Could the reason Fake News as a label is back firing so catastrophically be because it already existed under another name?
If you've managed to avoid hearing the label Fake News before now then can you please invite me to the shelter you have been hiding in?
The term fake news actually was fired as if from a grenade launcher from the halls of mainstream media. Trump had won the election. For the first time in a very long time the election did not go as Mainstream Media had been trying to dictate it should go.
The targets they fired the grenade at simply picked it up before it exploded and threw it back at those with the weapon. This is one of the dangers of attacking people with tools of any kind. We are a species of tool users. Attack with a club, and it will leave an impression and soon those you attacked will have clubs.
I do however think there is a reason the grenade blew up in the face of mainstream media.
That is simply because the term Fake News could also be considered a label for something that has existed for a very long time and that mainstream media is in the center of.
Propaganda
If you have studied your history you will have encountered the term propaganda wars. You will have encountered situations where carefully planted stories (often completely manufactured) lead to the downfall of a nation, or the uprising of people.
This in reality was fake news... It has been around for a long time. The places that decided to coin this new term have been masters of it.
It is kind of like the Wizard of Oz saying, "don't you know that puppet show is fake? There are guys behind the scenes moving those puppets." I think that is also known sometimes as the pot calling the kettle black. It was pure idiocy. The only thing that makes why they did something as stupid as coining this term and attacking this way when what they are attacking is something they do regularly is because they were in a panic mode. "It didn't work! They didn't listen! They didn't vote for the person we force feeding them to choose! They actually chose the guy we've been making fun of and bashing for months! Why didn't it work? It's always worked before."
Perhaps it didn't work FINALLY because the people are slowly waking up. Maybe their memory is not as short term as I thought. Or perhaps it still is short term we are just all so tied into the internet now that those people with better memories have been successful in reminding them "hey remember this?"
Well if you check out the history of propaganda you will find it often fits the description of fake news. Governments use it frequently. The whole uproar about fake news from them now was because, the election did not go how they wanted it to go. It's been a very long time since that happened.
I actually was surprised myself. I fully expected Hillary to win. In fact, I was certain she was going to win when the process first began and no other potential candidates had yet been elected. Was it because I supported her? Hell no! Quite the contrary. Yet I was not a Trump supporter either. It was because I do have a pretty good memory for politics that have happened while I have been alive, and some I've researched from before I was alive. I've seen certain patterns for people that seem to win. Hillary checked all the boxes for that pattern.
In fact I thought Trump was a brilliant choice to go against her if your goal was to get her elected. People would do their Lesser of Two evils and vote for her because they were afraid of the WORDS that were coming out of Trump's mouth. Actions didn't matter back then.
Yet, that didn't happen did it.
If I were to speculate I'd say that the revelations of Clinton and DNC colluding to cheat Bernie out of the nomination hurt her cause a lot. I know there were Bernie supporters that didn't vote, Bernie supporters that wrote in Bernie, and Bernie supporters who voted for Trump.
Who leaked it is ultimately irrelevant. It was the truth. It was that truth which damaged her.
Yet I also think there was some backlash from people being angry at being ostracized due to the media blitz campaign on anyone that supported Trump. They did not feel safe talking about it. While Hillary supporters could brazenly speak anywhere they wanted to. So they were silent (for the most part) until they could vote. Perhaps they were tired of the media deciding who gets to be president.
Or perhaps if the elections were rigged in Hillary's favor which there were actually some hints of during election day before the election was even over then they underestimated how much they needed to rig it.
Then there is the entire POPULAR vote debacle the news stirred up. This isn't the first time this happened. The electoral college is there so that the rest of the nation is not simply the servants of California and New York. Sorry, you wouldn't have a Union if we had the people on Hollywood and Wall Street being able to FORCE how the rest of us live.
Thus, the reason the electoral college exists. Now let's say you still think it was unfair. Do you realize that both Hillary and Obama were telling Trump how the elections were not rigged and he shouldn't be a sore loser and accept his loss without challenge when it happened. Yet it didn't happen that way and they were hypocrites and did exactly what they were telling Trump not to do.
I didn't vote for Trump. I voted third party. I almost didn't vote at all. Yet I really dislike hypocrisy. If the hypocrisy was coming from Trump and his supporters I would be bashing them. It isn't coming from them.
It's coming from the massive propaganda war... It is truly historically unprecedented and it is truly appalling the sheer amount of stupidity/idiocy/hypocrisy which is running rampant everywhere.
If you want to fight Trump, then you're approaching it completely wrong. If you want to truly make him a dictator and give him ultimate power, you're heading the right way. All he needs is an excuse to declare Martial Law and then thanks to the past couple of decades of Presidents passing bills to greatly extend the power of the president in such an event things could be as bad as the imaginary things in your mind make you think they already are. It can get way worse. If you want that to happen keep following the steps that you are following...
Propaganda. Some people might say that this was the intention all along which would truly make these people epic masterminds. Yet the same people saying this will also shoot down other conspiracy theories saying "that takes too much coordination, they are not that smart" This has more moving parts than 9/11. So if this is all going as planned then they were certainly smart enough to pull off the smaller operation that happened on 9/11. Or perhaps it is not preplanned and you are seeing them genuinely panicing over lost power/control. I personally think that is the more likely scenario.
Steem On!
I don't think the media/news has been anywhere near trustworthy for a long time. At least not in my lifetime. They are there with their agenda to sell their products and should be treated as such. Turning to corporate global companies driven by advertising revenue for an objective view of the world is like asking the marketing department at McDonald's for dietary advice. As you said, fake news has been a staple for manipulation and control for much longer than any living memory and I am sure that the ancient civilisations would have carved them on their walls too. The solution for the individual is to learn the techniques used in their manipulations and investigate personal weaknesses so as to see what lies behind the smoke and mirrors. Once seen, one can drop it like an unwanted children's toy. Unfortunately, it seems that the entertainment value it provides is too much for many to discard. Rather than do something useful (such as post on Steemit :) ) they prefer to consume the nonsense of others, rarely questioning or thinking but always ready to pick up the next unsubstantiated manipulation and run with it.
This is it precisely. Well said.
If you look back the MSM 'fake news' narrative was #pizzagate / #pedogate driven. That was prior to Trump winning- good article!
Yeah that all hit right before he won, but you are correct.
And it's because they know that the outrage of the American people will destroy their chokehold upon us that has allowed this to happen in the first place- they are desperate and their days numbered- it's why things seem so bizzaro these days- because they are.
Ah... memory.... and not repeating the same mistakes of others hehe. When will people learn!
They created "post-truth" for the same effect. There was plenty of post-truth since the post-modernism hit. Another label they can slap on the alternative media and contradictory information.
I wish they'd leave the damn words alone. They have very useful meanings until they get hijacked.
I mean that's not cool, not dope. These are not hot looking people. Word? (snicker)
Great blog. Upvoted and shared on twitter. Stephen
https://twitter.com/StephenPKendal/status/833276995102502912
Disclaimer: I am just a bot trying to be helpful.
The difference is that fake news here refers to... "news" that are faked. Like totally made up. Lies mostly, in Trumps case.
That is, maybe he believes that all.
Like that he won with the majority of voters.
That he can double economic growth just by smiling hard enough.
That the problems in the white house are because the staff is from Obama, and not because he is totally oblivious to everything.
Hehhe... Like CNN standing in front of green screen claiming to be in Iraq and bombings and gas alarms going off so they put on gas masks, and helmets and crouch like they are in danger? Do you mean that kind of fake?
Or like CNN claiming to be interviewing someone in London from New York and it turns out that both sides of the interview are simply standing in the same parking lot in New York a few yards from each other... that kind of fake?
Or saying they have evidence? Then not being able to furnish that evidence?
Saying that MOST of the fake news is coming from Trump is very false. Some coming from Trump, yes mostly from his blurting out something from his mouth. The thought out contrived "pieces" are coming from mainstream media and are not produced live on the spot, but with intention.
Like I said I don't support Trump.
Yet I also don't support hypocrisy. There is a vast ocean of hypocrisy coming from the mainstream media and from SOME of the people that self identify as being on the left.
I don't like hypocrisy. I will challenge it.
If it comes from Trump I'll say the same thing, yet hypocrisy is not what is coming from Trump. Things I don't like to hear him saying are coming from Trump, and not so eloquent words, but nothing I know of that is truly hypocritical.
I particularly did not like his stance on supporting Asset Forfeiture without Conviction when talking to the sheriffs that assembled at the White House. That was not hypocrisy. I did not like it, but it was not someone bashing someone for doing the same thing they do, have done, or have in some cases done on a massive scale.
No, that is true, Trump is not hypocritical, probably the opposite, he just can't cope with reality.
Problem is: He is not a burger flipper in psychological care. He is one who can literally nuke others.
And the point is not that Trump does (or not does) a record in making fake news - the problem is that he claims EVERYTHING is fake news that says something else then his worldview is.
If he would believe the earth is flat, he would denounce the ISS as fake news. THAT is the problem.
Those CNN things you wrote - that really sounds hilarious, but: What they showed was not un-truth in the meaning of it didn't happen. It just didn't happen to the reporters or in exactly the way they said.
It is like saying "You can boil an egg on your car!" when its still 2 degrees to cool for that. It is still very hot, and that is the message.
They should have labeled it reality show or news theater though ;)
The thing is the green screen things did not come out until years later when the footage came out before green screening. They pitched it as though they were there and as though the air raid sirens they played were happening. They did not say it was green screened. They said "we are live from X"
They were passing it off as a true event. It was not. That is most definitely fake news.
The parking lot one I gave you was real too. ;)
There have been many more than that... those are just two that stuck big time in my head.
They also have a tendency to run their opinion as fact backed by sources, which when challenged they end up having to retract because their sources were themselves.
Yet they talk about Fake News. That is the hypocrisy.
On a general note please remember that propaganda just means political advertisement, not lies to change minds etc.
That is just an added meaning based on the usage of the word propaganda for a lot of those lie things. It is one perfect example where lies have changed the meaning of a word.
In the initial screenshot I actually expected this response. This is why I gave examples of historical propaganda that was actually fake, or manufactured.
It is often an exaggerated advertisement for a nation, or goal.
Yet it has historically also been FAKE NEWS since the term began being used. They simply did not spin it that way.
Reichstag Fire = False flag - fake news = Justified fall of Weimar Republic and take over by the National Socialist party (aka Nazis)
Gulf of Tonken = False Flag - yet unlike Reichstag didn't EVEN happen - fake news = Justified Vietnam War
Sadam Husein and WMDs = reports of incontrovertible evidence = fake news/propaganda = Justified invasion of Iraq (They didn't declare war... though really it was)
EDIT: And these were just some examples... there are a large amount of these going back in history. Are they happening today as well? Yes. Yet, those that coined the term and first tossed it out there are hypocrites.
It is both forms. IT is also lies.