On the 1st day of #testimony in #HunterBiden’s federal #gun trial, #jurors heard his audio of his memoir, where he recounted his #drug use in graphic detail. A federal prosecutor told jurors “no one is above the #law,” & defense said the he did not “knowingly” lie when filling out forms to purchase a weapon.
The #FBI agent said they were able to confirm that the laptop taken from the repair shop was #HunterBiden’s partly from his iCloud data, which contained an invoice from the shop [wait - an invoice for the repair was on the laptop before the work was done? Remember, he never picked it up]
Sociology professor Christopher T. Conner started looking into the QAnon movement four years ago, but his research soon broadened into all kinds of conspiracy theorists, from race scientists to New Age spiritualists. He writes for @TheConversationUS about why people are susceptible and how politicians and influential figures take advantage of them. Do you have conspiracy theorists in your life (if you don't know any, maybe it's you 👀)?
@tphinney That's a good point — we thought that the end section had a little hopeful advice but on second reading it's pretty pessimistic. We'll adjust the original caption.
“An important dynamic of people falling into a #conspiratorial milieu is how such theories can help rationalize difficulties an individual may be experiencing by flattening complexity and providing answers that soothe and distract from uncomfortable realities. (2/4)
From The New Republic 2021— "Democrats should try campaigning on the truth: The Republican Party is controlled by intelligent, college-educated, and affluent elites who concoct dangerous nonsense to paper over a bigoted, plutocratic agenda and to justify attacks on the democratic process. "
@Nonilex They’ve been doing it nonstop since 2015. They also support and prop up the far far #farL. They pit them against The majority on the Left. @anneapplebaum
Hard to overstate how irresponsible that Politico piece is. Not only is it substantially inaccurate, but this is the stuff that leads to threats, harassment and violence. It has in the past, so I’m not speaking hypothetically. And yet they chose to publish this bullshit story for clicks. #media#conspiracytheories#gazaprotests
@JoshuaHolland This story is infuriating. I also think their use of the word “stage” in this context is inappropriate; combined with the headline it implies the protests are fake while providing no evidence.
As soon as I saw this one I knew it was going in the ethics video -.-
#ConspiracyTheories#Conspirationism#AntiSemitism: "I began to suspect that he saw himself as a martyr, persecuted for following his beliefs. He claimed that the Guardian was paying me to prove that he was antisemitic. “What do you want to do, put me in Dartmoor prison? Is that where you think I should be?”
I wasn’t scheming to bring him down. But I felt it was worth interviewing him, or someone like him, because conspiracy fictions, even – perhaps especially – when promoted by people who claim to want a better world, can have deadly consequences. They inspire terrorism and attacks on Jews, Muslims, immigrants, legislatures and other targets. Anti-vaxx myths help spread infectious disease. Some of the most common falsehoods also target the public sector and civic life, spreading lies about public health, schools, traffic calming, urban planning, climate policy, university courses, taxes. They reinforce the assaults of neoliberalism. When such falsehoods are spread by powerful interests, you could see them as conspiracies to spread conspiracy fictions. They bamboozle people, disempower them and distract attention from the crimes and strategies of states, oligarchs and corporations. People who recite these fables might imagine they’re sticking it to The Man. In reality, they’re serving him.
Almost invariably, this litany of false stories leads people towards the far right. Conspiracy fictions are the fuel of far-right politics: it cannot operate without them."
Great write-up by @annaleen on the modern history of the pseudoscience of "brainwashing" and how it has been (/tried to be) used for mostly nefarious ends.
We can say this "psychopolitics" is part and parcel of what the great political scientist Richard Hofstadter termed the "paranoid style in American politics".
Awesome to see a mention of Liang Qichao and how his term "xinao" (wash-brain) which meant modernization was usurped and became a negative connotation. He was one of the great early reformers who wanted to modernize Chinese philosophy by seeking a radical break from Confucianism. Pankaj Mishra's "From the ruins of empire" does a great job of his intellectual response to western imperialism in remaking Asia.
First time also hearing/reading about "stochastic terrorism".
The CDC just killed another right-wing Covid vaccine conspiracy theory The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a new study showing no link between Covid-19 mRNA vaccines and cardiac arrest in young people.
'...research has shown that most Americans believe conspiracy theories of some sort. Why then, if most of us believe conspiracies, do we generally think of conspiracy theorists as loony?
New research from the University of Illinois Chicago found that it’s because people are quite bad at identifying what is or isn’t a conspiracy theory when it’s something they believe.'
In today's episode of Watching the Eclipse Watchers, some Opinions about science:
the eclipse is fake news, because I saw a video of it were it glitches and everything moved to the left (obviously the camera was moved to get a better angle, nobody moved the astral bodies)
you know they lie to us about all this because you can see the sun and moon are the same size
"somebody explain to me how the moon, which is transparent/translucent during the day, blocks the sun out I'll wait 😂"
discussion over how this is an event in a spiritual war, because of shadow bands*
#SocialMedia#Misinformation#ConspiracyTheories#Disinformation#Anonymity: "The incident sheds light on how social media accounts that shield the identities of the people or groups behind them through clever slogans and cartoon avatars have come to dominate right-wing political discussion online even as they spread false information.
The accounts enjoy a massive reach that is boosted by engagement algorithms, by social media companies greatly reducing or eliminating efforts to remove phony or harmful material, and by endorsements from high-profile figures such as Musk. They also can generate substantial financial rewards from X and other platforms by ginning up outrage against Democrats.
Many such internet personalities identify as patriotic citizen journalists uncovering real corruption. Yet their demonstrated ability to spread misinformation unchecked while disguising their true motives worries experts with the United States in a presidential election year.
They are exploiting a long history of trust in American whistleblowers and anonymous sources, said Samuel Woolley, director of the Propaganda Research Lab at the University of Texas at Austin.
“With these types of accounts, there’s an allure of covertness, there’s this idea that they somehow might know something that other people don’t,” he said. “They’re co-opting the language of genuine whistleblowing or democratically inclined leaking. In fact what they’re doing is antithetical to democracy.”"