In mid-November 2018, the New York Times published a bombshell report about Facebook that convulsed both traditional and social media. The beleaguered site has been at the center of scandal after fake news scandal from the mass displacement and genocide of Myanmar’s Rohingya people to the Brexit crisis — all enabled and abetted by disinformation and …
Facebook Spread Fake News, Hired ‘Trackers’ to Smear Critics Read More »
Special Counsel Robert Mueller has referred a possible scam to the Federal Bureau of Investigation after a number of reporters were contacted by someone apparently shopping a story about him sexually assaulting unidentified women: 13 days ago I received this tip alleging an attempt to pay off women to make up accusations of sexual misconduct …
Special Counsel’s Office Asks FBI to Investigate Smear Scheme Read More »
An unsettling week of threats and bombs sent to various high-profile political figures and pundits culminated in the arrest of a suspect in south Florida, a reckoning online, and a whole slew of conspiracy theories around the bombs and the culprit. Cesar Sayoc, Jr. already had a long list of convictions by the time he …
Suspect in Attempted Bomb Attacks Had History of Crime, Conspiracy Theories Read More »
Where mass communication is used to spread lies and disinformation and smear political enemies, stochastic terrorism follows.
On October 18th, 2018, United States President Donald Trump fired off a volley of tweets about a large caravan of people wending their way from Honduras to the southern United States border: These statements were duly picked up and breathlessly repeated by news channels and pundits, spreading the story with crucial context omitted from the story, such …
The Truth About the Migrant Caravan Approaching the United States Read More »
As the political fervor roiled around sexual assault accusations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in September 2018, a number of explanations and excuses for his purported behavior appeared even before the details of the reports were widely known. Some of these excuses bordered on the mystical; others ignored the border and just went straight …
Planned Parenthood advocacy groups are part of a coalition that plans to spend $30 million on 2018 mid-term elections, but that money doesn’t come from government funding.
A criticism of authorities’ disarray was quickly turned into right-wing grievance content.
A low-level “satire” site set its sights on the Fox broadcaster in a morbid trilogy.
Right-wing bloggers again flogged a Craigslist post to seize on actual dissent between Democrats.
