So the Left Closed Parler and Gab is down, Twitter is blocking, Yep free country.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

AF5: Collection of evidence that the earth revolved around the sun through observation and mathematics is what led to acceptance of a sun centric system by the populous. Evidence knowledge is what determines what is fake news and what is truth.

Where was the evidence for the basis of Pizzagate? There was no actual evidence, it was simply innuendo, suspicions, and propaganda that led to claims of a Democratic child sex ring operating out of Comet Pizza. And repeated sharing of this garbage ultimately led to an armed gunman shooting up Comet Pizza. The Pizzagate story was widely circulated yet no one stopped the gunman just as no one prevented the capital riots or BLM riots so I dispute your theory that exposure prevents bad things happening. Instead I will argue increased violence is what unfettered sharing of fake news results in.

Preventing and reducing are two different things. The law of diminishing returns applied here too. There are always going to be some crazies who are immune to logic and common sense. While the vast majority might be somewhat gullible and naive, but when presented with logical arguments, will moderate their opinions, and not resort to shooting pizza joints( never heard of pizzagate before), or burning police cars. Not sure that reaching the extremists on both sides is even possible. But I'd rather deal with the aftermath of a small handful of crazies that slip through the cracks, than half the population, which is where this is leading.

Your arguement regarding the sun centric universe is exactly backwards. The accepted wisdom was that it was earth centric. Everything that contradicted that was the considered the fake news of the day. te censors of the day were the Catholic church, and they decided what was and wasn't fake news. No one was not permitted to present the evidence without dire consequences. Copernicus didn't even publish within his lifetime. Galileo had his book banned, lost his position, ended up having to confess through threat of torture and was sentenced to house arrest for the rest of his life, easily could have cost him his life. It took centuries for all Catholic countries to finally accept the truth.
Are you certain that the censors at facebook are any more capable of judging truth from fiction than those in Galileo's times? Do you think the truth is fixed in time?

As for the suggestion that no one stopped the white house walk in, when it was so well advertised; all I can say is that fact really gives the conspiracy theorists a lot of great material. And makes your job of disproving them much harder. This wasn't a clandestine secret coup, it was the most advertised and publicly planned event I can think of. If no one took heed until after the fact, it really forces one to ask a lot of questions.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

The question I ask you AF5 is would WW2 have happened if the Nazi party did not use propaganda? They even had a Ministry of Enlightenment and Propaganda. They sold a story that the average German wanted to believe instead of truth. They convinced the German people that the cause of their plight was the Jews. And the people believed that the trains carrying the Jews were going to work camps because that was the story that was always presented. Yet even today there are those who deny the holocaust happened. Should people be able to deny the Holocaust happened without providing any actual evidence for that statement? Should Republicans be allowed to claim the election was fraudulent and Trump won without providing any actual evidence of fraud?

The propaganda posters of Nazi Germany are no different than the memes on social media today by both the right and left. Social media has become a useful tool of powerful people to recruit people through the use of misinformation, just as the Nazi's used newspapers and radio. The rallies today to fire up supporters to a cause is no different the the rallies Hitler had.

No question that society is divided today. But I believe repetition of lies and propaganda does more to inflame those divisions than holding those behind fake news and misinformation accountable.

I'm not in the speculation business, but I would surmise that WWII was inevitable. Stalin was determined to start it, Hitler just beat him to it before he was prepared.

A better question to ask, is could a modern day Hitler convince his population to turn on a single religious group, ignore the obvious signs and probably fool so many of them in the era of social media? Or would the democratization of media, as opposed to the absolute monopoly on propaganda that the Nazi's enjoyed, make such a thing impossible?

[WiltonRanch]

I'm not in the speculation business, but I would surmise that WWII was inevitable. Stalin was determined to start it, Hitler just beat him to it before he was prepared.

A better question to ask, is could a modern day Hitler convince his population to turn on a single religious group, ignore the obvious signs and probably fool so many of them in the era of social media? Or would the democratization of media, as opposed to the absolute monopoly on propaganda that the Nazi's enjoyed, make such a thing impossible?

I wonder too with such accessible social media today that people presented with instant access to information act or react too quickly? How do we keep people logical and not too hasty?

[malleefarmer]

I have various friends on twitter both on left and right side of arguments have had accounts suspended in last week.

Some seemingly innocuous innocent tweets somet8mes humour bang gone.

[dmlfarmer]

I'm not in the speculation business, but I would surmise that WWII was inevitable. Stalin was determined to start it, Hitler just beat him to it before he was prepared.

A better question to ask, is could a modern day Hitler convince his population to turn on a single religious group, ignore the obvious signs and probably fool so many of them in the era of social media? Or would the democratization of media, as opposed to the absolute monopoly on propaganda that the Nazi's enjoyed, make such a thing impossible?

I am not going to label anyone as Hitler. But I will say modern day government propaganda and social media tools are just as effective at using propaganada as it was by the Nazis in the 1930's, and maybe even more so. Example, WMDs in Iraq. The US wanted a war supported by allies and sold a fictitious story that Iraq had Iraq had WMDs ensuring support of its own citizens as well as convincing Britain to join the alliance amongst others.

It has been used to justify building Trump's wall with his discriptions of "caravans" of "rapists and murders" heading to the southern US border.

It was tried to stop Muslims from entering the US early in Trumps term but the courts, and not the people, called the Muslim ban for what it was.

And now we have had 3 months of Trump claiming the election was a fraud, and he actually won the election, supported by right wing media, and that has resulted a majority of Republicans actually believing the election was fraudulent despite no evidence of wide spread fraud uncovered by law enforcement, state governments, election officials or anyone else. And the result of this Trump led propaganda is unfolding before our eyes.

[furrowtickler]

I wonder too with such accessible social media today that people presented with instant access to information act or react too quickly? How do we keep people logical and not too hasty?

Very good point .
Taking a break once in a while and being an observer at both sides helps sort things out . Now more than ever both sides of the pendulum are way too far apart , right or left .
Sorting out what’s in the middle is harder than ever for some .

“Facts” are being screwed too far either way lately in many things , especially politics and climate change.
Generally what’s in between in most likely most relevant to what ever truth is left in any story .

Watching several interviews with Tulsi Gabbard lately, who left the Democrats recently, she gives a very level headed perspective of current events, in politics anyway .

[AlbertaFarmer5]

Great examples. All of which have failed, the citizens saw through them. And with the exception of the Iraq war, they didn't get very far when the propaganda machine failed, largely due to an informed populace. No wall, no Muslim ban, the winner of the election is being inaugurated, US is almost out of Iraq with nothing gained or colonized. They all failed. A century ago, they likely all would have succeeded when governments had the monopoly on information dissemination.

And if you really want to revisit the WMD's issue, the reason the US knew that they existed is that they were the ones who provided them the WMD's duringg the Iran Iraq war. That is no conspiracy, it happened, where they went from there is up for debate.

[furrowtickler]

I am not going to label anyone as Hitler. But I will say modern day government propaganda and social media tools are just as effective at using propaganada as it was by the Nazis in the 1930's, and maybe even more so. Example, WMDs in Iraq. The US wanted a war supported by allies and sold a fictitious story that Iraq had Iraq had WMDs ensuring support of its own citizens as well as convincing Britain to join the alliance amongst others.

It has been used to justify building Trump's wall with his discriptions of "caravans" of "rapists and murders" heading to the southern US border.

It was tried to stop Muslims from entering the US early in Trumps term but the courts, and not the people, called the Muslim ban for what it was.

And now we have had 3 months of Trump claiming the election was a fraud, and he actually won the election, supported by right wing media, and that has resulted a majority of Republicans actually believing the election was fraudulent despite no evidence of wide spread fraud uncovered by law enforcement, state governments, election officials or anyone else. And the result of this Trump led propaganda is unfolding before our eyes.

Agree , not everything being said as fact is true ...
https://mobile.twitter.com/amuse/status/1349885882262761473
Interesting times ...
who dun it ... both sides guilty ???
A circus Propaganda extravaganza from both sides lol

[dmlfarmer]

Great examples. All of which have failed, the citizens saw through them. And with the exception of the Iraq war, they didn't get very far when the propaganda machine failed, largely due to an informed populace. No wall, no Muslim ban, the winner of the election is being inaugurated, US is almost out of Iraq with nothing gained or colonized. They all failed. A century ago, they likely all would have succeeded when governments had the monopoly on information dissemination.

And if you really want to revisit the WMD's issue, the reason the US knew that they existed is that they were the ones who provided them the WMD's duringg the Iran Iraq war. That is no conspiracy, it happened, where they went from there is up for debate.

Really! LMAO The US went to war in Iraq for 8 years and dragged Britain in all on the basis of the US government claims of Iraq still producing WMDs whereas the UN had destroyed the WMDs they did have in 1991. People were convinced that brown people coming to the border are all bad people and the government spent $15 billion of tax payer money to date to build walls - all of which Mexico was going to pay for. I admit the Muslim ban failed but not because of citizen not supporting it but because the courts threw it out. May I point out The Nazis did not win WW2 either but that does not mean the propaganda they employed to get the citizens to fight WW2 did not work. And we do not yet know the outcome of the propaganda that the election was rigged other than one riot and the largest lockdown in recent American history. We do not know if the inauguration will go without more violence or if Trump supporters will ever support Biden and his win of the presidency. If they don't the propaganda worked. Not everyone has to agree or support propaganda for it to be effective. As you pointed out the Nazis never had a plurality, in fact the most support they ever had was 37% but that was enough to draw the world into war and to ostracize and kill millions of Jews - except tor those who believe the holocaust did not happen.

[burnt]

"Poland plans to make censoring of social media accounts illegal"

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/14/poland-plans-to-make-censoring-of-social-media-accounts https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/14/poland-plans-to-make-censoring-of-social-media-accounts