{"id":57074,"date":"2016-11-18T19:29:34","date_gmt":"2016-11-18T23:29:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=57074"},"modified":"2016-11-18T19:30:37","modified_gmt":"2016-11-18T23:30:37","slug":"enter-fake-news-as-replacement-for-conspiracy-theory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=57074","title":{"rendered":"Enter Fake News as Replacement for Conspiracy Theory?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"secretservicesecrets\"<\/p>\n

By Daily Bell Staff<\/p>\n

\n

Barack Obama on fake news: \u2018We have problems\u2019 if we can\u2019t tell the difference The US president denounced the spate of misinformation across social media platforms, including Facebook, suggesting American politics can be affected. -Guardian<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Is fake news the new \u201cconspiracy theory.\u201d We\u2019ve read that it may be, and it seems likely to us.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because \u201cconspiracy theory\u201d has seemingly lost credibility as a way of dismissing anti-mainstream critiques, and\u00a0it can be argued that \u201cfake news\u201d is\u00a0being substituted.<\/p>\n

We recently wrote about the decline and fall of \u201cconspiracy theory\u201d as an effective denigration of Deep State critiques. You can see the article here.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

This make sense to us because the CIA was apparently responsible for disseminating the initial \u201cconspiracy theory\u201d meme, and \u201cfake news\u201d could certainly have been developed to take its place.<\/p>\n

Secondly, as reportedly\u00a0some\u00a050 percent of Americans now believe in so-called \u201cconspiracies,\u201d it\u2019s very obvious a elite replacement was needed.<\/p>\n

Some caveats: Regarding this second point, it\u2019s very likely that many more than 50 percent of Americans believe in conspiracy theories. And the substitution of \u201cfake news\u201d is a very unappealing alternative.<\/p>\n

More:<\/p>\n

President Barack Obama has spoken out about fake news on Facebook and other media platforms, suggesting that it helped undermine the US political process.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cIf we are not serious about facts and what\u2019s true and what\u2019s not, if we can\u2019t discriminate between serious arguments and propaganda, then we have problems,\u201d he said during a press conference in Germany.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

Since the surprise election of Donald Trump as president-elect, Facebook has battled accusations that it has failed to stem the flow of misinformation on its network and that its business model leads to users becoming divided into polarized political echo chambers.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

Our mission is to\u00a0cover elite memes \u2013 propaganda that scares people into giving more control to the government \u2013 and having Obama comment on \u201cfake news\u201d is part of a standard meme reinforcement.<\/p>\n

The \u201cfake news\u201d meme is all over search-engine news and prominent people like Obama are speaking out about the meme and basically endorsing it.<\/p>\n

But it all strikes us as rather desperate.<\/p>\n

Conspiracy Theory is far less prone to analysis than \u201cfake news.\u201d It has persisted so long and been so successful because it is difficult to quantify a \u201cconspiracy\u201d and thus the dismissal cannot be either confirmed or denied.<\/p>\n

\u201cFake news\u201d however, lends itself to\u00a0fact-checking. One may not wish for a variety of reasons to delve into \u201cconspiracy theory,\u201d but if someone is told he or she is espousing fake news, the resultant irritation may move that person to further research.<\/p>\n

When we coined the term Internet Reformation, our idea was that the information available via the \u2018Net would generate a gradual process of enlightenment \u2013 and an accretion of\u00a0truth. In fact, this process is occurring, in fits and starts.<\/p>\n

If \u201cconspiracy theory\u201d really has lost impact \u2013 and apparently it has \u2013 as a way of debunking criticism of the Deep State, this is certainly a setback for modern propaganda.<\/p>\n

Additionally, \u201cwhen it comes to \u201cfake news,\u201d the mainstream media is going to have to speak with one voice in order to disparage factual information.<\/p>\n

But\u00a0fewer and fewer people believe the mainstream media. Thus, if the media places its communicative muscle behind tarring certain cogent criticisms as \u201cfalse,\u201d it will likely only speed up the decline of mainstream credibility.<\/p>\n

Conclusion: <\/strong>Of course, those in power could ban the Internet outright, but it\u2019s probably too late for that \u2013 and wouldn\u2019t work\u00a0effectively in any case.<\/p>\n

___
\nhttp:\/\/www.thedailybell.com\/news-analysis\/enter-fake-news-as-replacement-for-conspiracy-theory\/<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=57074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57074\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}