Writing is my artistic expression. My keyboard is my brush. Words are my medium. My blog is my canvas. And committing to writing daily makes me feel like an artist.
We’ve lost our plot as a species. We’ve lost our way. I haven’t been a fan of the news for a while now, but I still see enough of it to be disappointed and underwhelmed.
“If it bleeds, it leads.”
Give us the dirt, highlight the disaster, sensationalize everything. If it’s not a big enough story, find a more controversial angle. And sadly, if that’s not enough, exaggerate. Or worse yet, perpetuate a blatant lie… which is somehow ok by news standards because then they are still reporting (fact-checking can come later). This is awful because when you highlight a lie over and over it becomes more believable. It becomes the story. The apology or correction won’t get the same attention.
And we eat it up. We share before we fact check. We trust one-sided narratives, especially when they sensationalize in our favour. Meanwhile we are equally quick to discredit the ‘other side’ as fake news.
We are lost in sensationalism. And we can’t seem to find our way out. Polarizing points are thrown at us. Anger, hate, disgust, and disasterare worth our attention. Nothing else matters, nothing else makes the headlines, gets retweeted, or reshared, or discussed on podcasts and news stations.
And now AI is producing such realistic video content that it’s almost impossible to know if what you are watching is real. This is like putting sensationalism on steroids. Pump up the fake news, create doubt and division. Promote anger and disgust. Get those clicks, those likes, those reposts, and you will be financially rewarded. So what if you also leave everyone upset, confused, and lost.
I was listening to Chris Williamson on a podcast and he said this quote.
“People think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.”
~ First attributed to William Fitzjames Oldham
This reminds me of another often quoted phrase, regarding there being three sides to every argument, the one side, the other side, and somewhere in the middle is the Truth.
I had a phone discussion with a friend recently and we were discussing politics. We saw the topic from two totally different perspectives. I then had face-to-face discussion with another friend about a global issues and again we came from completely different perspectives. In both cases neither of us changed each other’s minds.
In one case I want to be wrong, in the other case I wish that I was wrong, and that my bias, ultimately my prejudice, could be changed. In both cases I recognize that getting new information really didn’t change my view… even though I might be happier and see things more positively if the other person was right.
Am I just a symptom of the times? Am I a victim of misinformation, who is choosing to believe perspectives that are intentionally biased? Am I not able to see the truth somewhere in the middle because I lack perspective, or am I blind to my own prejudice?
It’s getting harder and harder to find narratives that are clearly true. Arguments tend not to be about seeking truth but rather earning airtime, and garnering clicks & shares. The math is such that a false accusation will get millions of social media likes and reshares, but the correction barely gets seen. A fake video gets major attention. A blatant exaggeration or even a lie is simply accepted as close enough to true and accepted.
It doesn’t add up. It doesn’t lead us to the Truth, ‘somewhere in the middle’. No, instead we are left rearranging our prejudices and biases, and sticking to our points of view without ever really thinking.
It’s only 8 seconds long, but this clip of and old sailor could easily be mistaken for real:
And beyond looking real, here is what Google’s new Flow video production platform can do:
Body movement, lip movement, objects moving naturally in gravity, we have the technology to create some truly incredible videos. On the one hand, we have amazing opportunities to be creative and expand the capabilities of our own imaginations. On the other hand we are entering into a world of deep fakes and misinformation.
Such is the case with most technologies. They can be used well and can be used poorly. Those using it well will amaze us with imagery and ideas long stuck in people’s heads without a way previously to express them. Those using it poorly will anger and enrage us. They will confuse us and make it difficult to discern fake news from real.
I am both excited and horrified by the possibilities.
Can you read? Can you do basic math? Is that enough?
The critical thinking required to make sense of the world today is ever increasing. We have a world leader using magical math to make a trade deficit calculation into a reciprocal tariff calculation, and claiming that this is, “Kind reciprocal, not full reciprocal.”
What? Help me make it make sense?
Meanwhile, I saw a video that someone created using AI. He uploaded a pdf article for two AI‘s to discuss, one of the AI’s was a version of himself, with his voice, and the other was a female at a desk. The only thing that suggested to me that the conversation was between two AI’s was some awkward hand gestures. Take those movements away, or make them a bit more natural/realistic and I would have no idea that I was watching an AI conversation.
Meanwhile, in Egypt, there are some wild claims about structures under the great pyramids, and while the evidence is unclear, I’ve seen many videos explaining these not-yet-proven structures. These claims include that they are a network of power sources connected to other structures around the world, and another theory claiming that aliens created them.
And speaking of aliens, wasn’t it just a few short months ago that we ‘discovered’ aliens living in our oceans? What ever happened to that story?
It’s becoming almost impossible to be informationally literate today. By the time you have time to seriously fact check something the story is already old, and there are new crazy claims that require your skeptical attention. What’s the source of this information? Where did they get their data from? What’s the bias of the news source? How is this data being manipulated? Who paid for the study? Is this a real quote? Is this video real, or CGI, or AI?
Who is fact checking the fact checkers? Meanwhile, here in Canada, a fact checker hired by one of our news stations was let go because trolls that don’t like their favourite political party being fact checked brought so much negative attention to her that the news station let her go.
What? Help me make it make sense?
The reality is that reading and writing and doing basic math is not enough to be functionally and informationally literate today. The critical thinking required to simply consume the information being thrown at us is overly demanding. I think the way forward for the short term is to find trusted sources and rely on them… and yet that’s the very thing that has seemed to get us into trouble. How many people get their news from just one or two biased sources? I’m literally now suggesting to find an echo chamber to sit in… hopefully you can find one that echoes facts, common sense, and some semblance of the truth.
I remember visiting Dandong, China and going to a museum about the Korean war. Our tour guide translated the name of the museum for us: “The Museum to Commemorate the War Against American Aggression”. To the Chinese, the loss of that war meant the US having access to North Korea, dangerously close to Chinese land and major ports.
In broken English there were translated signs describing pictures of American prisoners of war holding up peace signs, with a description that even the Americans knew the war was wrong. This was an excellent display of blatant propaganda. But it also made me think about what I knew about that war, and I realized my view would have been filled with American propaganda.
Our perspectives truly vary depending on where we live, and the media and information we are privy to. With that, I have to say that the US propaganda machine is currently spewing hyperbole as if it should be taken seriously.
This is US Vice President JD Vance sharing the American Administration perspective on Greenland, “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland.”
I’ve been avoiding news more than consuming it recently, but I can predict what Fox News versus MSNBC would have said about JD Vance’s Greenland speech. I just wish both broadcasts would spend a bit less time on myopic hyperbole about how they see their political leadership, and maybe, just maybe share some perspectives from other parts of the world.
Our global economy does not benefit from the rest of the (free) world perceiving the US as weak, or threatening, or laughable. No one is buying the current messaging, no one is blindly accepting the propaganda, no country is going to be bullied into thinking the US should have sovereignty over them.
The US either has to drop the propagandized dogma, or align it with their allies. Their current messaging isn’t just off brand, and offensive, it’s laughably embarrassing.
There is a commonality between hearing the question, “Is this spam?” regarding an email, and hearing the question, “Is this real” regarding a video that might be staged, enhanced with AI, or even intentionally spreading lies.
In an age of unlimited information a new kind of skepticism is needed. What’s the source? Does the source have a slant, a bias, or an agenda? Is this actually from the source it claims? (Just yesterday a fake article that was sent to me had a Toronto Star subscription banner access the top of the web page, to make it seem like it was from this newspaper, but the URL was totally different.)
You would think that in a curated social media world you would be able to discern fact from fiction, real from fake. But more than ever we need to be sceptical about what we see and hear. In a world of abundant information our need to question what we believe to be true is more important than ever before. I find myself Googling quotes to see if they match other sources, and questioning headlines that seem even subtly surprising. Is this true? Is the article real? Or is it an elaborate ploy to pitch a product or simply to garnish shares and likes? Is the title of the article misleading? Do I click on that link to learn more?
Is it real? I never used to ask this question. A news headline used to mean that I was getting curated information from a reliable journalist who attempted to be impartial. Now even mainstream media seems increasingly biased and agenda driven. Knowing the source means understanding the bias more than the reliability of the information. And so my BS detector is always on… and even then I find myself being fooled until I see a product placement or a clear agenda being pushed. Media consumption now requires a good dose of scrutiny and skepticism… and with AI being more and more convincing, the level of scrutiny will need to increase.
Access to abundant information doesn’t make us smarter. Instead, the constant stream of data requires discernment and thoughtful consideration. Reliability is no long assumed, and the question, ‘is this real?’, is a necessary part of information consumption. Skepticism has become the most important part of media literacy, and curating trusted sources of good information has became a skill not easily duplicated or taught.
It’s easier to accept information than it is to question it… especially when that information fits my model of the world. And the internet (and our ‘trusted’ social media platforms) are filled with information that fits my world view. In fact, that biased world view I have is further fed to me by an algorithm that learns what I like. This only makes it harder to determine what is real and what isn’t.
In “Manufacturing Consent,” Noam Chomsky argues that the mass media in the US serves as a propaganda tool for powerful elites, shaping public perception to maintain the status quo. I think that era has ended and one of the key points of our time is that social media now ‘manufactures dissent’. It permits lies to spread faster than truth, and is driven by the power of outlandish claims to draw attention and clicks, views and advertising dollars.
The irony of what I’m about to share would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.
I clicked and read the article on the UK’s Independent (independent.co.uk), a media site that I’m unaware of so I was careful to watch for accuracy versus misinformation.
For example, even when the article quoted a tweet by Marjorie Taylor Greene, a person elected to Congress whom I think acts like telling the truth could cause an anaphylactic response, I still followed the link to fact check it…Even though her ridiculous claim was easily within the scope of believability.
The article states,
“Yet despite the clear and evident risk of real harm, people like Greene are making hackneyed comic book villain claims about secret weather machines – and the internet has been rife with misinformation about the upcoming disaster. Accounts on Twitter/X have claimed that state and federal officials are preventing people from accessing hard-hit areas, that the government is basing its provision of aid on political affiliation, and that the entire thing is an elaborate land-grab scheme.
Many such posts have received millions of views, and few if any are being taken down. Why would they, when the site’s owner is in the mix – yes, even Elon Musk has been getting in on the fun, tweeting that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) has diverted critical funds from hurricane relief to illegal immigrants.”
Later it continues,
“Now, you might be thinking to yourself, “spreading misinformation about a natural disaster that has the potential to kill hundreds – perhaps thousands – of people is reprehensible, and in a sane world would be a criminal offence”, but you would in fact be mistaken. You see, we don’t live in a sane world. We live in a world where being that reckless with other people’s lives isn’t just acceptable – it’s actually a core part of the Republican political strategy.”
But shortly after reading that quote I passed an ad in the article that proves that ‘We live in a world where being reckless with other people’s lives IS acceptable’ and not just by people on the right. The ad, which I refused to click on stated, “Jagmeet Singh Suffers Fatal Accident On Live Television”.
An article that is simultaneously debunking misinformation of a right wing political party, with the author asking, “The thing that really baffles me about all of this, though, is what exactly there is to be gained here.” …Which also shares an ad that blatantly lies about the death of a left wing Canadian political party leader, is painfully ironic.
I then checked The Independent on the Media Bias / Fact Check website which stated that “Overall we rate The Independent Left-Center Biased due to story selection that moderately favors the left. We also rate them Mixed in factual reporting due to several failed fact checks.”
This demonstrates a clear case of the kettle calling the pot black. Bash the right for spreading misinformation on a left leaning site, while advertising using blatant misinformation. I want to call this unacceptable, but it’s the norm.
Propagating lies, evoking anger, selling out for attention, baiting clicks with misinformation, and manufacturing dissent. We can no longer trust social media, and we must question mainstream media too. The truth is unnecessarily elusive, it’s lost in a sea of lies and inaccuracies. The above news article isn’t inaccurate in its conclusions, rather it’s simply encapsulated in the same misinformation propagating media machine it professes to be struggling to understand.
There is worldwide concern over false news and the possibility that it can influence political, economic, and social well-being. To understand how false news spreads, Vosoughi et al. used a data set of rumor cascades on Twitter from 2006 to 2017. About 126,000 rumors were spread by ∼3 million people. False news reached more people than the truth; the top 1% of false news cascades diffused to between 1000 and 100,000 people, whereas the truth rarely diffused to more than 1000 people. Falsehood also diffused faster than the truth. The degree of novelty and the emotional reactions of recipients may be responsible for the differences observed.
Media, and even more-so social media, can’t be trusted. And in fact, if it is eye-catching and click-bait worthy it will be sensationalized and potentially untrue. We live in an era of unlimited information and much of it is not factual, and not easily verifiable.
What can we do? I’ve said before that ‘Web Domains Matter’, and they do, but we still need to recognize that even new sites considered reputable have biases.
So we are required to take new information in as skeptics. Meanwhile we have to balance our scepticism with a dose of common sense or we could easily fall down the conspiracy rabbit hole. This is the new normal, this is being information savvy. This does not mean we will get to the Truth. Because it’s not just the information coming in that has bias, we have our own biases too.
We all have work to do, to understand some sort of relevant small ‘t’ truth that is in fact closely related to the capital ’T’ Truth. To find our way amidst an endless stream of information that favours misinformation, fake news, and half-truths. The rabbit hole runs deep, and we are all on a journey down it… with Artificial Intelligence creating a whole new level of generating convincing fakes that are easily believed, and algorithmically shared way more than anything truthful.
Start with the source, where is the information coming from? Apply a sliding scale of scepticism depending on the reliability of the source. Then be savvy in deciding what to believe and what to dismiss.
Source, scepticism, and savviness… the new path to information literacy.
#AI image generation, the destruction of our shared perception of reality, and the inevitable collapse of democracy. Inspired by posts on the same topic from @Paige | AI Ethicist
After discussing the fact that people stuck in an echo chamber of like-minded people start to call a real photograph an AI generated fake… he says,
“Here’s what keeps me up at night: We’re converging on a point where it is easier to claim that real images are fake than it is to prove that images are generated using AI, or manipulated using AI. And that means we have no reasonable expectation of any image or any video or any audio being real. And we don’t have the tools or the media literacy to really do this analysis.
…and we are in the situation we’re in now where people can choose their own reality and live in a reality dysfunction. And AI provides the tools and capabilities to make that reality disfunction into our lived reality.”
Indeed, our shared reality has collapsed. AI generated fakes spread like wildfire through echo chambers of like-minded groups, and even when discovered to be fake, there is no effort to make corrections if the fake fits the group’s narrative… and any real media that doesn’t fit that same reality is easily dismissed as a fake.
Maya Angelou said, “We are more alike, my friends, than we unalike.” I would agree with that when we had a common shared reality, but I question it now in a world filled with AI generated fakes, and a lack of media savviness to determine what really is real. The collapse of a shared reality is a threat to our world, whether the split is socioeconomic, political, or religious. We are increasingly growing unalike.
I was scrolling TikTok yesterday and I came across a live stream that was run by a flat earther talking about the firmament. I stopped to watch for a bit with a voyeuristic, macabre eye… the same way people slow down on a highway to take a better look at a car accident. It was painful to listen to. It baffles me to think that there has actually been an increase in the size of the flat earth community since 2015, as shared in a BBC report. This report puts the blame on the YouTube algorithm that focused more on engagement than on factual information.
I’ve already shared a fair bit about the flat earth conspiracy including “Flat earth and flight times”, “Not even wrong”, and “Understanding QAnon”, but I came across this next video today and it reminded me of just how long ago humans had already figured out that the earth was a globe.
Over 2,200 years ago Eratosthenes did some calculations based on simple observations, and was able to not just determine the earth was round, but he was also able to calculate its circumference. Carl Sagan shares the story of Eratosthenes’ discovery in this video:
We can split atoms, view the planets in our solar system and beyond, and even see photos of the earth from space, yet because we can’t see the curve of the earth from our own vantage point people are convinced it is flat. They will negate and dismiss overwhelming evidence while conspiratorially justifying impossible coverups to ‘fool the masses’, (with no logical/apparent reason to really do so). ‘They’ are keeping the truth from us. ‘They’ faked the moon landing. ‘They’ want us to believe that the earth is round. ‘They’ are afraid of us knowing the truth.
Imagine believing that every pilot, NASA employee, physicist, and for that matter scientist, is lying to you. Imagine disregarding 100’s, or rather 1,000’s of years of knowledge and following unscientific morons producing YouTube videos that just feed you validating evidence. Imagine being that stupid.
Yes, I called them stupid. The irony is that no one that is a flat earther will read this, and if they did, they would consider me stupid. Personally I’d rather be a stupid guy learning about the globe from Eratosthenes and Carl Sagan than a stupid guy learning about a flat earth from YouTuber Mark Sargent, who himself probably no longer believes, but is too greedy to give up his lucrative YouTube channel.
I hope the phrase “You can’t fix stupid,” is wrong, but in all honesty, the growth of flat earth believers makes me think this statement very true.
