Марк Дайс - The True Story of Fake News - How Mainstream Media Manipulates Millions

Many people stopped going to websites directly which were often “bookmarked” in their browser as a sort of “favorites” list, and instead started following the accounts of people, businesses, television shows, etc., on social media. This made companies like Facebook and Twitter a “middleman” which now stands in between people and the websites they used to visit directly by typing in the URLs. Because of the simplicity of aggregating so many different websites, these social media companies have left people vulnerable to an array of censorship and manipulation by these powerful new middlemen. In the next few chapters we’ll take a look specifically at Facebook and Twitter and see how they can, and do, manipulate and censor information for political reasons and to subtly shift the opinions of users; and we’ll discuss the near limitless ramifications and dystopian possibilities this kind of manipulation has.

Most people don’t consider the complexities and dangerous precedents that have been set by relying on a handful of mega corporations for the distribution of information, or the risks of allowing themselves to become vulnerable to their ambiguous and agenda-driven terms of service which dictate what is supposedly ‘hate speech’ or ‘harassment.’

Studies show that the majority of people engage in self-censorship when posting online because they don’t want their accounts to get shut down or have someone contact their employer about what they have said if it is deemed ‘politically incorrect’ which could put their job or entire career at risk. 360

Tech companies are changing so rapidly that in just a few years Twitter went from a website where people posted tweets (brief 140 character-max statements), to a place to watch live football games and news. In 2016 Twitter signed a deal with the NFL to live stream games, and over 2 million people began watching that way. 361Twitter is also developing a 24-hour live news network by partnering with Bloomberg News and signed deals with BuzzFeed for a morning show, The Verge, for a weekly tech show, and Cheddar for a daily financial show. 362

Snapchat, which started out as an app for ‘sexting’ since the messages are ‘deleted’ after being viewed, has morphed into a multi-billion dollar media company as well, partnering with CNN, ESPN, BuzzFeed and dozens of other networks which produce original content for the app. 363Snapchat is basically just like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, except the posts are automatically deleted after someone reads them once, or “expire” after a short period of time once they’re posted. This is why on the campaign trail Hillary Clinton joked about having just opened an account, saying, “I love it. Those messages disappear all by themselves,” referring to her trying to wipe her illegal personal e-mail server clean before handing it over to the FBI during their investigation into her using it to send and receive classified material.

Even Amazon.com, once only a bookstore, is now producing original television series and films through Amazon Studios. CEO Jeff Bezos is now attending the Golden Globes and the Oscars for producing films and television shows like Manchester by the Sea , Transparent , and The Salesman . 364Netflix also evolved from just a streaming service to producing original content; YouTube is producing original shows now, and both Facebook and Apple have jumped into the content producing business as well. 365

Because of this, a record number of people are canceling their cable subscriptions. There were 1.4 million fewer people subscribing to cable TV in the first quarter of 2017 compared to the previous year. 366These people have been called “cord cutters,” and with Netflix and Hulu offering On Demand streams of shows from major networks, and HBO now having their own app, more people are abandoning traditional cable TV.

Even with all these new technologies and methods people are using to get their information, those who control them aren’t without their biases. New York Observer writer Liz Crokin decided to investigate Apple’s liberal bias, so she set up an Apple News account on her iPhone and immediately noticed that her news feed was predominately liberal and anti-Trump. “Of all the channels listed in the Apple News politics section, only two of the 16 arguably lean right◦— the rest are reliably left-wing,” she wrote. 367

Of course, Apple CEO Tim Cook openly supported Hillary Clinton’s campaign and held fundraisers for her, including a $50,000 a plate dinner, and is a big promoter of the liberal agenda. 368More liberal bias can be seen on iTunes. For example, the pro-Trump podcast, MAGAPod was labeled with an “explicit” warning, simply because the show is pro-Trump. It was only after this bias began making headlines that iTunes removed the explicit warning from the podcast. 369

Even Apple’s App Store is problematic. They refused to publish a satirical Hillary Clinton e-mailgate game called Capitol HillAwry claiming it was “offensive” and “mean spirited,” but had approved dozens of games targeting Donald Trump. One such game is called Dump Trump , which depicts him as a giant turd; and even Punch Trump and Slap Trump games where players assault Donald Trump for points were approved. 370Breitbart published an article exposing this bias, and a few days later Apple decided to finally allow the Hillary Clinton game to be included in the App Store. 371Apple (and Google) have rejected the Twitter alternative Gab app several times, claiming that people use it to post, “content that could be considered defamatory or mean-spirited.” 372The real reason is that Gab isn’t following in line with Silicon Valley’s social justice warrior agenda. Apple has also banned apps that use the image of Pepe the Frog, a cartoon character often used in pro-Trump memes. 373

Instagram has been shown to selectively ban certain topics and accounts as well. 374They have even deleted several of my posts claiming they were violations of their terms of service. One in which I called singer Lana Del Rey a “skank,” and another which consisted of a meme showing a nice white family with the caption, “White People: The only race you can legally discriminate against.” After singer Rihanna posted fully topless photos of herself, her Instagram account was temporarily shut down for violating their nudity policy, but because she’s a celebrity, they reinstated it. 375The company even apologized for taking it down. Rappers like 50 Cent, Soulja Boy, and others have posted death threats on their Instagram accounts and the company doesn’t suspend them. 376But the account of a graffiti artist named Lushsux was banned after he posted photos of an anti-Hillary Clinton mural he painted which just consisted of her in a bikini.

“I don’t want to sound like a conspiracy theorist with a tin foil hat, but the timing of the Hillary Clinton mural posting and the deletion that ensued can’t just be a coincidence,” he said. 377The artist had previously posted photos depicting Donald Trump naked and Melania Trump topless, but those photos weren’t censored by Instagram◦— only his anti-Hillary painting.

Facebook also regularly censors what people post and manipulates which of your friends’ posts actually show up on your news feed. 378If someone posts something that contains certain keywords that Facebook has determined they do not want to go viral for whatever reason, their algorithms filter it out and prevent the post from showing up. 379

The social media giant openly admits they manipulate which posts are shown on our friends’ news feeds, and even conduct experiments to determine how they can affect people’s moods and behavior. 380Twitter, as you will see in a following chapter, also censors certain hashtags, tweets, and trending topics. The censorship is sometimes subtle, but once you know how it works, it becomes as clear as day.