TLDR for the article: Disinformation has less impact than we think. Societal / institutional problems are the real culprits for our dysfunction. Disinformation is just a convenient scapegoat.
Counterpoint: QAnon, incel terrorism, Plandemic, other fully-internet-driven extremist ideologies.
You need look no further than religions, often invented by single charismatic individuals, to see how powerful isolated claims of Truth can be.
I think that societal / institutional problems has indeed created a powder keg. But disinformation itself, its presence, lights the fuse.
With disinformation's "answers", it provides targets for people's pent up rage. Whether it's police officers or liberal elites or billionaires or Muslims or Chads, people learn who the enemy is, as well as their evil deeds. If you defeat this enemy, your problems will go away.
The concrete result is wars, interpersonal violence, riots, hamstrung governments, and insurrections. All stirred up because of explicit falsehoods.
Ideally, we'd fix both the powder keg (societal and institutional problems) and the lighting of its fuse, disinformation.
Agreed, I think it's missing the chicken/egg issue.
Societal and institutional problems might be the real cause, but is disinformation the way out? Or is it how you get locked into even more glaring societal and institutional problems, which will then reinforce the disinformation once more, causing even more problems, etc.
For me, a lot of this is a downward spiral, and you can see a lot of countries that are just stuck in this state as well, all ideology, constant tyranny, they can never get out of. Try to break free and only make room for a stronger ideology to take over.
At some point the people need to have enough common sense together to stop this cycle, and get themselves out of those societal and institutional problems.
Counterpoint: QAnon, incel terrorism, Plandemic, other fully-internet-driven extremist ideologies.
You need look no further than religions, often invented by single charismatic individuals, to see how powerful isolated claims of Truth can be.
I think that societal / institutional problems has indeed created a powder keg. But disinformation itself, its presence, lights the fuse.
With disinformation's "answers", it provides targets for people's pent up rage. Whether it's police officers or liberal elites or billionaires or Muslims or Chads, people learn who the enemy is, as well as their evil deeds. If you defeat this enemy, your problems will go away.
The concrete result is wars, interpersonal violence, riots, hamstrung governments, and insurrections. All stirred up because of explicit falsehoods.
Ideally, we'd fix both the powder keg (societal and institutional problems) and the lighting of its fuse, disinformation.