Comment by rsj_hn
4 years ago
> you'll just find that people shift to adopting equally unrigorous views on the opposite side.
This is a feature, not a bug. The purpose of internet censorship as well as the entire "misinformation" discourse is to make sure the propaganda from your side wins.
That seems too provocative to me. It seems simply that the "elite", social media activists, and FB/YouTube employees are guilty of just the same kind of non-rigorous thinking. They think misinformation posted online causes a phase-shift of rational people into irrational/"mentally ill" people, and feel a responsibility to "limit the damage"; but human crowds have never been rational, period. Another comment in this thread says: "Sloganeering is actually critical for mass movements for political change", which is completely true, and I think proves my point; practically all discussions online are filled with complete misinformation, yet often aggregate around reasonable conclusions (and occasionally, unreasonable), whether it's on healthcare reform, privacy, medicine, whatever.
It's not just "sloganeering", it's an attempt to enforce a narrative and crush the opposing narrative. It's coercive.
This is particularly important when you have a grievance culture -- it very much depends who is getting the sympathy. The lens of concern needs to be focused with laserlike narrowness on the approved victims, and not on other victims, and outrage must be focused on approved perpetrators. This is a key part of Chomsky and Herman's propaganda model in Manufacturing Consent
Take the very different coverage of Antifa, BLM and Capitol riots. All three attacked government buildings and two of these were nationwide and resulted in multiple deaths. One of them caused billions of dollars in property damage, mass arson, etc.
But the coverage was very different. No one called the Capital riot "mostly peaceful". If they did, they would no doubt be accused of spreading "misinformation". So to merely call this "sloganeering" is to hide the coercive nature of the misinformation discourse.