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
#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."
Migrant crossings on the #US - #Mexico#border have dropped significantly in the first 3 months of the year, acc/to official figures, from a peak of 301,981 in Dec to under 200,000 a month from Jan - Mar. That could ease political pressure on #POTUS#Biden, but #Republicans are likely to continue attacking him by pointing out that border crossings remain relatively high.
#Trump at a rally in Waukesha, #Wisconsin, again contended without evidence that the #protests at college campuses over the #war in #Gaza were an effort by the left to distract attention from the surge of migrants at the #border. “Some people are saying they do the colleges so they can get your eyes off the border,” he said, repeating an assertion that he made on social media last night.
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 man doused himself w/a liquid around 1:35PM ET in Collect Pond Park, across the street from the courthouse. Onlookers screamed as bright orange flames engulfed the man. It was unclear what motivated his action.
A high-ranking PoliceDept ofcl identified the man as #MaxAzzarello, 37, of St. Augustine, Florida. Mr. Azzarello had appeared outside the courthouse on Thurs w/a sign displaying the address of a website where the same pamphlets were uploaded. The top post of the website says, “I have set myself on fire outside the #TrumpTrial.”
The pamphlets he threw into the air & published online before the incident espoused AntiGovernment #ConspiracyTheories.
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.”"
As far-right contenders dominate the #GOP ticket in a state known for its flourishing #economy, the business community is bracing for potential fallout
[#NC restaurant owner Elizabeth] Turnbull, a registered Independent, was alarmed when candidates she viewed as #BadForBusiness, all #MAGA devotees prone to trumpeting #ConspiracyTheories, recently clinched the #Republican nominations for crucial state offices.
Weird #conspiracyTheories, and superstitions around cosmic events like #eclipses are common because people don't understand science and how anything works.
It all feels very similar to the same run of conspiracy theories we had with stuff like the four blood moons, and the September 23 apocalypse, and other #pseudoscience nonsense. Basically, a common event is imbued with cosmic significance, then totally forgotten when nothing happens.
The accts signal a potential tactical shift in how #China aims to #influence American #politics, w/more of a willingness to target specific candidates & parties, including Biden.
The accts mocked #Biden’s age & shared fake images of him in a prison jumpsuit, or claimed that Biden was a Satanist pedophile QAnon [#propaganda] while promoting #Trump’s #MAGA slogan.
“I’ve never seen anything along those lines at all before,” said Elise Thomas, a snr analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a nonprofit research org that uncovered some of the fake accts….
Malcolm Nance looks at how quickly the slimy fingers of conspiracy-theory propagandists got ahold of the Moscow terrorist attack story and now the Baltimore bridge destruction, and turned them into bizarre sagas involving Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Ukraine, and gay Jews.
"With six people missing and presumed dead after a container ship toppled an interstate bridge and shut down Baltimore harbor, far-right grifters and opportunists seized on the accident to advance various racist, xenophobic, and conspiratorial agendas, as TPM’s Nicole Lafond notes."
"Some Twitter conspiracy theorists began suggesting something nefarious overnight, with many latching onto the baseless and far-fetched notion that Israel was behind the attack, in retaliation for the passage of a United Nations ceasefire agreement in Gaza. Others argued Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policies in the U.S. had something to do with the crash."
"The right’s smorgasbord of vaguely explicatory gabble is obviously intended to try to turn the horrific bridge collapse to partisan advantage. Republicans oppose diversity inclusion programs; they oppose anything associated with Biden; they oppose covid public health measures; and they oppose most all immigration. So they try to link the bridge collapse to these partisan talking points…."
Mother Jones on the right's meltdown re: the Baltimore bridge:
The culprits they're blaming are "the border," COVID-19 "lockdowns," cyber-attacks, "DEI" (in right-wing parlance it just means "hiring nonwhites for literally any jobs"), and President Biden's infrastructure bill, which GOP Rep. Nancy Mace blamed with a straight face for investing in climate change initiatives and not enough on...bridge repair.
“Name a force or impulse that threatens the stability of the American political system – distrust in the fairness of elections, conspiracy theorizing, the embrace of authoritarianism – and it is always more prevalent among rural Whites than among those living elsewhere."
~ Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman, White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy (New York: Random House, 2024), p. 5
“The excess coronavirus deaths in rural counties should be classified as suicides by scientific skepticism. By rejecting proven vaccines, conspiracy-addled rural Americans, though living in communities where social distancing was easier than in densely populated cities, squandered their geographic advantage."
"All told, premature deaths from reduced healthcare access and facility closures, healthcare ignorance and scientific skepticism, and a fatal devotion to guns and drugs are killing rural white Americans—especially downscale rural whites.”
“‘Try to see America through their eyes,’ read a November 2022 Associated Press report about people in rural Wisconsin who are increasingly convinced that dark conspiracies are bent on destroying everything they believe in and are gathering weapons in case a civil war comes."