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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I think the major difference is now everyone can get their tailor made brand of misinformation based on their own biases.
For example Cambridge Analytica had about 200 personality profiles that they used for targeted disinformation during the 2016 political campaign. So before people spreading misinformation had one or two stories to try and convince everyone. Now they know just about everything about you and can bombard you with misinformation until they find something that sticks.
It was the same in the past though too. Some audiences would be targeted by this newspaper or that one, others radio, some snuck into their favourite TV drama. Nothing new here just a new medium. We can only change ourselves through education as we are susceptible to misinformation and until that changes, we are are the mercy of whatever medium of the day reaches us.