By Neil Scott
Sometimes crap on the internet becomes an accepted truth. Lies from a particular viewpoint are vehemently, almost violently defended (and this violence HAS spilled over into real life, for example the awful murders of Jo Cox, and David Amess; violence against women; violence against black and Asian people; uneducated anti-semitism and islamophobia, and of course the recent awful events in Manchester carried out against a Jewish community).
Some lies are difficult to detect- and we are sometimes victims of those who create the lies- and that victimhood- that naivety we accuse others of- is difficult to swallow. Our confirmation bias -that is looking for confirmation of our own ideas, prejudices, bigotries etc- means that people on all sides of different arguments can become victims and defenders of lies. That was very obvious during and after the Scottish Indyref, and Brexit. To me, coming from Ireland, anger caused by misinformation and inherent prejudices was very obvious when I was growing up, as rumours and disinformation led to mistrust and awful events.
I try my best NOT to shit spread- circulate stuff made up on social media by bad actors (most of what we see on social media is created and circulated by bad actors and their “bot farms,” created to confuse and to misinform). I’ve been caught out in the past- I usuaIly tend NOT to share headlines and articles from “journalists” and “news” papers that are owned by billionaires, whose need to own a paper is the same as those early paper owner’s from the past- they want THEIR political and economic position strengthened and not challenged. “Divide and conquer” is still a thing, only nowadays media owners are at times more rich than some countries, and certainly infinitely more powerful than easily manipulated elected members of councils and Parliaments. That is not to say that all journalists are without integrity- there are many, many- a majority in fact- of journalists who understand and execute tgeir jobs brilliantly. And I will share good journalism, even sometimes when I understand the bias that humans have (for example, middle class journalists have different biases from those of us from the various economic and intellectual strata in the working classes). At times, the media- the ‘newspaper’ owners stir and bubble events and the toil and trouble is way more powerful than that of the past. Their media is probably in your hand right now. Their media is in my hand right now, as I vomit my idea onto this small screen, this incredibly powerful computer whose algorithms and marketing tools and layouts and buttons were not organically grown by nature, but created like the cheap food stacked with E numbers, sugars and fats that create addictions and in turn, emotional and physical responses. That cause us to buy more of the addictive crap- crap that kills us. Crap that is synthetic, dead and deadens.
This rapid synchronisation of brain and thumb came as a result of reading a really great quote. One I normally would have recirculated- but because of great quotes in the past, or because sometimes great quotes came from rancid people, I decided not to. I held back, so I did not become a misinformation spreader, even though the message was a positive one. Yay me.
I have been caught before- inspirational and kind words have been challenged- rightly- by others. When my reposts been challenged, I tend to thank the person, but inside I seethe- I think, “but its a great quote! Why are people so petty! Let it be!”
We don’t like that ideas we’ve been fooled by turn out to be dead… crap…lies. And that’s how the bot farming malevolent, and very rich and powerful win.
