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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You’re forgetting the pre-Web internet: 99% students & academics. It was largely awesome. When you did get trolled, it was by someone who could spell and form a cohesive argument.
Yup I was there at the edge of that (about a year before Mosaic released on a Mac).
Aol added usenet in 93 and we got on a lot of college servers, also with FTP, gopher and a little later, Hotline. So much warez and shareware games! I was in 8th grade then, had a 14.4 modem and life was pretty great.
Commander Keen nostalgia intensifies
Many neo-nazis used the BBS system to find each other. The funding model of direct email and such, that is used today, could probably be traced back to the early 1990s BBS forums. Scummy people have a way of finding each other.