Analysis: Misinformation has created an alternative world for some Americans | CNN Politics
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As the US approaches the third straight election in which misinformation is expected to play a role, it’s important to understand what’s driving people who don’t believe in US elections.

There’s a tendency in this heated political climate to simply reject people who are saying false things and to write off conspiracy theorists writ large.

But as the US approaches the third straight election in which misinformation — and the fight against it — is expected to play a role, it’s important to understand what’s driving people who don’t believe in US elections.

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I talked to O’Sullivan about the documentary, in which he has some frank and disarming talks with people about what has shaken their belief in the US. But he paints an alarming picture about the rise of fringe movements in the country.

Our conversation, conducted by phone and edited for length, is below:

WOLF: What were you trying to accomplish with this project?

O’SULLIVAN: So much of mainstream American politics now is being infected and affected by what is happening on what was once considered the real fringes — fringe platforms, fringe personalities.

And I think really what we want to do in this show is illustrate how these personalities may be pushing falsehoods, but they’re no longer fringe. This is all happening right now. And it is having a big effect on our democracy.

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  • @[email protected]English
    11•8 months ago

    While true, the bigger problem is how many people would rather believe the trash because it gives them someone to be angry at instead of learning empathy for other people.

    • @dariusj18
      11•8 months ago

      I was more referring to the unfortunately naive hope that came from the early Internet. I am reminded of this quote by Charles Babbage,

      On two occasions I have been asked, — “Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?” In one case a member of the Upper, and in the other a member of the Lower, House put this question. I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.

      I was also hopeful, but I now realize how silly that was.

      • Aniki 🌱🌿English
        4•8 months ago

        It was easy to be hopeful because in the beginning it was fucking magical and then just got better and better until capitalism got involved and sunk their teeth into the veins of love and hope and sucked it dry until its dead decaying husk and then zombified by AI.

        • @captainlezbian
          5•8 months ago

          Exactly, and early on it was being led by people with radical ideas. Things like Wikipedia shouldn’t exist, but crazy people who believed in humanity and the free exchange of information made stuff like that.

          Eventually the internet replaced the commons, but capital sees the commons merely as unclaimed land so they outcompeted it then enshittified it.

          The solution is unfortunately we have to make normie friendly options. A home server is that just works and is cheap and easy seems like exactly the sort of shit that could help. Federation may very well be the solution

          • @TubularTittyFrog
            -1•8 months ago

            those people also believed in freedom.

            not social control.

            more and more and more the internet is become about social control. especially in totalitarian states, but also in the west more and more.