the American public? I agree with you that Trump is really bad, but he's no worse than any of the other crooks we've had.

Do you mean to ask me what is the difference between a traditional enemy nation state and a transnational elite corporation?

I'd say plenty - the availability and transparent use of military and intelligence assets probably the most obvious one.

[Sivad]

Do you mean to ask me what is the difference between a traditional enemy nation state and a transnational elite corporation?

I'd say plenty - the availability and transparent use of military and intelligence assets probably the most obvious one.

Maybe 30 years ago, but not these days. When it come to POTUS puppeteers I prefer Russia to Citibank. Russia just wants geopolitical concessions within it's own sphere, Citi wants to exploit me and the rest of the world.

[Mossling]

Do you mean to ask me what is the difference between a traditional enemy nation state and a transnational elite corporation?

I'd say plenty - the availability and transparent use of military and intelligence assets probably the most obvious one.

Maybe 30 years ago, but not these days. When it come to POTUS puppeteers I prefer Russia to Citibank. Russia just wants geopolitical concessions within it's own sphere, Citi wants to exploit me and the rest of the world.

Who knows what they are really interested in. Hitler, Kim Jong Un, Pol Pot, and so on and so forth. Plenty of examples of twisted fascist agendas within the last 100 years. For those who have the most absolute power it seems tempting for them to see the future as a canvas on which to paint their own world-view, 'warts and all'. As you seem to infer, our choices put forward via our however-compromised vote, our wallets, or, for the more viscerally-minded, more violent means, requires us to choose which warts we are most happy to have in our lives.

Returning to the main thrust of this topic, however - the noble quest for Truth and the love of wisdom that it engenders because it, like the virtues of prosocial living, makes our lives more efficient, seems to be considered a hindrance by the likes of Trump - it appears that he considers the prosocial Truth something ephemeral - maybe some sick joke that intellectuals like to throw in his face.

As stated many pages ago on this thread, Socrates disagreed with how democracy was being put on a pedestal by members of Athenian society who had no keen interest in wisdom - no keen interest in pursuing The Philosophical Truth. It seems that he did defer to democracy being the most suitable form of government once the primary importance of wisdom had been given the necessary respect that was due to it, though.

However, what appears to be happening in America at the moment concerning The Truth and Democracy, is something more extreme and dangerous:

* The POTUS recognises that a traditionally hostile foreign nation state successfully interfered with an American democratic election - an election that elevated him into power.
* The POTUS and his administrative team have - as individuals and collectively - highly significant historical business ties and apparent future business aspirations towards that traditionally hostile foreign nation state that elevated them into power.
* When American intelligence services, such as the FBI, continue to conduct an investigation into the CLEAR ATTACK ON AMERICAN DEMOCRACY BY A TRADITIONAL FOREIGN ADVERSARY, Trump THEN SELF-ADMITTEDLY OBSTRUCTS THE INVESTIGATION BY FIRING THE HEAD OF THE FBI, and when his motives are questioned HE BRANDS THE FBI'S GENUINE NON-PARTISAN CONCERN FOR THE SAFETY OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY AS "A PARTISAN LIBERAL AGENDA" - AS "FAKE NEWS" - AS NON-TRUTH.

This is all apparently beyond "politics as usual". This is an attack on The Truth - on traditional Western political, and thus American, wisdom - wisdom which includes and champions the high value of the American democratic process.

This is not 'business as usual', my friend. Trump intends to kill Socrates as the Athenians did, and potentially the American democratic process as well.

If the Truth falls, then so does wisdom, and thus the wisdom of democracy as a political process. It appears that Trump has no respect for any of it, and the only major world nation or political leader that he hasn't expressed disapproval of is THE VERY FOREIGN TRADITIONAL AMERICAN ADVERSARY WHO INTERFERED IN HIS OWN COUNTRY'S DEMOCRATIC ELECTION.

If this does not concern you, then logic seems to be wasted on you.

[Mossling]

Here is one timeline below of how the post-truth anti-US democracy situation has been unfolding:

Trump asserts that the US election is being rigged via "media-pushed lies" - fake news. In other words he has no faith in the US democratic system:


Trump asserts that the Russian hacking story is a DNC hoax and his lack of concern regarding Putin's reported involvement is questioned:


Trump hears from an intelligence briefing that the hacking was not a hoax and then he shows the minimum concern over it:


Even Fox News is concerned about how anti-US democracy attacks from Russia have been called "fake news":


Trump finally admits that the Russian hacking was real, not a DNC hoax, and is now trying to blame Obama for it:


This is not apparently someone who loves American Democracy, let alone The Truth. And there's "yuge" protection of Russian interests over anyone else's.... for some reason....

[Mossling]

Trump’s Lies
NY Times, JUNE 23, 2017

Many Americans have become accustomed to President Trump’s lies. But as regular as they have become, the country should not allow itself to become numb to them. So we have catalogued nearly every outright lie he has told publicly since taking the oath of office.
[...]
President Trump’s political rise was built on a lie (about Barack Obama's birthplace). His lack of truthfulness has also become central to the Russia investigation, with James Comey, the former director of the F.B.I., testifying under oath about Trump's “lies, plain and simple.”

There is simply no precedent for an American president to spend so much time telling untruths. Every president has shaded the truth or told occasional whoppers. No other president — of either party — has behaved as Trump is behaving. He is trying to create an atmosphere in which reality is irrelevant.

We have set a conservative standard here, leaving out many dubious statements (like the claim that his travel ban is “similar” to Obama administration policy). Some people may still take issue with this standard, arguing that the president wasn't speaking literally. But we believe his long pattern of using untruths to serve his purposes, as a businessman and politician, means that his statements are not simply careless errors.

We are using the word “lie” deliberately. Not every falsehood is deliberate on Trump's part. But it would be the height of naïveté to imagine he is merely making honest mistakes. He is lying.
[...]
Trump achieved something remarkable: He said something untrue, in public, every day for the first 40 days of his presidency. The streak didn’t end until March 1.

[Mossling]

Irony...

'The literal definition of fake news': late-night hosts on Trump's Time cover
The Guardian, 29 June 2017 16.37 BST

“Trump is so obsessed with praise from the media that according to the Washington Post, he keeps this framed Time magazine cover hanging in several of his golf clubs,” Meyers said. “Cool cover, flattering photo. Just one problem. The Time cover is a fake. That’s right, Trump hung a fake Time Magazine cover with his face on it in his private golf club. That is the literal definition of fake news. This would be the saddest thing I’ve ever heard if it wasn’t the funniest thing I’ve ever heard.”

[Mossling]

Even the great Trump-paid sophist Kellyanne Conway is now caught by her post-truth spaghetti lies when confronted with video evidence of her speaking out against personal attacks (like Trump's on msnbc hosts recently):



She says "the toxicity both ways" by accident, like a normal human being, and then remembers who her truth has been bought by and replaces it with "coming to the president".

Projected truth is for sale to the highest bidder, but you can't argue logically with your reflection in a (video) mirror. As the direct reality fades (after the video disappears), the seamless transition into post-truth occurs as if it is completely normal, and the reality becomes distorted by words. Kellyanne's headshake - shaking off the truth of the idea of 'toxic POTUS' is like some robot meeting a 'good heart' bug in its program - glitching for a second and then reverting back to 'safe sophist mode'; lie for political gain.

It's amazing how a human can behave in this way at such a high level of sociopolitical responsibility. Then again, feeding one's children is more important than word games, now, isn't it? Personal economic gain over civil norms, though? Hmmm, let's see how long that meme works for this administration.

[Mossling]

An interesting apparent new tactic on 'the war on truth' here from the New York Times - as possible proud traditional American guardians of the truth. They seemed to have gotten three leaked facts:

1) Donald Jr. met with Russia-employed lawyer during Trump campaign.
2) The meeting was related to helping the Trump campaign.
3) The meeting was about sharing Russian-obtained dirt on Hilary.

So the NYT decides to release only the first fact and Donald Jr. denies it, then they release the second fact and Donald Jr. admits the meeting and says it was about child adoption. Then they release the third fact and Donald Jr has to change his story for the third time.

In this 'game' the NYT is completely in control because the Trump admin cannot know how much information they really have. So now, knowing that newspapers are hitting back in this way, as things unfold Trump must be panicking, knowing that the proud "failing NYT" - effectively an American institution that champions the first amendment - branded by Trump as a "fake news" outlet, is setting the scene so as to cause maximum damage to the Trumps.

NYT knows the Trumps will lie - consistently - so they can release information in such a way that the liars dig themselves into a hole. They effectively 'forced' Donald Jr. to lie twice, and then finally release the damning emails himself.

Fascinating.



And as stated in the above video, what does this now mean for the situation regarding Russia's proven (by at least 4 major intelligence agencies) intereference in the recent US election, now that it has been confirmed in writing from a Russian-backed 'operative' that Russia was actively supporting the Trump campaign?

What a saga. Is this all going to be a case story for children to come?: "Honesty is the best policy, my darling - remember what happened to the Trumps"...

[Mossling]

What a post-truth admin's public face looks like after going through 3 communications directors, 6 months in:



It seems like this press briefing room is indeed the core of the nation's 'truth engine' - as journalists - ideally guardians of facts for the good of the nation - try to extract what truth they can from the government and hold them accountable.

When the lady at 0:50 asks why the president LIED about taking a phonecall, when in fact it was a face-to-face interaction with the Mexican president, all Sarah H-S can do is say "that's a pretty bold accusation", but with almost an understanding tone, like she's had enough of it also. She tries to make out that Trump saying that the Mexican president called him when in fact they met in person at the G20 is just a minor detail that is irrelevant, when in fact, of course, it was an attempt by Trump to spin the event in order make himself look like the more dominant and powerful one - a powerful guy who is being approached - via phone - by Mexico's leader. Of course this is relevant in the broader on-going assault on the truth - there is spin and then there are totally obvious LIES.

I wonder whether for someone like Sarah, the constant manipulation of what is true from top-down undermines one's own grip on reality itself. She certain looks and behaves 'under siege' here.

[TheVat]

Trump appears to like the telephone lie - his most recent being his false claim (exposed by the Boy Scout executive offices) that the head of the Scouts had called him and told him his speech was the greatest speech ever delivered to their Jamboree. This is so ridiculous a lie, so easily checked on, that it causes more concern that the POTUS is suffering some form of mental illness, perhaps a Narcissistic Personality Disorder. He seemed to be compelled to fabricate this lie when it was clear that his speech had, in fact, been considered inappropriate and embarassing and was widely poked fun at in the media.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/03/politics/ ... index.html

[Mossling]

Trump appears to like the telephone lie - his most recent being his false claim (exposed by the Boy Scout executive offices) that the head of the Scouts had called him and told him his speech was the greatest speech ever delivered to their Jamboree. This is so ridiculous a lie, so easily checked on, that it causes more concern that the POTUS is suffering some form of mental illness, perhaps a Narcissistic Personality Disorder. He seemed to be compelled to fabricate this lie when it was clear that his speech had, in fact, been considered inappropriate and embarassing and was widely poked fun at in the media.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/03/politics/ ... index.html

Lies that might seem obvious and ridiculous to progressives, but to Trump's base who think anything outside of Trump's tweets is fake news, what he says is believed.

I personally don't think Trump suffers from anything near the degree of mental illness as is being inferred by various commentators - I think that he is somehow compromised or secretly financially allied with Putin's interests and that situation is more immportant to Trump than anything else.

The only sector of American society who is not educated well enough to succumb to, or even care about, such a potential, appear to be the core who apparently helped vote Trump into the Whitehouse.

This core in itself seems to be displaying a lack of concern for the progressive scientific truth - behaviour along the lines of the Amish - a Christian-leaning demographic rooted in the idea of a protestant work ethic (which saves them from their sins) and who see the preservation of their hard-working lives as a traditional ticket to heaven.

The science behind automation, or the economic reasoning behind globalisation, may easily be interpreted as a sort of 'work of the devil' - a plot to send them - God's chosen people/community - to hell because their sins will be unaddressed. One sees, however, comments from Trump supporters inferring their superieror intelligence over progressive liberals - not an intelligence rooted in science, but in choosing their beliefs - an investment in 'God's chosen communities' (traditonal American Christian enclaves that built their wealth on the back of slavery) that had been 'allowed' by God to be racist and callous and to pass down the economic benefits of those behaviours to the current day as part of 'God's blessing'.

One heard an echo of such sentiment in Reince Priebus' recent exit interview from the Whitehouse - he said he did not know where he was heading next, but "God is good and everything is going to be just fine" - see 7:57 in this video:



When this is the truth - that no plan is needed beyond trusting in God, then who cares about modern progressive details regarding blurred globalist economic boundaries, or manual labour predicted to be replaced by AI robots within the next 10-15 years. "God is good to us" - he allows racism and callous leadership to go unpunished (which makes Trump's lies and racism acceptable) and so that is the solution to all problems.

This seems to be the general mentality of the present US administration, and part of doing God's work is undermining globalism and the sophisticated scientific visions that deliver AI and other automated solutions so that God's traditional communities can get back to making their way to heaven. For God does not like those who are sloth - since the devil makes short work for idle hands....

It's the same age-old problem as seen outlined in 12 Years a Slave - South vs North, thick-skinned protestantism vs The Enlightenment. The word of God vs Science.

[Mossling]

The true colours of the present Whithouse are showing now more than ever - that this 'post-truth movement' is apparently not really a philosophical stance with all this 'fake news' and 'poor journalism' high ideals rhetoric - it is a cover-up for a pseudo-Christian white supremacist agenda, as already outlined weeks ago on this very thread.

Trump's failure to condemn Virginia neo-Nazis is shocking but not surprising
The Guardian, 14 August 2017

Trump’s tepid response, so stark in contrast to his predecessor’s handling of tragedies such as the Sandy Hook school and Charleston church shootings, is arguably the low point of his short presidency to date.
[...]
The Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi publication, expressed delight: “Trump comments were good. He didn’t attack us. He just said the nation should come together. Nothing specific against us. He said that we need to study why people are so angry, and implied that there was hate … on both sides! So he implied the antifa [anti-fascists] are haters. There was virtually no counter-signaling of us at all.”
[...]
Significantly, Republicans, losing patience with Trump in recent weeks, also berated his failure of leadership. Senator Cory Gardner, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told CNN’s State of the Union: “I think the president needs to step up today and … call it for what it is. It’s evil, it’s white nationalism, it’s bigotry and it’s unacceptable. And if he doesn’t do that, we can continue to answer the question of why. But I believe he has a chance to do that today.”

Senator Orrin Hatch, 83, of Utah, who was eight years old when his brother Jesse, a nose turret gunner in B-24 bomber, was killed in the second world war, tweeted: “We should call evil by its name. My brother didn’t give his life fighting Hitler for Nazi ideas to go unchallenged here at home.”

Senator Marco Rubio, beaten by Trump in the party primaries, tweeted: “Very important for the nation to hear @potus describe events in #Charlottesville for what they are, a terror attack by #whitesupremacists.”

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, another Republican, called it a “grotesque act of domestic terrorism” and called for a justice department investigation, which is going ahead.
[...]
Trump himself remained unusually silent, in person and on Twitter. And Gabriel Sherman, a journalist at Vanity Fair magazine, tweeted: “When I asked senior WH official why Trump didn’t condemn Cville Nazis, he said: ‘What about the leftist mob. Just as violent if not more so.’”

The stance was shocking but not surprising. Trump’s opinionated statements and policy positions are all over the place, except on two issues: Vladimir Putin and white nationalists. Even as cabinet secretaries and members of Congress condemn and sanction the Russian leader, the president is unfailingly reluctant to criticise him directly.

Even as his daughter Ivanka tweeted condemnation of white supremacists and neo-Nazis on Sunday, the president was, his critics say, committing crimes of omission.

There were similarities with February 2016, when, in an interview on CNN, Trump refused to condemn the Ku Klux Klan or disavow his endorsement by the former Klansman David Duke. He later blamed a faulty earpiece. Duke, in Charlottesville on Saturday, told the USA Today Network: “We’re gonna fulfil the promises of Donald Trump. That’s what we believed in, that’s why we voted for Donald Trump, because he said he’s gonna take our country back.”

Neo-Nazis and the so-called “alt-right” have been a crucial part of the Trump base. Critics have noted the nods, the winks, even the Republican national convention speech, with its giant screens and logos that bordered on fascist parody.

There is an emboldened far-right movement afoot across the whole of the West which harks back to the Greeks and Romans who executed the likes of Socrates and Jesus - a tribal mentality that believes in a racially-superior divinely favoured identity - from Golden Dawn in Greece, to the Catholic Church in Rome, to the National Front in France, and all the way across the Atlantic to the KKK and so forth. This ethnically-rooted sore of 'divinely favoured tribes', of which one is either 'in' or 'out' is still festering across the 'Enlightened' West, and it seems that Trump and co. are riding its stench.

"Post-truth" seems to be just a smoke-screen - sophistry to hide the smell of pre-Enlightenment bigotry still alive and kicking (and driving cars into protesters) across the West.

[Mossling]

Moral equivalency is becoming the key area of post-truth spin - for example:

* Russia has moral equivalency to USA - both countries "are killers", even though there is significantly more freedom and safety for journalists (Truth guardians) in the USA.
* George Washington and Robert E Lee have moral equivalency as slave owners, even though Washington helped found a united America, something which Lee attempted to help tear down over his desire to maintain slavery which was being abolished.
* Groups of people who chant "Jews will not replace us" and individuals who happily fraternalize with them are equally fine and thus morally equivalent to any person who opposes such white supremacist rhetoric.

It seems that this last attempt to spin the truth is one step too far now. Trump's support for any person who is happy to literally stand alongside masses of individuals shouting Nazi slogans is at odds with The West in general. Just because one isn't mouthing the words does not undermine the fact one is literally physically aligned with the views - marching in a mob at night with flaming torches. There is no way to spin KKK symbolism when it is already so well-known as a meme.

And even FOX news is aware of it.

[Mossling]

Late-night hosts: Tillerson 'wasn’t afraid to stand up to world's unhinged leaders'
The Guardian, 1 December 2017

...CNN International report showing migrants and refugees being sold at slave auction in Libya.

“This is such a big story that the international criminal court is even using CNN’s report to investigate this issue,” he explained. “World leaders have stepped in to condemn what was happening. International pressure was building on Libya, and then this happened.”

...Trump’s tweet last week, in which he referred to CNN International as “fake news”, led to a Libyan media outlet calling into question the veracity of CNN International’s report.

[Mossling]

In the play “Marmion” by Sir Walter Scott, we find the following line in Canto VI, XVII:

"Oh! What a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive"

[Mossling]

Michigan man held over threats to kill CNN staff
The Guardian23 Jan 2018

A Michigan man has been arrested for threatening to kill CNN employees after telephoning the network and saying: “Fake news. I’m coming to gun you all down.”
[...]
An affidavit filed to court by special agent Sean Callaghan said Griesemer had referred to the news network as “fake news”. President Donald Trump has repeatedly used the same phrase to deride journalists and has shared mocked-up images on social media showing him physically attacking a CNN logo.

During one call, Griesemer told a CNN phone operator: “I am on my way right now to gun the fuckin’ CNN cast down … I am coming to kill you,” according to the affidavit.

Later, he allegedly called back and said: “I’m coming for you CNN. I’m smarter than you. More powerful than you. I have more guns than you. More manpower. Your cast is about to get gunned down in a matter of hours.”

Griesemer allegedly used a racist slur about African Americans and made “disparaging remarks regarding Jewish individuals”. He allegedly called CNN again on 10 January and said: “You are going down. I have a gun and I am coming to Georgia right now to go to the CNN headquarters to fucking gun every single last one of you. I have a team of people. It’s going to be great, man.”

CNN said in a statement on Monday that it had been in contact with law enforcement officials and taken steps to protect its staff. “We take any threats to CNN employees or workplaces, around the world, extremely seriously. This one is no exception,” the statement said.

This has got to be one of the lowest points in US history.
The president is a role model - an ambassador for the nation's overall culture and philosophy, and this obviously mentally unstable individual is merely a fan of the POTUS' rhetoric.

[Mossling]

Watch this montage of a Fox news "forced script" from 0:20 :



Feel the hairs on the back of your neck raise up. It is straight out of some dystopian movie.

It "undermines democratic dialogue" when local news stations broadcasts via one script like this.

It comes across like some kind of subversive propaganda machine - the voice of one person's political agenda inserted into the mouths of alleged individually-thinking journalists - and that is apparently exactly what it is.

Incredibly disturbing. This will be no doubt studied in universities across the world as a case of journalistic degredation for evermore.

[BadgerJelly]

Moss -

I usually try and look for a reason to defend anything ... I am completely at a loss here.

Given that the same kind of thing is happening to people online I'd be a little more worried about that. The internet ads are tailored to individual tastes so when we see things like this and then think about how much powerful it could be if these news anchors were reading a script specifically aimed at each individual ... well ... there may be a whole lot more to worry about, and me thinks "worry" is the name of the game.

[TheVat]

I do find it a little confusing that people are so deeply alarmed by this, when national news places like CNN are delivering the same script into every home that has cable tv....also, several major news outlets hire and promote anchors like George Stephanopolous, who were strong partisans in their roles working for a presidential administration. Most people go to national sources for national news and commentary, anyway. Sinclair doesn't have a majority market share in most of its markets, and I would suspect that most who watch their news are watching for local news that they don't get from CNN, et al. I'd guess at least half tune in just for the sports segment.

In any case, local tv news journalism has been "degraded" for at least half a century, and has always delivered an inferior sound-bite zero-depth coverage, just by the nature of its format. If people don't like that conservative columnist that Sinclair run on all their stations, they are free to write in their discontents, and they are free, in most markets, to change to another channel for their local news. As to the future, I don't think anyone I know under the age of 35 even bothers watching local news on their television. Sinclair caters to a dying market that already agrees with their partisan bias. In a few years, their sad little circle jerk will be over, thanks to market forces.

[BadgerJelly]

Biv -

It look worse to those on the other side of the pond I think. I just generally look at the news channels in the US as being the equivalent of the British tabloids.

[Mossling]

Lol, so it's just another day in America for you guys then. I get it.

[Mossling]

This is getting quite surreal now. The POTUS used to act as other people on the phone - John Barron/Baron/Miller. Wow.

[Mossling]

Stormy Daniels' lawyer pulls out an old classic and explains how Trump's post-truth empire will crumble due to his inability to keep up with the tangled web of lies that he contributes to every day of his life - at 13:40:


The above quote has been posted on this thread before, but I wonder if this is going to be the crowning statement of the fallout of post-truthism - that untruths must be built upon coherently in order to be believable, and yet at some point such a 'false tower' must inevitably topple if any kind of practical everyday functionality is to be maintained.

This quote also comes to mind:



I think we've seen it before on this thread also, but it seems to be really becoming significant now as people are following Trump's more legally-binding statements and he begins tripping up on his own lies through sheer inability to manage the complexity of his lying.

[Mossling]

The Stormy Daniels Damage
WSJ, May 3, 2018

Most storms pass eventually. This week Donald Trump tried to ensure that Stormy Daniels doesn’t rain down permanent distraction on his Presidency, though at the cost of further damage to his credibility.
[...]
Mr. Trump is compiling a record that increases the likelihood that few will believe him during a genuine crisis - say, a dispute over speaking with special counsel Robert Mueller or a nuclear showdown with Kim Jong Un. Mr. Trump should worry that Americans will stop believing anything he says.

Fake news is one thing, but video evidence of saying no one legal moment and then yes the next cannot apparently be spun.

[Sivad]

[Mossling]

Since the 'troll factory' reveals - specifically their greater presence and use than was imagined, does anyone here think that those political 'assets' (on anyone's behalf - domestic or foreign) are perhaps merely the tip of the iceberg?

If Democracy relies on the power of majority opinion, are comments sections on sites like Youtube and below online news articles (not to mention forums like this one) being targeted and 'manipulated' more than we think?

I mean one often sees in comment sections posters replying with mentions of suspected 'paid trolls' and so on, but what is really stopping a considerable effort to influence Democratic Truth from projecting a 'political entity' - a widely-held opinion, that in fact does not exist in reality, and yet which causes those who are on the fence with regards to that opinion to be emboldened to go with ideas that they had previously been ashamed of - feeling safer because there is an apparently large community that shares those ideas?

Perhaps this is a topic for a separate thread, but where power is up for grabs, then I do not underestimate those who would work with organisations like Cambridge Analytica to take the 'game' of troll factories or whatever you want to call them, to a whole other level. There seems to be a considerable vulnerability there.

The truth of the percentage of opinions put forth in comment sections seems to hold considerable political sway - for example, under a youtube news video - the percentage of agrees to disagrees with the perspective being put forward in the video likely creates sociopolitical ripples throughout a society. If those opinions are a result of a troll factory - a single political agenda to sway public opinion, however, then society is being manipulated covertly through the apparent 'truthfulness' of the individual opinions being put forth. Are such comment sections really being safeguarded, or should they be considered severely compromised? If so, it seems that there hasn't been much reporting on that.

What do you think?

[Serpent]

As to the credibility of news outlets, I'm pessimistic.
There has always been some degree of corruption - sometimes trivial, sometimes egregious - purely from a commercial standpoint. Hearst papers promoted Hearst politics; yellow journalism pandered to the lowest mass taste; radio and television stations never took their eyes off the bottom line: whatever wasn't in the interest of their major sponsors didn't get fair coverage; whatever upset the viewers was censored.

Money has always talked louder than the public interest. That's why government is supposed to enact and enforce regulations for public safety and accurate information. When the oversight agencies are strong and independent, you get quality reportage, balanced presentation, a high standard of verification and few factual errors.

IOW - when government is relatively clean, so is news reporting - and vice versa.

[Mossling]

As to the credibility of news outlets, I'm pessimistic. [...] when government is relatively clean, so is news reporting - and vice versa.

Where did I mention the credibility of new outlets themselves? - I didn't. I am talking about the credibility of alleged individual opinions within comments sections and forums - where political interests with multiple fake accounts may seek to derail or bury topics or ideas that they do not want others to deem popular or mainstream. Rather, such paid agents - or "troops' as they tend to be called when they are state-sponsored, spread an alternative and seemingly dominant 'community voice' that easily appears as a democratic majority opinion.

After a quick search, here is more info:

Invasion of the troll armies: from Russian Trump supporters to Turkish state stooges
The Guardian, Sun 6 Nov 2016

We don’t know who they are, or what their mission is. We only know that there are thousands of them out there, pretending to be us. They may be at home, or in special offices, or sitting beside you on the train. They use social media, and write blogs and comments. Some of them may visit the bottom of this article.
[...]
cent reports suggest that many of Donald Trump’s most fervent online supporters are not themselves Americans, but Russians being paid by their government to help him win. One told Samantha Bee that she pretends to be a housewife from Nebraska. Why she would confess it now is unexplained, but when you look around it begins to feel like everybody does it. It’s just that no two countries’ methods are the same.
[...]
Rather than attacking unbelievers, they focus on swamping the doubters with a flood of positive messages, or cleverly diverting the conversation. As with any job, some practitioners are laughably bad at it.
[...]
Long before Donald Trump met Twitter, Russia was famous for its troll factories – outside Russia, anyway. Allegations of covert propagandists invading chatrooms go back as far as 2003, and in 2012 the Kremlin-backed youth movement Nashi was revealed to be paying people to comment on blogs. However most of what we know now comes from a series of leaks in 2013 and 2014, most concerning a St Petersburg company called Internet Research Agency, then just “Internet Research”. It is believed to be one of several firms where trolls are trained and paid to smear Putin’s opponents both at home and internationally.
[...]
Estimated troops Several thousand.

Favourite subjects Putin and Trump being great, the opposition being corrupt, the Nato conspiracy against Russia, the effeminacy of Barack Obama.

Why the Right’s Dark-Web Trolls Are Taking Over YouTube
Vanity Fair, March 1, 2018

s. As the Daily Beast reports, members of at least one far-right group crafted a strategy to game YouTube’s Trending tab into promoting false videos, seizing on a soft target with a boldness that in the past has been restricted to the darkest corners of the Internet.
[...]
At first, these efforts mostly targeted the comment sections of news stories, which “allowed them to be seen by a large number of people.” When outlets started to crack down on comments, however, these groups migrated to places like Twitter and YouTube. “Twitter was even more valuable for the far right, as it allowed anonymous users to directly interact with public figures and spontaneously launch semi-coordinated trolling campaigns,” Hawley said. YouTube, too, is important, allowing users who may not be seeking out right-wing content to stumble upon it organically.

More pernicious than the far right’s occupation of YouTube, however, is the group’s means of manipulating the platform to spread its messages. In the case of the Parkland shooting, the far-right group Reconquista Germanica used networks of fake accounts to manipulate YouTube’s algorithms, strategically downvoting and upvoting videos in an attempt to make those they like rise in the platform’s search function, while pushing down videos they disagree with so that they take longer to find or are ignored altogether. “We can push our own videos through likes and comments, through the organization we’ve created, so that they are rated more relevant by YouTube’s search algorithm,” one Reconquista Germanica member said in German, according to screenshots tweeted by the anti-far-right group Alt Right Leaks.
[...]
“Most of this is less new than people think it is,” extremism expert J.M. Berger told me, explaining how the far right has learned to emulate tactics used for years by spammers, Russian hackers, and even the Islamic State. At the same time, it is hard to deny that Donald Trump gave them a boost. “The right-wing resurgence we’re seeing now is not just astroturfing, but the result of several years of work by far-right activists, culminating in the rise of a candidate who was willing to overtly pander to white nationalists and other right-wing extremists. The election of President Trump has done more to mainstream white nationalism than anything in the last 40 years, but it’s a symbiotic arrangement. He elevates their issues, and they organize social-media campaigns to protect and elevate him.”
[...]
With their platforms under siege, tech companies are struggling to reimagine the algorithms on which they’re based

It looks like Russia hired internet trolls to pose as pro-Trump Americans
Business Insider, Jul. 27, 2016

"A very interesting thing happened," Chen told Longform's Max Linsky in a podcast in December.

"I created this list of Russian trolls when I was researching. And I check on it once in a while, still. And a lot of them have turned into conservative accounts, like fake conservatives. I don't know what's going on, but they're all tweeting about Donald Trump and stuff," he said.

Linsky then asked Chen who he thought "was paying for that."

"I don't know," Chen replied. "I feel like it's some kind of really opaque strategy of electing Donald Trump to undermine the US or something. Like false-flag kind of thing. You know, that's how I started thinking about all this stuff after being in Russia."

In his research from St. Petersburg, Chen discovered that Russian internet trolls — paid by the Kremlin to spread false information on the internet — have been behind a number of "highly coordinated campaigns" to deceive the American public.

From his interviews with former trolls employed by Russia, Chen gathered that the point of their jobs "was to weave propaganda seamlessly into what appeared to be the nonpolitical musings of an everyday person."

"Russia's information war might be thought of as the biggest trolling operation in history," Chen wrote. "And its target is nothing less than the utility of the Internet as a democratic space."

So fake news is one thing, but there are also a significant number of 'opinionated Americans' online that are fake.

It seems that commenters cannot be effectively verified, as much as many 'alternative facts' put forth in the news cannot be, and so, I wonder, is the internet as a 'community space' going to dissolve into a completely untrustworthy domain of personal opinion as well as factual data? It seems like it is very much heading in that direction.

Perhaps only forums like this one - that champion empiricism, will be left as islands, or perhaps towers of rigour rising up from within the fog of information warfare. I would say such a war is clearly visible right now on this very forum, but it seems to be holding onto its truth quite well.

Youtube, however - well, I now think that opinion space is seriously compromised (where Trump and Alt-right agendas are being discussed anyway, at the very least).

I also find it very interesting that this thread has had more than 100,000 views - a huge amount compared to most other threads. Perhaps this situation regarding the Truth of facts and individual online voices is like an open wound that many people feel inclined to try to heal - like a global social emergency?

[TheVat]

The average member here has maybe 2 to 6 IP addresses. (often a phone, a home laptop, a work PC, maybe a couple coffee shops wifi, say) However, someone recently trolling the news forum I discovered to have around a hundred. For me, this suggested I pay more attention. Your false flag information is good to be aware of.

[Serpent]

I am talking about the credibility of alleged individual opinions within comments sections and forums -

Sorry. I thought you were referring to responses to the news stories. I though it was the broadcaster's responsibility to block trolls, bots and puppets - just as it is of forum administrators.
Since I'm not swayed by other people's opinion, I don't read the responses, either on the CBC website or any You Tube videos, so they have not affected my perception of my fellow citizens.

I have no idea what can be done to stop misappropriation of social media.
I'll just add that to the things I'm pessimistic about.