#MediaLiteracy#FactChecking#Disinformation#Misinformation: "When it comes to not falling for misinformation, being aware of our human fallibilities, such as our quickness to believe what we want to believe, is a good first step. Research shows that even being more reflective in general can "inoculate" us against believing fake news.
But it's not the only thing that we can do. In particular, researchers have found there are several simple, concrete strategies that we all can (and should) use, especially before we're tempted to share or repeat a claim, to verify its accuracy first.
One of my favourites comes with a nifty acronym: the Sift method. Pioneered by digital literacy expert Mike Caulfield, it breaks down into four easy-to-remember steps."
'The European Union on Friday banned four more Russian media outlets from broadcasting in the 27-nation bloc for what it calls the spread of propaganda about the invasion of Ukraine and disinformation as the EU heads into parliamentary elections in three weeks.'
#India#Politics#Elections#WhatsApp#Disinformation#Propaganda: "India’s ongoing elections are the world’s largest in history, with almost 1 billion people eligible to vote. They are so big that voting is being conducted in waves from April 19 to June 1. The BJP, which has been in power for 10 years, is widely expected to win. But in the process, both Modi’s administration and his electoral campaign have been criticized for stirring hate against Muslims and increasing polarization.
As millions of Indians vote, many of them will turn to WhatsApp for information. India is the Meta-owned app’s largest market, with 400 million active users — more than a quarter of the country’s population. India’s last general elections, in 2019, were labeled the “WhatsApp elections” because of the platform’s prevalence and influence. In 2024, politicians are redoubling their focus on the app.
Kiran Garimella, an assistant professor at Rutgers University who researches WhatsApp in India, told Rest of World the app reaches people that other platforms don’t, including remote communities. “There are a number of people in India who only use WhatsApp,” he said.
I'd ask: How are people like Laura Ingraham allowed anywhere near anything with "news" in its name? For that matter, how is it that #Fox has managed to have free rein to be the voice of #disinformation & assaulting #truth ?
Once upon a time broadcasters were required to serve the public by offering actual, you know, #facts.
Now there's a bubble for anyone who wants to stay comfortably immersed in #TrumpVirus and #GQP#cult messaging.
Rachel Maddow discusses her research into fascism, disinformation, and propaganda.
It's not merely an attempt to foster animosity towards a particular group. Fascist disinformation is to erode our democracy by convincing us that a specific group is perilous, untrustworthy, and should be disenfranchised.
What has transpired since 2016 with the former president is not just the vilification of ethnic minorities. He, along with Fox propaganda and other purveyors of disinformation, have escalated lies and disinformation into a violent domestic terrorist movement and a MAGA-driven fascist party. The presence of Republican fascists is a reality now.
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Fascism ... is about getting us to undo #democracy and we shouldn't stand for it.
Journalists in the west now seem to finally be admitting that our media environment has seen a radical shift towards anti-democratic forces.
Yet. This didn’t come out of nowhere.
Remember those same people posting RT clips daily back in 2015?
As far as my home country goes, we have pretty solid evidence that even if we have only ourselves to blame for supporting these people, #Russia had an #influence and provided a lot of the #disinformation ammo they shot with.
Jay Kuo in the "increasing evidence that the Russians are pulling the GOP’s puppet strings":
"Russia is now keenly aware of how easy it is to sow confusion, mistrust, and outright lies by managing to plant false stories, whether through the internet or through an intelligence source, with those willing to exploit them for their own political gain."
This works because many Americans are eager to gobble up disinformation.
"In Applebaum's eyes, the deployment of propaganda by authoritarians — and authoritarian wannabes such as Trump — is one of the most profound issues of our time.
'I think it is at the center of one of the worst crises for American democracy this century, certainly in recent decades,' Applebaum told me by phone Tuesday."
"'"If we can't agree on what happened yesterday, then how do we write legislation about it? If we don't share the same reality in the democracy, then how do we debate how we should organize our world?' …
Applebaum explained that Vladimir Putin's Russia "pioneered" the "firehose of falsehoods," a tactic that Trump has employed in the U.S. and others have used across the world to seize and maintain power. "
"Republicans have been waging legal war on our democracy, using the courts to take away our reproductive, voting and other rights, and they have been waging a parallel information war that sets the stage for the reception of those legal arguments and decisions."
"The decision of the Supreme Court to hear arguments about the need for Trump to have total immunity from prosecution is a victory in itself for far-right information warfare, because it prepares public opinion to consider dictatorship as a possibility for America.
To normalize extreme ideas, you get them circulating through institutions and the public sphere, aiming for prestigious platforms that offer maximum legitimacy. Enter the Supreme Court …."