Why #saveourchildren is not about saving our children

[Joe (SoCal)]

A month ago, I wrote a piece called “Won’t somebody please think of the children!” —which looked at how quickly people are jumping into mad conspiracy theories involving trafficked children.
That particular post focussed on WayfairGate, a conspiracy theory that said an online homeware store was openly selling children as sex slaves. This was rapidly accepted as fact by thousands of people. I was surprised to see a few of my left-leaning friends getting amongst this one. Something about this one sucked a lot of people in.
It is the perfect environment for this stuff to spread: Jeffrey Epstein’s already proven that rich men can get unfettered access to underage girls — so of course elites like Hilary Clinton have been holding kids hostage underground!
It was surreal, as a few weeks after I wrote that piece, The United Nations had its ‘World Day Against Trafficking in Persons Day’.
This was a day meant to raise awareness of human trafficking — which again, is a very real thing — but it doesn’t have a fucking thing to do with bat**** insanity like WayfairGate.
And that’s what I’m saying — information is moving at such a pace that many people don’t stand a chance of sorting out the bull**** from reality.
So now we’re in the grips “Save our children!” conspiracy theories en masse. Just take a look at this guy on Tiktok:

https://webworm.substack.com/p/why-saveourchildren-is-not-about-b9b?fbclid=IwAR3kFW97tlu8p-mk7iZy3d7gvQKKPXOkZSkty89aEhq4Z84Lxw0AlfDgf30

[Old Dryfoot]

Social media at work.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technolo...course/589108/

[David G]

RWW disinformation campaign at work.

[Old Dryfoot]

^ That too, but. No. Social Media.

https://tedxsydney.com/idea/is-socia...ing-humankind/

. . .
Ramsay Brown, the founder of Dopamine Labs, an L.A. persuasive tech start-up said, “We have now developed a rigorous technology of the human mind, and that is both exciting and terrifying. We have the ability to twiddle some knobs in a machine learning dashboard we build, and around the world, hundreds of thousands of people are going to quietly change their behaviour in ways that, unbeknownst to them, feel second-nature but are really by design.”
. . .

[skuthorp]

.
. . .
Ramsay Brown, the founder of Dopamine Labs, an L.A. persuasive tech start-up said, “We have now developed a rigorous technology of the human mind, and that is both exciting and terrifying. We have the ability to twiddle some knobs in a machine learning dashboard we build, and around the world, hundreds of thousands of people are going to quietly change their behaviour in ways that, unbeknownst to them, feel second-nature but are really by design.”

. . . .

Been around for decades, it's called a TV.

[Old Dryfoot]

TV is a passive technology, Social Media is an active technology and its ability to shape and reinforce behaviors dwarfs television by an order of magnitude. At least.

[peb]

I cannot help but wonder if one of Trump's lasting, and worse, effects on our society is the use of social media for too much of our information. Now, I do realize that people were using social media in a bad way, way before Trump. But we have had a president who has used twitter to do everything from announce new policies to just float ideas and see the reaction. I think it has driven everyone to the platforms, albeit many in an indirect fashion. I have literally never read a Trump tweet directly on the twitter account. But I use twitter once or twice a day. Too many politicians, reporters, pundits, etc have taken to twitter to voice opinions and information as their normal means of business. So even people who want to use it to gain legitimate knowledge of issues or sports or whatever, see one after another of bad information, fake news. And I think it has turned into this because thats how our current administration operates.
Its not goint to go away, but I would love to see the next administration just ban the social media platforms from the White House staff completely. Go back to the good ole-days of the White House using the White House press corps in daily briefings and a normal news cycle. And then see if people back off the platform a little bit. It won't solve the problem, but perhaps a step in the right direction.

[Canoeyawl]

TV is a passive technology, Social Media is an active technology and its ability to shape and reinforce behaviors dwarfs television by an order of magnitude. At least.

Wait? Your tv doesn't talk to you yet?

[Norman Bernstein]

I cannot help but wonder if one of Trump's lasting, and worse, effects on our society is the use of social media for too much of our information. Now, I do realize that people were using social media in a bad way, way before Trump. But we have had a president who has used twitter to do everything from announce new policies to just float ideas and see the reaction. I think it has driven everyone to the platforms, albeit many in an indirect fashion. I have literally never read a Trump tweet directly on the twitter account. But I use twitter once or twice a day. Too many politicians, reporters, pundits, etc have taken to twitter to voice opinions and information as their normal means of business. So even people who want to use it to gain legitimate knowledge of issues or sports or whatever, see one after another of bad information, fake news. And I think it has turned into this because thats how our current administration operates.
Its not goint to go away, but I would love to see the next administration just ban the social media platforms from the White House staff completely. Go back to the good ole-days of the White House using the White House press corps in daily briefings and a normal news cycle. And then see if people back off the platform a little bit. It won't solve the problem, but perhaps a step in the right direction.

I'm in agreement with you.

I don't know if the notion of using Twitter and Facebook as the primary means that politicians use to communicate with their constituents, is a permanent thing or not. Perhaps the 'fad' will fade in time... but as currently conceived, it doesn't serve the American public particularly well. Admittedly, any politician has to fight fire with fire, so Biden/Harris will be forced to use Twitter, Facebook, et. al. in the same fashion as Trump.

But after the election, and if God-willing, Trump is deposed, I'd like to think that Biden/Harris will constrain their use of social media, and leave it to the ultra right wing haters... if they do, it could possibly fade out as an influence.

[Hugh Conway]

I cannot help but wonder if one of Trump's lasting, and worse, effects on our society is the use of social media for too much of our information. Now, I do realize that people were using social media in a bad way, way before Trump. But we have had a president who has used twitter to do everything from announce new policies to just float ideas and see the reaction. I think it has driven everyone to the platforms, albeit many in an indirect fashion. I have literally never read a Trump tweet directly on the twitter account. But I use twitter once or twice a day. Too many politicians, reporters, pundits, etc have taken to twitter to voice opinions and information as their normal means of business. So even people who want to use it to gain legitimate knowledge of issues or sports or whatever, see one after another of bad information, fake news. And I think it has turned into this because thats how our current administration operates.
Its not goint to go away, but I would love to see the next administration just ban the social media platforms from the White House staff completely. Go back to the good ole-days of the White House using the White House press corps in daily briefings and a normal news cycle. And then see if people back off the platform a little bit. It won't solve the problem, but perhaps a step in the right direction.

there’s tons of good info on twitter. It, or at least some of the court reporters that use it, are the easiest quickest way to get actual court documents ime, as an example of value. Sure, there’s garbage, that’s life.

It’s the rightwing deployment of social media for conspiracy theory that’s the issue, and yes, it’s mostly a rightwing issue, because the right is a fractured broken group of people these days.

[Hugh Conway]

As example: there’s a tweet flying around twitter & Facebook saying ANTIFA is targeting cattle ranches. It’s unsourced and obviously stupid, but that matters not.

[NickW]

Joe

You might want to edit the F-bomb in the OP.

Nick

[Old Dryfoot]

Anyone thinking this is an exclusively RRW phenomenon is seriously deluding themselves. Ask yourself which way the majority of anti-vaxxers lean politically.

[Art Haberland]

you should see the brouhaha over the LOL toys. the whole Right Wing™ is a gaga that somebody found one with a pizza tattoo

[Hugh Conway]

Anyone thinking this is an exclusively RRW phenomenon is seriously deluding themselves. Ask yourself which way the majority of anti-vaxxers lean politically.

Now? Right.

[Old Dryfoot]

Dismiss it at your own peril.

[Hugh Conway]

Dismiss it at your own peril.

Do
https://news.gallup.com/poll/317018/...d-vaccine.aspx
53% of Republicans wouldn’t get a free c19 vaccine. Compared to 19% of Democrats.

[Old Dryfoot]

Yes, left and right finding common cause in a lie. Imagine that.

[Old Dryfoot]

Ignore it at your own peril.

[Art Haberland]

of course they would not get a vaccine, why would you get a vaccine for a virus that is a Democrat Hoax?