Qanon, conspiracy theories, and the Fairness Doctrine

[ceecee]

A guy I worked with for several years seemed pretty deep in it too, and it is heart-breaking. He's a really good guy (and super, super religious) who has become somewhat hostile and angry. Just suddenly last year, he was all about "WAKE UP!!" posts with YouTube videos, freaking out when they were pulled (because it was "proof" the conspiracy runs deep). One of the nicest, most fun people I've ever worked with.

One of the worst casualties I have seen was a man I knew that was active in local political office. Just an excellent guy and I met him about 5 years ago when we were both in a state level leadership Dem conference. Fast forward to 2018 or so. Trump flags on his house, QAnon literature and stickers all over his car. He was fired from his job with the city and didn't run for office again. He went from an educated, sane, involved and dedicated person to a heartbreakingly sad and mentally ill man that appears to be unreachable by family or anyone else. He doesn't fit the stereotypes at all but after watching it progress in this person, it's a cult and it needs to be approached and treated in the same way.

 

[Z Buck McFate]

Here's the thing I'd mentioned several posts up, from CNN: Why you won't find Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson on British TV

The insurrection at the US Capitol has sparked a political firestorm and unnerved millions of Americans. It has also unleashed a wave of criticism over the role played by pro-Trump media outlets such as Fox News, which fed lies and conspiracy theories about the election to angry supporters of the president for weeks.

"The mob that stormed and desecrated the Capitol ... could not have existed in a country that hadn't been radicalized by the likes of [Fox News hosts] Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham, and swayed by biased news coverage," wrote Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan.

But are the airwaves of any democracy free of this kind of harmful propaganda and downright fiction? The United Kingdom, for one, comes pretty close.

Though the UK media scene is defined in part by a freewheeling and often partisan tabloid press with its own share of conspiracy theories, its TV news channels largely frame their coverage down the middle, with broadcasters such as the BBC and ITV maintaining high levels of public trust. Rupert Murdoch's Fox News is no longer on air in the country after failing to generate a significant viewer base.

A big factor in this is media regulator Ofcom, which enforces rules on impartiality and accuracy for all news broadcasters. Those who breach the rules can be censured or fined — putting pressure on TV channels to play stories fairly straight.

Russian state-funded news channel RT, for example, was slapped with a £200,000 ($272,000) penalty for repeatedly breaking impartiality rules in its 2018 coverage of the poisonings of former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter, as well as the conflict in Syria. It has not been fined since.

"What the impartiality rules do is ensure you cannot have the kind of shock jock culture — [a] far right, or indeed far left, one-sided interpretation of events," said Steven Barnett, a professor of media and communication at the University of Westminster.

The UK system isn't perfect. A review of BBC coverage ahead of the 2016 Brexit referendum found that its main news program was more negative on the European Union than Russian President Vladimir Putin. And two new media ventures expected to launch shortly could again push the limits of what's allowed. But according to experts, the framework has protected against the kind of disinformation peddled by Fox News in the United States.

No Fox News

Ofcom, which was established in 2003, has two important standards that the news broadcasters it licenses must abide by — "due impartiality" and "due accuracy."
This does not mean that equal time needs to be given on television and radio to both sides of an issue. But broadcasters do have a responsibility at least to acknowledge opposing viewpoints, and to quickly correct "significant mistakes."

When Fox News was on the air in the United Kingdom, its top stars were found to have violated the regulator's rules.

Ofcom said that a Hannity program about President Donald Trump's executive order restricting travel from seven majority-Muslim countries didn't do enough to surface the viewpoints of those who opposed the order. Ofcom also said that a separate Carlson broadcast following the 2017 Manchester terror attack — which included claims that UK authorities had done nothing to stop terrorism or to protect "thousands of underage girls" from rape and abuse — did not adequately reflect alternate perspectives.

Fox News was pulled off air in the United Kingdom later in 2017 when Murdoch, the billionaire chairman of News Corp and Fox News' parent company, was seeking government approval to purchase the shares he didn't own of European pay TV network Sky. (He ended up selling his Sky holdings to Comcast.)
21st Century Fox, the network's parent company at the time, said it made the decision because Fox News had attracted "only a few thousand viewers across the day" in the United Kingdom, and it didn't make commercial sense to continue broadcasting. But the move also came amid scrutiny from Ofcom, which had previously slammed Fox's handling of sexual harassment allegations against former network boss Roger Ailes and former star host Bill O'Reilly, calling their alleged conduct "deeply disturbing."

Such warnings hint at the trouble Fox News could have faced had it stuck it out during the Trump era.

Hefty penalties awarded to other channels, such as RT, have effectively communicated the consequences of slipping up to media executives, said Trevor Barnes, a TV and radio compliance consultant and former Ofcom official.

"They're aware that if they misbehave, they'll be hit with a fine," he said.

The United States, meanwhile, doesn't have these kinds of rules — and hasn't since the Reagan era, when the Federal Communications Commission stopped enforcing the so-called Fairness Doctrine for TV and radio stations. Historians believe the demise of this rule, which required broadcasters to present a variety of views on issues of public importance, paved the way for the explosion of conservative talk radio in the late 1980s and 1990s, which later served as a model for Fox. Those talk radio shows continue to be popular today.

As a cable network, Fox News wouldn't have been bound by the doctrine, which only applied to broadcast channels. But Julian Zelizer, a history professor at Princeton University and CNN contributor, said its removal changed the rules of the game.

"It served as a kind of check," Zelizer said. "It was always on the mind of everyone who was in the news business."

Now, even members of the Murdoch family are reckoning with the role Fox News has played. James Murdoch, who made a dramatic break from his family last year when he resigned from the board of News Corp, said in a statement on Friday that "spreading disinformation" has "real world consequences." While he did not mention Fox News by name, it was clear his focus was on the network controlled by his father and brother.

"Many media property owners have as much responsibility for this as the elected officials who know the truth but choose instead to propagate lies. We hope the awful scenes we have all been seeing will finally convince those enablers to repudiate the toxic politics they have promoted once and forever," James Murdoch and his wife, Kathryn Murdoch, said in a joint statement to the Financial Times.
​

(There's more, and there's no paywall).

For all the talk about how impossible it would be to enforce, I don't understand how it wouldn't be possible to hold news sources accountable: if they can't prove something they reported is true in a court of law, then they should have to publicly retract it (and possibly get fined). Even Fox lawyers recently argued, in court, that "everyone who watches Tucker Carlson doesn't take his opinion for real news" - if they're going to be allowed to use that argument in court, they should be required to show it as a disclaimer during his actual show. NPR: You Literally Can't Believe The Facts Tucker Carlson Tells You. So Say Fox's Lawyers Because there absolutely are people (quite a few, he's got something like two million viewers) who take his opinion for real news. I can potentially see the people who believe Carlson as putting more faith in him/conspiracy than courts of law though (which is exactly what's happened with the election, "the courts are crooked/deep state and will only approve of propaganda!"), so who knows if that'd do any good. Or maybe it would if his show had to actually air the fact that the judge ruled, "Fox persuasively argues, that given Mr. Carlson's reputation, any reasonable viewer 'arrive with an appropriate amount of skepticism' about the statement he makes."

 

[Z Buck McFate]

One of the worst casualties I have seen was a man I knew that was active in local political office. Just an excellent guy and I met him about 5 years ago when we were both in a state level leadership Dem conference. Fast forward to 2018 or so. Trump flags on his house, QAnon literature and stickers all over his car. He was fired from his job with the city and didn't run for office again. He went from an educated, sane, involved and dedicated person to a heartbreakingly sad and mentally ill man that appears to be unreachable by family or anyone else. He doesn't fit the stereotypes at all but after watching it progress in this person, it's a cult and it needs to be approached and treated in the same way.

 

[Z Buck McFate]

(Probably final dump in this thread today, but this also seems relevent).

Axios: Conservatives warn culture, political wars will worsen

The verdict is clear: The vast majority of Republicans will stand firm with former President Trump. The next phase is clear, too: Republicans are rallying around a common grievance that big government, big media and big business are trying to shut them up, shut them out and shut them down.

Why it matters: The post-Trump GOP, especially its most powerful media platforms, paint the new reality as an existential threat. This means political attacks are seen — or characterized — as assaults on their very being.

Fox News' Tucker Carlson told us that many in Trump's base feel that the "combined forces of global power have turned on them and are cracking down hard — hilariously, in the name of democracy."

• "Not a sustainable moment," Carlson added. "Something will break.”

Ben Shapiro, a media leader on the right, told us this sentiment "is widespread, and it grows more dominant with every NYT columnist calling for a social media crackdown, every WaPo columnist lumping in mainstream conservatives with Capitol rioters, every corporation mirroring woke priorities."

• Shapiro created an internal and external firestorm at Politico when he guest-authored the franchise Playbook. Staff revolted, which Shapiro cites as another example of mainstream media trying to silence the right.

If anything, the calls for calm and rethinking among some GOP leaders grew fast into claims of grievance and revolution.

• Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), a vocal Trump backer, drew 1,000 people yesterday at a rally in Wyoming where he attacked House GOP Conference Chair Liz Cheney, a lightning rod on the right after she voted to impeach Trump. "Washington, D.C., mythologizes the establishment power brokers like Liz Cheney," Gaetz said. "But there are more of us than there are of them."

Conservatives were quick to try to move on from the mob storming the Capitol after incitement by Trump. Listen or watch conservative media, and claims of systematic "silencing" are mounting by the day:

• Trump was banned from Facebook and Twitter.
• Facebook, a hotbed for conservative argument and misinformation, wants to downplay politics on its platform.
• Google and others shut off money for Republicans who voted against certifying President Biden’s victory.
• Carlson signed off on Fox last night by saying: "This is the free speech channel — the last one left in American media." Sean Hannity added: "Only a couple of us, Tucker."

The big picture: Pay attention to this trend. The more personal and visceral politics becomes, the higher the chances for chaos and worse.

What we're watching: In a terrorism alert this week warning of continuing danger from anti-government extremists, the Department of Homeland Security pointed to "perceived grievances fueled by false narratives."

• Axios Sneak Peek scooped last night that House Republican leaders ignored warnings last summer that QAnon-supporting conspiracy theorist Marjorie Taylor Greene, now a congresswoman from Georgia, would end up a flaming train wreck for the party.
• Speaker Pelosi said yesterday, after warning about Greene: "[W]e will probably need a supplemental [funding bill] for more security for members when the enemy is within the House of Representatives."

​

Have they said exactly what they think needs to happen to stop "big business, big media, and big government"? The part I find most perplexing about this (and the fact that belligerent libertarians I know believe this the most) is that this is the result of lack of government regulation over a free market media - isn't that what they wanted? Isn't big business part of the "rugged individualism" they all want? (Where true freedom purportedly thrives?) Exactly who are they calling in to help regulate here? Are they calling for any kind of regulation, or is it just nebulous whining (to spur outrage and solidify loyalty to the cause, I guess)?

 

[Vendrah]

The next phase is clear, too: Republicans are rallying around a common grievance that big government, big media and big business are trying to shut them up, shut them out and shut them down.

I agree with them with pretty sureness that at least one of these 3 are bad.

 

[Virtual ghost]

The only thing that really matters here is how to end this madness.


Restoring normal life, education, more sound talking points ....

 

[Lark]

The only thing that really matters here is how to end this madness.


Restoring normal life, education, more sound talking points ....

Sound talking points is the whole point really.

The fairness doctrine would be fine if it where aimed at correcting biases in the media at a "normal" time, however, equal air time for messaging which is aimed at creating or amplifying mental illness or delusions of different sorts? I'm not so sure.

I do expect that this will or could get a lot worse because its kind of the point.

An old communist friend of mine has always said that Hitler wasnt the weirdo at the time of his rise to power but that everything at that time in Germany's wider culture had become so, so weird, at least by peoples standard at the time, that he seemed perfectly reasonable in contrast to it. I wasnt sure about it but I've read and watched documentaries about the ways in which the eastern european regimes were destabilized and information issues created by totalitarianism and authoritarianism were exploited and it makes sense. Culture jamming and disruptions are definitely a thing.

I also read some good criticisms of fascism by GDH Cole, a forgotten guy now, but writing during the war he wrote that one of the points of fighting fascism was it was strictly speaking nonsensical and had as a core tenet that the average person does and will believe nonsense and ought to in order that elites can do as they please. There's something to that too and it also makes me think about how this kind of thing breaks out not just during crisis but when mundane reality becomes a bit torturous to elites too.

 

[Lark]

(Probably final dump in this thread today, but this also seems relevent).

Axios: Conservatives warn culture, political wars will worsen

The verdict is clear: The vast majority of Republicans will stand firm with former President Trump. The next phase is clear, too: Republicans are rallying around a common grievance that big government, big media and big business are trying to shut them up, shut them out and shut them down.

Why it matters: The post-Trump GOP, especially its most powerful media platforms, paint the new reality as an existential threat. This means political attacks are seen — or characterized — as assaults on their very being.

Fox News' Tucker Carlson told us that many in Trump's base feel that the "combined forces of global power have turned on them and are cracking down hard — hilariously, in the name of democracy."

"Not a sustainable moment," Carlson added. "Something will break.”​

Ben Shapiro, a media leader on the right, told us this sentiment "is widespread, and it grows more dominant with every NYT columnist calling for a social media crackdown, every WaPo columnist lumping in mainstream conservatives with Capitol rioters, every corporation mirroring woke priorities."

• Shapiro created an internal and external firestorm at Politico when he guest-authored the franchise Playbook. Staff revolted, which Shapiro cites as another example of mainstream media trying to silence the right.

If anything, the calls for calm and rethinking among some GOP leaders grew fast into claims of grievance and revolution.

• Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), a vocal Trump backer, drew 1,000 people yesterday at a rally in Wyoming where he attacked House GOP Conference Chair Liz Cheney, a lightning rod on the right after she voted to impeach Trump. "Washington, D.C., mythologizes the establishment power brokers like Liz Cheney," Gaetz said. "But there are more of us than there are of them."

Conservatives were quick to try to move on from the mob storming the Capitol after incitement by Trump. Listen or watch conservative media, and claims of systematic "silencing" are mounting by the day:

• Trump was banned from Facebook and Twitter.
• Facebook, a hotbed for conservative argument and misinformation, wants to downplay politics on its platform.
• Google and others shut off money for Republicans who voted against certifying President Biden’s victory.
• Carlson signed off on Fox last night by saying: "This is the free speech channel — the last one left in American media." Sean Hannity added: "Only a couple of us, Tucker."

The big picture: Pay attention to this trend. The more personal and visceral politics becomes, the higher the chances for chaos and worse.

What we're watching: In a terrorism alert this week warning of continuing danger from anti-government extremists, the Department of Homeland Security pointed to "perceived grievances fueled by false narratives."

• Axios Sneak Peek scooped last night that House Republican leaders ignored warnings last summer that QAnon-supporting conspiracy theorist Marjorie Taylor Greene, now a congresswoman from Georgia, would end up a flaming train wreck for the party.
• Speaker Pelosi said yesterday, after warning about Greene: "[W]e will probably need a supplemental [funding bill] for more security for members when the enemy is within the House of Representatives."

​

Have they said exactly what they think needs to happen to stop "big business, big media, and big government"? The part I find most perplexing about this (and the fact that belligerent libertarians I know believe this the most) is that this is the result of lack of government regulation over a free market media - isn't that what they wanted? Isn't big business part of the "rugged individualism" they all want? (Where true freedom purportedly thrives?) Exactly who are they calling in to help regulate here? Are they calling for any kind of regulation, or is it just nebulous whining (to spur outrage and solidify loyalty to the cause, I guess)?

Too many people are believing rubbish.

For every true believer that there is in all this there's bound to be a few who "knowingly" are treating it as a "support, any which way" too.

Which is a sign that the core message is spent, totally exhausted, I mean, if those same manipulators thought they could get people to act as they wish them to with the facts I would say they would do that but they know they cant or they wont so they go for the whole extraordinary lies and attention whoring instead.

There's also maybe stuff to do with entertainment and amusement in the mix too, I would expect there is, given that its an attention economy now. Politics is not and should not be YouTube though. There is always going to be a Trump and there probably always have been Trumps but old money hasnt always been willing to sponsor them as they were Trump.

 

[Lark]

The other thing about all these conspiracies is that they dont strike me as being that revelatory, in fact, I think of it all as being business as usual more often than conspiracy.

There's never anything at all in the supposed secrets being revealed that seems that secret to me or seems like anything other than something that someone would figure out themselves and there's a hell of a lot of cold reading involved too, vagaries like those used by con artists, spiritualists etc. Like surely anyone who IS skeptical or does think there's a conspiracy would be wary of this kind of thing, on the look out for it, but nope, so I think its a cult, they are just looking for further confirmation of their own views and stuff like that.

So much of it just seems like what you would tell people you're planning on murdering not planning on recruiting for support. They are victims of conspiracy, just not the one they think.

 

[The Cat]

The only thing that really matters here is how to end this madness.


Restoring normal life, education, more sound talking points ....

End? My dear ghost in the machine; the madness is just getting warmed up.

This is the new normal.

as far as the bolded, what is so alarming about these folks is how little they seem to value either let alone both. At best they're undiagnosed with mental illness, at worst they're so fixated with all this Qmadness because it titillates them and they're projecting on others what they themselves imagine. It's probably a depressing spetrum.

 

[Virtual ghost]

End? My dear ghost in the machine; the madness is just getting warmed up.

This is the new normal.

as far as the bolded, what is so alarming about these folks is how little they seem to value either let alone both. At best they're undiagnosed with mental illness, at worst they're so fixated with all this Qmadness because it titillates them and they're projecting on others what they themselves imagine. It's probably a depressing spetrum.

Yes, but the only talking points here that mean something are how to end this.
If anything solving certain problems would greatly cut their base in size and that will marginalize the group.

 

[The Cat]

Yes, but the only talking points here that mean something are how to end this.
If anything solving certain problems would greatly cut their base in size and that will marginalize the group.

agreed.

 

[Virtual ghost]

agreed.

Well now all of this is quasi normal but it certainly shouldn't become the new normal. Due to obvious reasons.

 

[Z Buck McFate]

An old communist friend of mine has always said that Hitler wasnt the weirdo at the time of his rise to power but that everything at that time in Germany's wider culture had become so, so weird, at least by peoples standard at the time, that he seemed perfectly reasonable in contrast to it. I wasnt sure about it but I've read and watched documentaries about the ways in which the eastern european regimes were destabilized and information issues created by totalitarianism and authoritarianism were exploited and it makes sense. Culture jamming and disruptions are definitely a thing.

This resonates as potentially being a significant part of the problem. I mean, I think the most extraordinary thing about Trump is how he got to where he is without being particularly competent or extraordinary himself, or even sane for that matter.

****

Still ruminating on my "what if news sources had to defend their challenged claims in a court of law" idea.

I wonder if it would make a difference if there were more transparency in the court rulings. Like if media sources had to defend their challenged claims in a transparent court proceeding. Granted, all the people who relentlessly and compulsively defend Trump were regurgitating all kinds of bizarre "evidence" of election fraud they believed the court system dismissed for nefarious reasons - Trumpslainers typically start from the premise that he is right and work backwards to fill in convoluted "evidence" to support it - so airing media court cases (where propagandists aren't able to sufficiently defend the "news" they air, and consequently are ordered to retract claims) could similarly backfire.

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

Yes, but the only talking points here that mean something are how to end this.
If anything solving certain problems would greatly cut their base in size and that will marginalize the group.

I don't have the answer, but there is a generalized principle that if you need to take something away from someone, you need to replace it with something else. It is similar to dealing with a child running with scissors. Instead of grabbing it out of their hand and facing the tantrum that will inevitably result, you hand them something better like a teddy bear, and they willingly let go. What can be given to Qanon cult members that can replace what they are holding onto, but is healthier and more appropriate to cling onto?

You cannot change them into be reasonable, rational people any more than the child with the scissors. The tantrum will result when the psychological dependence is of this nature. They need to direct attention and energy into something that can genuinely replace this, but is less destructive. I'm not certain of the answer.

 

[Virtual ghost]

I don't have the answer, but there is a generalized principle that if you need to take something away from someone, you need to replace it with something else. It is similar to dealing with a child running with scissors. Instead of grabbing it out of their hand and facing the tantrum that will inevitably result, you hand them something better like a teddy bear, and they willingly let go. What can be given to Qanon cult members that can replace what they are holding onto, but is healthier and more appropriate to cling onto?

You cannot change them into be reasonable, rational people any more than the child with the scissors. The tantrum will result when the psychological dependence is of this nature. They need to direct attention and energy into something that can genuinely replace this, but is less destructive. I'm not certain of the answer.

Then start with the obvious.

After all this can kinda be explained only through conspiracy theories.

 

[Lark]

This resonates as potentially being a significant part of the problem. I mean, I think the most extraordinary thing about Trump is how he got to where he is without being particularly competent or extraordinary himself, or even sane for that matter.

****

Still ruminating on my "what if news sources had to defend their challenged claims in a court of law" idea.

I wonder if it would make a difference if there were more transparency in the court rulings. Like if media sources had to defend their challenged claims in a transparent court proceeding. Granted, all the people who relentlessly and compulsively defend Trump were regurgitating all kinds of bizarre "evidence" of election fraud they believed the court system dismissed for nefarious reasons - Trumpslainers typically start from the premise that he is right and work backwards to fill in convoluted "evidence" to support it - so airing media court cases (where propagandists aren't able to sufficiently defend the "news" they air, and consequently are ordered to retract claims) could similarly backfire.

That to me is a strong indication of not having a clue how evidence or proof of any position or facts works, its confirmation bias at best but I'm not even sure you can call it that.

This is something like a faith based idea and the facts or evidence, should it align with the preconceived idea, then that's all very well but its not really needed.

There's two things in the US that I think have made for this, the strong evangelical culture and the collapse of the education system, I'm not even just talking about schools and universities or other similar institutions but education in the widest possible sense of the word.

 

[Lark]

I don't have the answer, but there is a generalized principle that if you need to take something away from someone, you need to replace it with something else. It is similar to dealing with a child running with scissors. Instead of grabbing it out of their hand and facing the tantrum that will inevitably result, you hand them something better like a teddy bear, and they willingly let go. What can be given to Qanon cult members that can replace what they are holding onto, but is healthier and more appropriate to cling onto?

You cannot change them into be reasonable, rational people any more than the child with the scissors. The tantrum will result when the psychological dependence is of this nature. They need to direct attention and energy into something that can genuinely replace this, but is less destructive. I'm not certain of the answer.

What you're describing is kind of what was the vision of Kennedy era liberalism, the whole "ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country" was an appeal to a more active civil society, in which people would volunteer their time, money, skills, efforts to help their neighbours and build some sort of communitarianism.

The only thing is that this civil society, which I think is a great idea, predates all the subsequent waves of agitation, for one thing or another. Now agitation is the only sort of public engagement/activity available to most people. Even if someone strives to build civil society, non-governmental organisations, community it usually is as a servant to some political end of some sort.

 

[Lark]

Then start with the obvious.

After all this can kinda be explained only through conspiracy theories.

I dont think that conspiracy is the only or even the most plausible explanation.

Its the same as the "managed decline" of northern england by successive conservative party administrations. Its deliberate policy.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

What you're describing is kind of what was the vision of Kennedy era liberalism, the whole "ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country" was an appeal to a more active civil society, in which people would volunteer their time, money, skills, efforts to help their neighbours and build some sort of communitarianism.

The only thing is that this civil society, which I think is a great idea, predates all the subsequent waves of agitation, for one thing or another. Now agitation is the only sort of public engagement/activity available to most people. Even if someone strives to build civil society, non-governmental organisations, community it usually is as a servant to some political end of some sort.

Well, there's mutual aid. And some of the groups like the Black Panthers and the Young Lords did actually engage in that in the 60s, and I think that's part of why they were viewed as so threatening (obviously the fact that they armed themselves for self-defense was another part of it).