My Thoughts on How to Combat Disinformation

[NJCher]

This thread is inspired by Lucky Charms' thread "This JFK thing..."

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100216011451#post28

Combatting disinformation:

We need an organized effort to combat the problem of disinformation and how it is affecting our democracy. Here are some thoughts on how to actualize it.

1. First, the way our society works is to fund experts via our research institutions, which are universities. We have already paid for the experts to do this research; now what we need to do is let them organize an effort and listen to them.

2. There are massive amounts of information on persuasion that are proprietary because of market research funded by big corporations. I worked in this area for decades. There are plenty of ex-employees with a working knowledge of this research. This is a very practical area and needs to be factored into any solution.

Remember there has never been a society that has perfected the art of mass persuasion to the point that the U.S. has. Those persuaders are advertising managers, public relations managers, market research managers, creative directors, copywriters, etc. These people know how to get results faster than anyone else.

3. The academic areas involved are sociology, psychology, communication, law, and probably a few others I'm not thinking of at the moment.

4. Efforts are already underway but need to be organized into an overall policy. See these links for examples of studies:


Here, for example, is a syllabus created by the Center for Information Technology and Public Life:

https://citap.unc.edu/research/critical-disinfo/

I post this because it is a good outline of where disinformation studies can go and what it can do.

The Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School covers some area where the law can help in the goal of preventing disinformation.

https://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/publications/books

The tabs to look at are "Publications," "Our Work," and "Experts." Sure, read some of these studies if you're up for it, but I mostly provide it for reasons of understanding the areas where the law might help.

Use this search term "disinformation academic studies" for others.

There are more resources, but this is a start.

[Mike 03]

1. Kick and Recommend

[Ocelot II]

2. We must always remember Brandolini's Law,

also known as the bullshit asymmetry principle, which states that "The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude larger than is needed to produce it."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law

[Celerity]

3. kick for visibility!

[njhoneybadger]

4. Sometimes it seems like persuasion is viewed by Democrats as an immoral dirty trick.

I think what you are suggesting has to be done if there is to be a future for the Democratic Party.

[CousinIT]

5. Send to DNC, Jaime Harrison, DSCC, DCCC, Schumer, Pelosi, POTUS

Use email, social media, snailmail, whatever.

Democrats need to hire consultants, experts. For God's sake, Republicans have been crunching data, metadata, numbers, demographics for DECADES. They hire experts to help them with messaging and marketing to target people's emotions. Dems can do the same only without LYING to them.

They do NOTHING.

Literally NOTHING on messaging. They just ignore it. WTF.

[mahina]

6. Bookmarking. Hoping to learn more and use it.

Way past time.

Aloha.

Ps have you seen https://represent.us/videos/? Represent.us is a state by state effort to fight legal corruption and take back our representation from lobbyists.

[NJCher]

7. haven't seen it

but thanks. After seeing the devastation Manchin brought to the table with his endless delays (I blame him for much of yesterday's disappointments), something like this is sorely needed.
I will watch it tonight.