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No one would have believed, in the last years of the nineteenth century, that human affairs were being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their affairs they were scrutinized and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinize the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most, terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet, across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. And early in the twentieth century came the great disillusionment.
The planet Mars...
This Day in History: Oct 30
Orson Welles causes a nationwide panic with his broadcast of “War of the Worlds”—a realistic radio dramatization of a Martian invasion of Earth.
...
Perhaps as many as a million radio listeners believed that a real Martian invasion was underway. Panic broke out across the country. In New Jersey, terrified civilians jammed highways seeking to escape the alien marauders. People begged police for gas masks to save them from the toxic gas and asked electric companies to turn off the power so that the Martians wouldn’t see their lights. One woman ran into an Indianapolis church where evening services were being held and yelled, “New York has been destroyed! It’s the end of the world! Go home and prepare to die!” www.history.com...
Editorialists chastised the radio industry for allowing this to happen. This response may have reflected newspaper publishers' fears that radio, to which they had lost some of the advertising revenue that was scarce enough during the Great Depression, would render them obsolete. In "The War of the Worlds", they saw an opportunity to cast aspersions on the newer medium. "The nation as a whole continues to face the danger of incomplete, misunderstood news over a medium which has yet to prove that it is competent to perform the news job," wrote Editor & Publisher, the newspaper industry's trade journal.[3][40]
What’s to be done about fake news?
Are the news stories we Americans read, see, and hear FACT OR FICTION? A loaded and sharply-divisive question in these partisan high-tech times. No wonder the Oxford Dictionaries recently proclaimed “Post-Truth” to be the Word of the Year.
For Victor Pineiro, vice president of social media at Brooklyn-based digital agency Big Spaceship...
...
Another social media trend he’s keeping an eye on is the rise of fake news and its impact on real-world events. Moving forward, “Facebook has to be held accountable for the information and misinformation that it is feeding” its audience, Pineiro said.
On Election Day, Obama delivered a message that I helped write. I still can’t believe it. Writing for my hero. So beyond proud of the YouTube social team and our Election 2016 campaign.
German law would fine social media sites “publishing” fake news
Other German politicians have joined the call for swift action against fake news on sites such as Facebook. The Guardian reported that Germany's justice minister, Heiko Maas, told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper: "Defamation and malicious gossip are not covered under freedom of speech," and that "Justice authorities must prosecute that, even on the Internet." He pointed out that those convicted under the country's strict libel laws face up to five years in jail.
German politician threatens to fine Facebook €500,000 every time it shows fake news
Germany has threatened to crack down on the fake news scandal plaguing Facebook by levying hefty fines for posts that aren't removed immediately amid mounting fears that disinformation could influence the country's upcoming elections.
The head of Germany's second-biggest political party has suggested Facebook could face fines of up to €500,000 (£419,000) for each post containing fake news or hate speech that isn't removed from the network within 24 hours.
The Ministry of Truth contained, it was said, three thousand rooms above ground level, and corresponding ramifications below. The were the homes of the four Ministries between which the entire apparatus of government was divided: the Ministry of Truth, which concerned itself with news, entertainment, education, and the fine arts. -George Orwell in "1984"
"As you can see there, there has possibly never been a greater trove of journalistic gold. It should be like punditry nirvana, all that material to go over with more coming every single day. But instead, where are our Media?"
The Bernie Sanders Files
The Clinton Foundation / Clinton Global Initiative Files
The Character Witness & Ethics Files
The Collusion / Corruption / Election Rigging Files
The Email Scandals / State Secrets / Benghazi Files
The Al Qaeda / ISIS / Middle East Files
The Lapdog Media Files
The George Soros Files
The Economy & TPP Files
The Social inJustice Files
See also the mega-dump Repository Thread:
The #WikiLeaks #DNCLeaks #Podesta Whistleblowers & FOIA Key Hillary Findings Repository Thread
WikiLeaks List Exposes At Least 65 Corporate ‘Presstitutes’ Who Colluded to Hide Clinton’s Crimes
Revelations from the Wikileaks release of John Podesta’s emails yet again prove mainstream, corporate media serves as Hillary Clinton’s personal cheerleading squad — and is devoid of any iteration of journalistic integrity.
10 Ways the CIA’s ‘Russian Hacking’ Story is Left-Wing ‘Fake News’
1. There is actually no new information leading the CIA to its conclusion. ...
2. The “evidence” that the CIA has gathered is inconclusive. ...
3. The CIA is not making public claims that Russia hacked the election. ...
4. Despite left-wing “fake news,” there is no evidence Russian hackers actually distorted the voting process. ...
5. The Obama administration has a history of manipulating intelligence for political gain. ...
6. Julian Assange and Wikileaks have vigorously denied that the Russians were involved in Wikileaks’ disclosures. ...
7. The fact that the Russians might constantly be trying to hack U.S. systems, and might even specifically have targeted the election, does not prove that they succeeded. ...
8. Foreign interference in elections is nothing new — and the Obama administration is a prime culprit. ...
9. What would the consequences of allowing undue Russian influence in our elections be, exactly? ...
10. Occam’s razor: the simplest explanation for the “Russian hacking” story is that it is “fake news” that suits the left-wing media. ...
Obama: The ’80s called, they want their foreign policy back
“Gov. Romney, I’m glad you recognize al-Qaida is a threat, because a few months ago when you were asked what is the biggest geopolitical group facing America, you said Russia, not al-Qaida,” Obama said. “You said Russia. And the 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back. Because the Cold War has been over for 20 years. But Governor, when it comes to our foreign policy, you seem to want to import the foreign policies of the 1980s, just like the social policy of the 1950s, and the economic policies of the 1920s.”
The 4 Types of ‘Fake News’
1. Actual “fake news” ...
2. “Fake news” that is actually satire ...
3. Poorly-reported news that fits an agenda ...
4. Misleading news designed to promote a narrative ...
The Five Types of Fake News
1. 100% False. ...
2. Slanted and Biased. ...
3. Pure Propaganda. ...
4. Misusing the Data. ...
5. Imprecise and Sloppy. ...
6 types of misinformation circulated this election season
1. Authentic material used in the wrong context ...
2. Imposter news sites designed to look like brands we already know ...
3. Fake news sites ...
4. Fake information ...
5. Manipulated content ...
6. Parody content ...
CNN launches sponsored content studio
CNN's decision to launch the sponsored content studio is in line with many other media companies, such as BuzzFeed, The Atlantic and POLITICO, jumping into what's seen as a lucrative opportunity to marry the skills and reputation of a news media company with the advertisers' desire not to make their advertisements so obvious. There are few things a company loves more than positive, organically earned media, which sponsored content tries to replicate.
5 Times Corporate Media Got Caught Publishing Fake News Causing the Death & Suffering of Millions
1. George W. Bush's Weapons of Mass Destruction ...
2. Gulf of Tonkin Incident ...
3. Suppression of brutality perpetrated in Bahrain during the Arab Spring ...
4. That time Fox News hired a CIA operative who wasn't a CIA operative ...
5. Vapid anti-marijuana propaganda and the furtherance of the war on drugs ...
‘It was like Russia was running a super PAC for Trump’s campaign’
The scourge of “fake news” has been well documented in recent weeks, with some evidence that made-up stories easily outperformed real news reports on Facebook in the final months of the presidential campaign.
And while the fictional reports had many authors, the Washington Post reported over the holiday weekend that Russia’s government played an important role:
The flood of “fake news” this election season got support from a sophisticated Russian propaganda campaign that created and spread misleading articles online with the goal of punishing Democrat Hillary Clinton, helping Republican Donald Trump and undermining faith in American democracy, say independent researchers who tracked the operation.
Russia’s increasingly sophisticated propaganda machinery – including thousands of botnets, teams of paid human “trolls,” and networks of websites and social-media accounts – echoed and amplified right-wing sites across the Internet as they portrayed Clinton as a criminal hiding potentially fatal health problems and preparing to hand control of the nation to a shadowy cabal of global financiers.
Wa shington Post Disgracefully Promotes a McCarthyite Blacklist From a New, Hidden, and Very Shady Group
Indeed, what happened here is the essence of fake news. The Post story served the agendas of many factions: those who want to believe Putin stole the election from Hillary Clinton; those who want to believe that the internet and social media are a grave menace that needs to be controlled, in contrast to the objective truth that reliable old media outlets once issued; those who want a resurrection of the Cold War. So those who saw tweets and Facebook posts promoting this Post story instantly clicked and shared and promoted the story without an iota of critical thought or examination of whether the claims were true, because they wanted the claims to be true. That behavior included countless journalists.
So the story spread in a flash, like wildfire. Tens of thousands of people, perhaps hundreds of thousands or even millions, consumed it, believing that it was true because of how many journalists and experts told them it was. Virtually none of the people who told them this spent a minute of time or ounce of energy determining if it was true. It pleased them to believe it was, knowing it advanced their interests, and so they endorsed it. That is the essence of how fake news functions, and it is the ultimate irony that this Post story ended up illustrating and spreading far more fake news than it exposed.
Senate Quietly Passes The "Countering Disinformation And Propaganda Act"
Recall that as we reported in early June, "a bill to implement the U.S.’ very own de facto Ministry of Truth has been quietly introduced in Congress. As with any legislation attempting to dodge the public spotlight the Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act of 2016 marks a further curtailment of press freedom and another avenue to stultify avenues of accurate information. Introduced by Congressmen Adam Kinzinger and Ted Lieu, H.R. 5181 seeks a “whole-government approach without the bureaucratic restrictions” to counter “foreign disinformation and manipulation,” which they believe threaten the world’s “security and stability.” Also called the Countering Information Warfare Act of 2016 (S. 2692), when introduced in March by Sen. Rob Portman, the legislation represents a dramatic return to Cold War-era government propaganda battles.
The legislation establishes a fund to help train local journalists and provide grants and contracts to NGOs, civil society organizations, think tanks, private sector companies, media organizations, and other experts outside the U.S. government with experience in identifying and analyzing the latest trends in foreign government disinformation techniques. www.portman.senate.gov...
Google Program to Deradicalize Jihadis Will Be Used for Right-Wing American Extremists Next
“We are very conscious — as our own organization and I know Jigsaw are — that this [violent extremism] is not solely the problem of one particular group,” Frenett said.
“Our efforts during phase two, when we’re going to focus on the violent far right in America, will be very much focused on the small element of those that are violent. The interesting thing about how they behave is they’re a little bit more brazen online these days than ISIS fan boys,” Frenett said.
China Presses Tech Firms to Police the Internet
Nov. 18, 2016
Picture an internet where tech companies are deputized as crime-fighters, where censors keep radical views in check and where governments work together to achieve global order in cyberspace. That is China’s vision, and its third-annual World Internet Conference that ended Friday was aimed at proselytizing that view to tech executives and government leaders who assembled here from around the world. China’s efforts to promote its concept of the internet had fresh resonance as Western minds now debate whether social media sites should screen out fake news, or if smartphone makers should help police gain access to the secrets locked away in the devices of suspected criminals.
16 Fake News Stories Reporters Have Run Since Trump Won
-Early November: Spike in Transgender Suicide Rates ...
-November 22: The Tri-State Election Hacking Conspiracy Theory ...
-December 1: The 27-Cent Foreclosure ...
-January 20: Nancy Sinatra’s Complaints about the Inaugural Ball ...
-January 20: The Nonexistent Climate Change Website ‘Purge’ ...
-January 20: The Great MLK Jr. Bust Controversy ...
-January 20: Betsy DeVos, Grizzly Fighter ...
-January 26: The ‘Resignations’ At the State Department ...
-January 27: The Photoshopped Hands Affair ...
-January 29: The Reuters Account Hoax ...
-January 31: The White House-SCOTUS Twitter Mistake ...
-January 31: The Big Travel Ban Lie ...
-February 1: POTUS Threatens to Invade Mexico ...
-February 2: Easing the Russian Sanctions ...
-February 2: Renaming Black History Month ...
-February 2: The House of Representatives’ Gun Control Measures ...
(Dictators) get started by suppressing a free press. In other words, a consolidation of power. When you look at history the first thing that dictators do is shut down the press." -John McCain
What’s at the core of this is an effort by some in the intelligence community to upend any positive relationship between the U.S. and Russia. And I tell you there’s a marching band and Chowder Society out there. There are people trying to separate the U.S. and Russia so that this military industrial intel axis can cash in. ...The American people have to know that there’s a game going on inside the intelligence community… at the bottom of all this is the fact that there are those that seek to separate US from Russia to reignite the cold war… that’s what’s at the bottom of all this …. Wake up America!! ...What’s going on in the intelligence community with this new president is unprecedented. They’re making every effort trying to upend him. ...It’s not just this administration. I want to remind the views and all those who are on the panel that in the closing months of the Obama administration, they put together a deal with Russia to create peace in Syria. A few days later, a military strike in Syria killed a hundred Syrian soldiers and that ended the agreement. What happened is inside the intelligence and the Pentagon there was a deliberate effort to sabotage an agreement the White House made." -D ennis Kucinich
The deep state, although there’s no precise or scientific definition, generally refers to the agencies in Washington that are permanent power factions. They stay and exercise power even as presidents who are elected come and go. They typically exercise their power in secret, in the dark, and so they’re barely subject to democratic accountability, if they’re subject to it at all. It’s agencies like the CIA, the NSA and the other intelligence agencies, that are essentially designed to disseminate disinformation and deceit and propaganda, and have a long history of doing not only that, but also have a long history of the world’s worst war crimes, atrocities and death squads.
This is who not just people like Bill Kristol, but lots of Democrats are placing their faith in, are trying to empower, are cheering for as they exert power separate and apart from—in fact, in opposition to—the political officials to whom they’re supposed to be subordinate.
...
That isn’t what this resistance is now doing. What they’re doing instead is trying to take maybe the only faction worse than Donald Trump, which is the deep state, the CIA, with its histories of atrocities, and say they ought to almost engage in like a soft coup, where they take the elected president and prevent him from enacting his policies. And I think it is extremely dangerous to do that.
Even if you’re somebody who believes that both the CIA and the deep state, on the one hand, and the Trump presidency, on the other, are extremely dangerous, as I do, there’s a huge difference between the two, which is that Trump was democratically elected and is subject to democratic controls, as these courts just demonstrated and as the media is showing, as citizens are proving. But on the other hand, the CIA was elected by nobody. They’re barely subject to democratic controls at all. And so, to urge that the CIA and the intelligence community empower itself to undermine the elected branches of government is insanity. That is a prescription for destroying democracy overnight in the name of saving it." -G lenn Greenwald
...We start getting into the grounds of treason. Look, I'm a Democrat, and I certainly didn't support or vote for Trump. Before I'm a Democrat, I'm an American. And I think the vast majority of spies understand that, and are committed to that. But there are a fair number of these folks who are engaging in a very dangerous game, and I support the president and his efforts to find these folks and throw them in jail. ... I think we start to head down a very dangerous road that places like Pakistan and Egypt have gone down, where military and intelligence officers who are in the shadows, they're elected by no one, they get to decide they put their finger on the scale of who wins or loses in the political world. I think when we start seeing this garbage I think we are in deep deep trouble. In fact, there was a tweet by a journalist who said effectively that the IC has declared war on president Trump, and that they plan to see him die in jail." -Bryan Dean Wright
originally posted by: IgnoranceIsntBlisss
It was the "Cuban Missile Crisis" all over again. As an ever most diligent student of the Culture of Fear, one of my favorite blasts from the past was the Cuban Missile Crisis, where everyone went completely out of their minds that the USSR finally had a launching platform nearby. Meanwhile over in Eurasia we had silo bases surrounding them not unlike that map there.