Donald Trump and maga Republicans use the Nazi tactic for spreading misinformation. They keep telling "The Big Lie" and democracy is at risk when people believe their propaganda.
Echo opinion column published by the Editor of The Pilot- a Southern Pines North Carolina newspaper:
At the Ramparts of Reality: The Onslaught Against Truth
Disinformation campaigns — and the fight for truth — have been with us for a long time.
(Wow❗ Just writing that paragraph put me in a bummer mood. Let’s see if I can get through this without deleting it all.)
The Pilot’s Opinion section on October. 5 featured a piece by regular columnist John Hood about Epicurus, a Greek sage and teacher of the Hellenistic Age.
At the Ramparts of Reality: The Onslaught Against Truth
Disinformation campaigns — and the fight for truth — have been with us for a long time.
Truth, as time has shown us, doesn’t always win. And right now, it’s not looking so good for these times or the future, either.
(Wow❗ Just writing that paragraph put me in a bummer mood. Let’s see if I can get through this without deleting it all.)
The Pilot’s Opinion section on October. 5 featured a piece by regular columnist John Hood about Epicurus, a Greek sage and teacher of the Hellenistic Age.
If you’re good with words, you’re looking at that name and wondering if it’s related to our modern “epicurean,” which means someone who enjoys fine food and luxury. It is, but in an inverse way.
Epicurus, the guy, taught about living a simple life, eschewing the fancy things of that day and focusing instead on achieving happiness through tranquility, moderation, limiting desires and fostering friendships.
As John Hood told us in his column, that wasn’t popular with the other Greek hotshots, mostly because they liked their fancy things.
Epicurus, the guy, taught about living a simple life, eschewing the fancy things of that day and focusing instead on achieving happiness through tranquility, moderation, limiting desires and fostering friendships.
As John Hood told us in his column, that wasn’t popular with the other Greek hotshots, mostly because they liked their fancy things.
A disinformation campaign began. Epicurus was subjected to rumor, gossip, fake news.
Over time, the lie won out. “Repeat errors or lies often enough,” Hood wrote, “and they become ‘true’ to future generations. That’s why it is so important to confront them, repeatedly, from the very beginning.” (Maine Writer- or...as the evil Nazi Joseph Goebbels wrote: The Big Lie" is a propaganda technique, often attributed to Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, that asserts a lie repeated often enough and on a large enough scale will be believed by the masses. Hitler wrote about this in his Mein Kampf autobiography.)
Over time, the lie won out. “Repeat errors or lies often enough,” Hood wrote, “and they become ‘true’ to future generations. That’s why it is so important to confront them, repeatedly, from the very beginning.” (Maine Writer- or...as the evil Nazi Joseph Goebbels wrote: The Big Lie" is a propaganda technique, often attributed to Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, that asserts a lie repeated often enough and on a large enough scale will be believed by the masses. Hitler wrote about this in his Mein Kampf autobiography.)
This is no less true today, as we all know. Artificial intelligence in all its forms, whether it’s a chatbot or software that produces content, is changing what “information” looks and sounds like. It is a battle for the very soul of truth and what we can all commonly agree is real.
Like Epicurus, most of us are not familiar with Maria Ressa. A Philippine journalist who also teaches at Columbia University in New York, she won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021 along with Russian journalist Dmitry Andreyevich Muratov for their “efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace.”
Ressa was invited in September to address the United Nations General Assembly during its 80th anniversary to talk about the age in which we live as it relates to disinformation and the future of truth. I’d call it sobering except her remarks make me want a very stiff bourbon.
In her speech, Ressa spoke of how “we’re living through an information armageddon where lies spread six times faster than facts on social media. That’s a 2018 MIT study. It’s so much worse today with generative AI.
“Without facts, you can’t have truth. Without truth, you can’t have trust. Without these three, we have no shared reality. We can’t begin to solve any problem, let alone existential ones like climate change.
“We can’t have journalism or electoral integrity. And democracy dies.”
The Washington Post famously during the first Trump administration adopted a new slogan for its news gathering: “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” No, it doesn’t. Like Ressa, I believe that democracy dies out in the open, in the light of day, while we’re wide awake but focused on the small things rather than such broader issues.
We are now confronted daily with fiction posing as fact.
Like Epicurus, most of us are not familiar with Maria Ressa. A Philippine journalist who also teaches at Columbia University in New York, she won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021 along with Russian journalist Dmitry Andreyevich Muratov for their “efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace.”
Ressa was invited in September to address the United Nations General Assembly during its 80th anniversary to talk about the age in which we live as it relates to disinformation and the future of truth. I’d call it sobering except her remarks make me want a very stiff bourbon.
In her speech, Ressa spoke of how “we’re living through an information armageddon where lies spread six times faster than facts on social media. That’s a 2018 MIT study. It’s so much worse today with generative AI.
“Without facts, you can’t have truth. Without truth, you can’t have trust. Without these three, we have no shared reality. We can’t begin to solve any problem, let alone existential ones like climate change.
“We can’t have journalism or electoral integrity. And democracy dies.”
The Washington Post famously during the first Trump administration adopted a new slogan for its news gathering: “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” No, it doesn’t. Like Ressa, I believe that democracy dies out in the open, in the light of day, while we’re wide awake but focused on the small things rather than such broader issues.
We are now confronted daily with fiction posing as fact.
I’m a sucker for cute videos on social media that purport to show things like cute babies “reading” to adorable puppies sitting politely and quietly. Anyone who’s ever owned a puppy knows they rarely sit politely and quietly, and babies don’t read. But when I share them with my wife, she bursts my bubble: “That’s AI!”
If only the problem was that innocuous. While proofing a recent issue of the newspaper prior to publication, I spotted an AI-generated photo in an advertisement that was false. It purported to be of something local that I knew did not exist. It was fixed before the deadline and properly labeled as an “illustration,” but it speaks to how we are confronted every day now with what’s real and what’s not.
Is it disinformation❓ If it is purposefully meant to be believed as real — as opposed to being a metaphor — and convey a point of view, it absolutely is. Technology today has gotten so good, it makes most things believable to the unsuspecting person, especially when it’s coming from a trustworthy source.
This all may sound theoretical, but there are instances everywhere and every day where the debate over truth is being waged. What once was merely rhetorical can now be “backed up” by “evidence” — except the evidence isn’t real. And when we no longer agree over what’s real?
A new Pew Research Center survey quantifies this issue. In that survey, 90 percent of the adults responding said they at least sometimes come across news they think is inaccurate, including 42 percent who said this happens extremely often or often. Further, those surveyed are split almost in half in saying they “generally find it difficult to determine what’s true and what’s not when they get news.”
Interestingly, “Nondigital news consumers are less likely to say they frequently encounter inaccurate news.” Maybe there’s hope for us analog vendors yet?
As Ressa said in her speech to the United Nations General Assembly, the onslaught of fictionalized content through artificial intelligence, with deception as its purpose, “is manipulation of human behavior at the cellular levels of our democracies. Algorithms reward outrage over empathy, spreading fear, anger and hate, pumping us full of toxic sludge.”
Everything old is new again. Epicurus wanted us to live a simple life based on friendships and happiness rather than a life of ambition and strife. The poor guy never stood a chance.
Contact editor John Nagy at (910) 693-2507 or john@thepilot.com.
If only the problem was that innocuous. While proofing a recent issue of the newspaper prior to publication, I spotted an AI-generated photo in an advertisement that was false. It purported to be of something local that I knew did not exist. It was fixed before the deadline and properly labeled as an “illustration,” but it speaks to how we are confronted every day now with what’s real and what’s not.
Is it disinformation❓ If it is purposefully meant to be believed as real — as opposed to being a metaphor — and convey a point of view, it absolutely is. Technology today has gotten so good, it makes most things believable to the unsuspecting person, especially when it’s coming from a trustworthy source.
This all may sound theoretical, but there are instances everywhere and every day where the debate over truth is being waged. What once was merely rhetorical can now be “backed up” by “evidence” — except the evidence isn’t real. And when we no longer agree over what’s real?
A new Pew Research Center survey quantifies this issue. In that survey, 90 percent of the adults responding said they at least sometimes come across news they think is inaccurate, including 42 percent who said this happens extremely often or often. Further, those surveyed are split almost in half in saying they “generally find it difficult to determine what’s true and what’s not when they get news.”
Interestingly, “Nondigital news consumers are less likely to say they frequently encounter inaccurate news.” Maybe there’s hope for us analog vendors yet?
As Ressa said in her speech to the United Nations General Assembly, the onslaught of fictionalized content through artificial intelligence, with deception as its purpose, “is manipulation of human behavior at the cellular levels of our democracies. Algorithms reward outrage over empathy, spreading fear, anger and hate, pumping us full of toxic sludge.”
Everything old is new again. Epicurus wanted us to live a simple life based on friendships and happiness rather than a life of ambition and strife. The poor guy never stood a chance.
Contact editor John Nagy at (910) 693-2507 or john@thepilot.com.
posted by Juliana L'Heureux | 1:34 PM
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