Hacking, TrustNet, Trump
I’m watching the latest news on the Russian hack of American systems, including the U.S. Government with interest. Trump has been busy doing the same things he always does, deny, deflect, blame China, and now, wants to appoint that idiotic lawyer, Sydney Powell as a Special Counsel to investigate the election. He’s always refusing to hold Russia accountable (again).
And now, the Trump Administration is planning closing the last two U.S. Embassies in Russia, leaving only 1 embassy for the entire country in Moscow.
Coincidence? Not a chance.
Everyone knows embassies are just locations to house foreign spies and process diplomatic requests and other business. By removing this ability within Russia to just one location, the U.S. will remain seriously blinded to other malfeasance going on in Russia. But in typical Traitor Trump fashion, the Trump Administration is going soft on Russia again.
Vladivostok is a city of immense interest and importance to U.S. interests, but the embassy there is not limited to just the city’s activities. Embassies server important function for localized data collection and analysis and are really just fronts for diplomatic spying operations. Having just one embassy left in a country the size of Russia, and given Russia’s tendency to constantly try to interfere with U.S. elections, interests and security, it’s not a good sign for the years to come.
But it will be swept under the radar like most other newsworthy items.
Shifting gears here, I wrote this yesterday but didn’t post:
Worth reading: How to reduce the spread of fake news—by doing nothing. Read this first before resuming this post.
De-platforming the “fakes” sounds like a good idea, except it is rarely done, runs into free speech constraints and claims of censorship, and relies upon the voluntary willingness of people to stop spreading fake news.
Do you see the problem? I certainly do. People LOVE to share useless crap, it makes them feel empowered. They “belong” to their identity group by propagating the core messages, and when something new and exciting comes along, it’s a race to see who can spread it the fastest and get the most likes.
No, this de-platforming of fake news by using volunteers (you) is not going to work as hoped. Everyone will just keep doing what they’ve always done – spread stupid connedspiracies and try to gain likes and readers.
Removing fake news however will definitely help, but not without backlash. For example, today the maggot morons are calling for the Insurrection Act to be invoked to overthrow the 2020 Election. I’m not going to engage with this level of stupidity or provide any links (which encourages more views of the fake news). Stories like this are newsworthy, but also very dangerous because they are predicated on lies, misconceptions and even a misapplication of law.
The connedspiracy idiots will flatly declare that they are being silenced if they don’t receive the media audience they demand, and they’d be right. But when is it right to stop the spread of dangerous information? When we have a world where anyone can spread any kind of conspiracy they want? There is no accountability for their actions, even when it leads to the death of other people. Clearly, something needs to be done. But a volunteer program isn’t going to cut it.
It will certainly help (a little) if people participate in stopping fake news by refusing to share it. But more then enough people will refuse to help at all and will only help perpetuate fake news. Haven’t we always had the ability to stop spreading fake news? And what happened? It’s just gotten worse and worse, and is so bad now that every news source and story is suspect. Clearly, a voluntary “stop the spread” program isn’t going to work because billions of individual “influencers” aren’t bright enough to stop spreading lies.
The social media giants are at fault here by creating a asinine “reward” system for both advertisers and users. The more a story is read, commented upon or viewed, the more ad revenue is generated for the social media giant (which of course even includes the little guys). Their algorithms are designed to spread fake stories, because they use a profit-oriented model on what will be shown most often. Even the search engine companies are extremely guilty of this misrepresentation of trending news. If you’re in a different part of the country, you will see different search results then someone thousands of miles away, because your viewership is being specifically targeted to return search results that will most likely result in you viewing ads or making a purchase.
Essentially, the monetization of “information” (data) has resulted in the propagation of misinformation on an unimaginable scale because of the profit margins designed into the algorithms that runs the whole shebang – from simple topical searches to news feeds and websites specifically marketing information to you every time you press a computer key (and even when you don’t). They’re now even monitoring what your doing when your off-line and can accurately determine you buying and spending habits, what you eat and where, your political affiliations and every other imaginable personal detail about you – all while you are offline. But it gets worse – they now target billions of individuals, literally programming them by presenting chosen information anytime they are online.
You are “data” and data can be sold, manipulated, traded, taxed, marketed and manipulated to the nth degree, which makes you the target for anything you can imagine. Fake news is a “story”, but you are the real target, and manipulating millions of connedspiracy theorists to react to fake news is highly profitable, generating billions of dollars.
All these stories about the “stolen election” and court challenges, and Mr. Moron’s Tweets? Fake news, designed to conflate, confuse, anger and engage conspiracy fans to read and watch more and more while generating billions in revenue for all the greedy hands stretching out over social media, websites, news feeds and comments.
Yes, in real life, there was something real happening, with court filings (and endless rejections) taking place, but the media and especially the online media conflated these stories over and over again because this generates millions of dollars. It’s not just ad space their selling, it’s the data about you that they’re constantly collecting and selling, about your viewing habits, lifestyle and personal details to thousands of companies, who it turn are reselling, repacking and targeting specific campaigns to exploit you as much as they possibly can.
And we go along with this in part by our voluntary participation and helping them propagate their fake news. We even do it when we’re not engaging in spreading fake news. Just being online now is a serious problem. So this is why we will never have “voluntary” fake news censorship. We’re addicted to the Internet and what it represents and we’re unwilling to care enough about how we are being manipulated. The social media giants refuse to give more then lip-service on their accountability and how they’ve deliberately manipulated the social fabric of the world.
It’s already pointless to write on this topic again. Like most topics of interest, there is no interest in how our population has been targeted. I’ve long known that you cannot help those who will not help themselves. They’re mindless minions, unable to grasp how pointless most things truly are. They refuse to think, because they don’t want to be held accountable for their own actions and their own inaction. It’s just easier to mindlessly go along with the crowds, stay on the train and don’t even think about jumping off or doing things differently. Ethically.
Let’s just be honest here. We’re dealing with a seriously dumbed-down population. Millions of people that refuse to self-educate and deride science, knowledge, facts and evidence. It’s just easier to be a programmed robot and stupidly parrot the crap they’ve read online or heard through talk-radio. The zombification of America is extremely pervasive.
The reality is something we won’t admit – we’re NEVER going to solve the problem of people becoming connedspiracy theorists and people acting rashly, stupidly and with violence over some of the garbage they’ve consumed online. It would be extremely naive to assume that we’re going to educate our population with “truth” (it never happens). But we do need vetted sources of truth and facts and science and accurate reporting without being literally drowned out of the discussion by all the fake news sites out there and the profiteers destroying America and the world.
I suspect we need an Alternet type of Internet where vetted, credentialed and authorized sources of news and information is platformed, thereby protecting the public trust from the bogus news media, journalists, authors, advertisers and companies found there. No, this would not be a replacement for the Internet (StupidNet) that we have now, just a parallel Net, freely available of course, where credentialed sources of information would be found.
Call it TrustNet or something meaningful perhaps. But we desperately need validated sources of information to inform the world’s billions. We’re seeing the extreme dangers of misled minions who don’t have the sense of a gnat and can’t identify what is fake and what is not.
The TrustNet would disallow connedspiracies and not proven news sources and “alternative facts”. None of the ‘alternative news’ website would be found there, nor any of the deceptive social media platforms, advertisers or companies. Roughly half of the existing Internet could / would move over to the TrustNet after being verified by an independent organization and agreeing to abide by trusted standards and requirements. The identities of the TrustNet news sources would NOT be hidden from readers and participants and would be a required part of the verification requirements.
I envision this could be pretty massive and even dwarf the existing Internet in time as people chose one over the other. With virtually no officially trusted and verified sources of information being found on the Internet, it would seem obvious that we need the exact opposite on the TrustNet. It wouldn’t solve all of our information problems, but it would make an enormous impact eventually.
Real news organizations and companies would find a new home to publish their stories. They could still dual-publish on the Internet of course, but being found on TrustNet would lend their reporting far more credibility. That alone would create a demand to become an authorized publisher, because some readers would seek out these trusted sources.
Right now, there is simply no real way to really know if you’re reading valid information. It is all based upon trust and your personal experience (and willingness to verify facts and check sources, which few people actually do). All that would be done for you on the TrustNet.
It would take an army of people, a ton of money and a well-designed vetting process – but yes, it could be done.
Something to think about. We definitely need more then what we currently have, it’s clearly working against us far too often.
