POLITICAL CARTOON BY TED RALL. SUPPORT HIS WORK ON HIS PATREON HERE: https://www.patreon.com/tedrall
Hey there, I’m back! Spent the last two weeks going through the early weeks of the Fall semester which are often busy and time-consuming. But everything has calmed down, for now, and I am back to discuss media literacy again with you. And boy, has a lot happened this month alone.
So, you might have heard about the Department of Justice beginning its antitrust trial against Google and its search engine monopoly last Tuesday. This trial is linked to Google’s search engine being used by about 90% of all Americans - which is just about everybody - and this monopoly may or may not prevent Americans from trying other search engines, like Bing or DuckDuckGo (which focuses on user data privacy unlike so many popular apps and engines). It also has a big influence on the sources users get when researching online. Google argues people choose to use its engine; the DOJ says this monopoly takes away opportunities for Google to be more innovative and also has arranged its engine to be the default with such agreements as with Apple. What becomes of the antitrust trial can determine the future of how we use Google - since so many of us do so by choice or not.
Oh, by the way, Big Tech trials with Apple and Meta are in the works. In addition, on Thursday, Google settled with the state of California over a suit that claimed the engine misled users on its location tracking practices and duped users into thinking they were actually blocking ads they didn’t want.
So yes, Big Tech is sketchy. They like to eat up our information and use it in ways to control us so they’ll stay rich and powerful.
No surprise there, right? Remember in 2016 when Facebook harvested 50 million accounts and sent their data to the elections consultancy Cambridge Analytica so it would influence the results of the presidential election that year? Did any of us consent to that? Did we even know beforehand that websites and apps collect our data and use it pretty much to monitor our online habits so they can target marketing tactics and other things at us? Now that we know, do we know everything though with our data?
And do not forget the bots that also influenced the 2016 elections, and even Brexit and the Spanish region of Catalan calling for independence. Another major event that didn’t get as much news media attention was in Houston, Texas in 2017. Two Facebook groups posted two events scheduled for the same day and place, just across the street from one another, as well as a mosque. One group was going to rally for the “Stop Islamification of Texas” while the other rally was about “Save Islamic Knowledge”. There was verbal abuse and confrontation. But that was all, thankfully.
Turns out, those two Facebook groups were run by Russian trolls, who deliberately scheduled those rallies for no reason other than to tear apart American society.
Those bots and troll farms are linked to Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin in his quest to sow discord in the West and dismantle democracy. Aiding Putin was Vladislav Surkov, his former deputy chief of staff and his closest advisor who has helped shape Putin and Russia’s image in a way that has allowed the leader to stay in power for over 20 years while keeping Russian democracy at a distance. According to the Financial Times, Surkov defends his work by saying, “Most people need their heads to be filled with thoughts. You are not going to feed people with some highly intellectual discourse. Most people eat simple foods. Not the kind of food we are having tonight. Generally most people consume very simple-meaning beliefs. This is normal. There is haute cuisine, and there is McDonald’s…Everyone takes advantage of such people all over the world.”
In this March 2019 article from The Guardian, it mentions Surkov writing the following in a newspaper: “Foreign politicians complain that Russia is meddling in elections and referendums across the world. In actual fact, it’s much more serious than that. Russia is meddling in their brains, changing their consciousness, and they have no idea what to do about it.”
Russia is not alone. In recent years, it has become noticeable that Iran and China are also engaging in these bot-troll-strategies to turn the United States and other countries upside down. Both Russia and China have apparently, and maybe still are, working together in spreading misinformation and disinformation about the war in Ukraine by using AI videos. In 2020, there was concern that China and Iran would use social media to influence that year’s presidential election, though not exactly the same way Russia did in 2016.
And just this year, Elon Musk, the destroyer owner of the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, decided to twist his commitment to free speech when he announced back in May that he would restrict some access to some tweets in Turkey ahead of its election in which Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was neck-and-neck with the opposition leader. That meant some tweets were not going to be accessible to Turkish users (but they would be worldwide), which made many, like blogger Matt Yglesias, think Musk was complying with the Turkish government to censor tweets that would impact whether Erdogan won the election or not. Turkey has a history of censoring social media, particularly when the huge earthquake struck back in February.
Musk responded to Yglesias with the following tweet: “Did your brain fall out of your head, Yglesias? The choice is have Twitter throttled in its entirety or limit access to some tweets. Which one do you want?”
So, who or what is really trying to influence how we think and process what’s happening in the world?
Many say the news media is trying to do that, but is that so considering who is pulling the strings when it comes to Big Tech and social media? If Russia can create two Facebook groups and schedule two events with fake intentions, yet the group members attend to defend their beliefs, then who’s thinking carefully? Who’s minds are at work? If algorithms can trick us into believing we're finding out about everything possible about a certain topic, when in truth the algorithm is just feeding us something akin to junk food, are we really gaining knowledge?
Also, that cartoon above? That was done in 2021 in response to The Facebook Papers an investigation by The Wall Street Journal, which revealed that the social media giant’s leaders knowingly chose to allow posts and groups that posed a danger to society through political violence or encouraging poor body image for teen girls, all for the sake of profit and keeping Facebook’s image as a good tool for society. It also suppressed political posts it deemed harmful, going against its claim that Facebook is neutral (kind of like how Musk swore Twitter would be about free speech, though many have noticed much contradiction there). Gosh, can you believe that was two years ago? Two years, and it seems like we’ve forgotten about this.
Anyway, it just goes to show that Big Tech has a huge hand in the information, misinformation, and even disinformation online, at our very fingertips. And chances are, it is not about educating or informing the world; it can often be about money and power. Unfortunately, we the audience forget this as often we forget major news stories from two years ago.
Sadly, there may be some truth to what Surkov said about most people only being able to digest simple intellectualism. Granted, that may have a lot to do with how busy so many Americans and other people worldwide are. We work 40+ hours a week, with some working two jobs to make ends meet; care for children, elderly parents, or both; take care of our health when we can; pay the bills and mortgages; find ways to save money amidst inflation and high cost of living; and so on and so on. How many really have time to devour all the news of the world and deeply analyze all of it so much that they can battle Surkov and all the other’s ways?
The best bet is to find ways for the people to devour and analyze in a way that can be done quickly enough without missing any red flags. Another way is for the people themselves to be committed to media literacy and be on the lookout for any red flag they will come across when reading an article, a social media post, or a podcast clip. The news media, and even social media, and the people/audience need to meet each other halfway in order to defeat manipulation done by foreign governments, extremist groups, and any rotten apples out there looking to ruin society for their own benefit.
It is also important to keep in mind that the news media does not act alone, and is sometimes in a category on its own, separate from the Big Tech apps and platforms. And Big Tech is where the extremely wealthy billionaires are; you rarely see wealth like that in the news world.
Basically, Big Tech is in charge. They’re influencing our minds and guiding us on how to think. And we may not notice enough, or forget too easily.
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