The 'Fake News' Fallacy Used by the Media Monopoly

in #fakenews6 years ago (edited)

Mainstream news and mainstream social media are both on the same side in this information war, trying to monopolize and restrict what people think about through the "fake news" label. The control of free thought speech and thought is being waged on multiple front, in the legacy cable and new Internet media markets.

The term "fake news" has long been used to discredit the information that doesn't align with the official narrative of the established powers that be. The ongoing attempts to control, restrict and ban access to information is rooted in a logically fallacious claim on who has or doesn't have the facts, truth or "real news".


Source: pixabay

The Divine "Authority"

The mainstream media and those who support the narratives they put forth, think that only some institutions or organizations have a "right" to tell people information. This is akin to having a "divine right" bestowed upon them, as though they were the Kings or monarchs of old who declared that their authority was derived from "God".

Those monarchs has a monopoly on power and authority over society, and that everything they said or did was "right". They decided what was right or wrong, regardless of it objectively being so. Now the mainstream media has declared itself as having a divine monopoly on facts. Only they have the authority to determine what is right or wrong information; only they know what is a true or false; what is a fact or not.

They are the arbiters of truth, and will tell you what is real or not. Their "Divine" authority over truth means they alone are the "authoritative" sources for information.

Consensus Conformity

Yet, when we examine their stories and narrative of so-called "facts" and "real news", we can see that they are engaging in fake news, twisting events, misleading viewers, fabricating news, and blacklisting other stories that are counter-narratives to their own. Allowing competing ideas would raise the possibility of doubt in consumers of information and permit forming conclusions and making decisions that are contrary to the media monopoly and establishment.

They want people to act in alignment with the interests of the "empire", not people acting on their own self-interests in alignment with actual truth. They want to control what information is even considered for appraisal in order to prevent people from being able to form their own conclusions. This is why independent and alternative media sources are attacked for daring to challenge the official established narrative the mainstream puts forth. Competing narratives allow people to engage in more critical thinking ans skepticism of the mainstream narrative, potentially snapping them out of the somnambulist dream-state and consensus-conformity of the "news hypnosis".

The Emperor is Naked

Doubting, being curious, and asking questions about the validity of information is crucial in life. A non-conforming independent piece of information can disrupt the socially engineered influence and conformation to the narrative of the mass media. The media monopolist want to keep control over what people think about. As such, they want to silence opposing voices that challenge their engineered fabrications.

Asking questions about the often false official narratives is like asking "Why is the Emperor naked?" when everyone believes the Emperor isn't naked when he is. They want the false consensus to perpetuate and be blindly accepted as "truth". They are the "authority" with t heir "authoritative news", and they are saying the Emperor has clothes, while the alternative media is either asking you to see if he really does (to think for yourself), or is outright saying "no, he doesn't, he's naked"

When 9/11 occurred, people went along with passively with the mainstream news narrative, acquiescing to the consensus "truth" or "reality". But when you ask people "why did Building 7 fall into rubble on 9/11 without being hit by a plane?", this can wake people up from their slumber, dream, and hypnosis into a false reality.

Censorship

Censorship allows the mainstream and social media to hide information from being accessed by the public mind. Anything that hides information is censorship of a kind. Censorship of alternative information on social media or on the Internet is part of the "fake news" hysteria and agenda for control over what people get to think and speak about. Censorship keeps information out of sight and therefore out of mind.

Alex Jones is a popular target. He can be incorrect/false just as the mainstream's info can be, and some people don't like his method of delivery. But he and others who speak counter-narratives to the establishment, act as a "pattern interrupters" to potentially snap people out of their slumber and awaken them to things they didn't know about or want to consider before. The independent or alternative media can jolt people out of a mainstream media trance or hypnosis. I for one am thankful to Alex Jones. For without his work, I would not have been shaken up and awakened in 2006 and begun my journey and quest into truth.

Citing Each Other's "Authority" to Turn Anything Into "Truth"

The mainstream media forms consensus trances that don't necessarily reflect truth, whereby lies or falsity can be accepted as truth. They can knowingly transform lies or unknowingly transform falsity into "truth" by citing each other. One mainstream media cites one or more who repeat the same story. CNN can site, the New York Times. The Washington Post can cite ABC News. Even if it's an error, repeating a lie often enough makes it appear true as people believe it to be true, as Hitler is known to have said:

"If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed."
- Adolf Hitler


Made from source: wikimedia, CC-BY-SA 3.0

One news agency can cite another, and as more do so the more the story/information spreads and the more it builds up a consensus in the mainstream to get established as "truth". Then more people get to see it when searching for a topic as well, since Google, YouTube and Facebook rank things by their frequency of being linked/sourced elsewhere or popularity.

Following the "authoritative" mainstream news, there are second-tier "fact-checking" or propaganda organizations that perpetuate the narratives. Buzzfeed,, Politico, Salon cite thee mainstream New Yor Times, Washington Post, CNN, ABD, NBC, etc, and then the "fact-checking" sites like Snopes, Politifact and Wikipedia perpetuate the potentially false official information while rejecting and invalidating the potentially true alternative as "fake news".

Then social media latches onto any of the "authorized" sources above to spread the information by Tweets, FB posts or YT videos. It's believed to be "true" and spread as "truth" because people got the information from the "authoritative" news and "fact-checking" sources.

Monopolizing Consensus

The information is a de facto "truth" simply by means of a consensus confirmation. Once something reaches a consensus, it's hard to change people's mind. It has become "truth" to them. If enough people believe it, then it must be true, right? Wrong. This is the fallacy called argumentum ad populum. Juries are never wrong. Millions agree, so it's right. Well, the earth was believed to be flat by pure consensus alone. The facts or truth of the matter didn't matter. All that was required was for people to believe it and it was "true".

No one has a monopoly on facts or truth, certainly not the "trusted" or "authoritative" mainstream media organizations. Monopolist news networks have a distorted view of the world that they project for others to consume and shape their worldview accordingly. They don't like the social engineering consensus to be disrupted by just anyone who can put out information that contradicts what they say. Therefore, if they don't agree with it, it's simply "fake news" and should be ignore, censured or blacklisted.

When the mainstream or social media companies think that they can exclusively make claims about others being sources of "fake news" while they alone are to be trusted as the authoritative authority on facts, reality or truth, they are themselves engaging in spreading falsity and fake news. They don't want a a more honest competitor to challenge their monopoly over the minds of millions.


Thank you for your time and attention. Peace.


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Agree with what you're saying. When i was following the US elections and before that election in India and brexit, everyone someone said the right leaving parties are spreading fake news, all i had to say was, they're playing the same game everyone is playing. Most liberal media outlets, specially news are now opinion pieces where facts dont matter, sensationalism does. And because liberal media is also following its agenda, people such as asked Jones have to shout loud to make their presence felt. Its become ever so important to listen to all sides to get complete opinions and remove fact from opinion.

Liberals cant digest losing, and so they need to blame it on fake news. In India, liberals and conservatives, both are blaming their shortcomings on fake news.

Yeah, but Alex Jones was yelling even before they started this ;) It's passion at times, orther time sit might be staged. It can be funny to listen to lol

Can be funny but then everyone has a different style of gaining an audience. Its inappropriate for a certain class.

A non-conforming independent piece of information can disrupt the socially engineered influence and conformation to the narrative of the mass media.

So true and well said. Fake news, real news, things going on in real people's lives...it's all bad news lately and is disrupting me too! Steemit is unique considering the large majority of users who are interested in the truth, and the ones who aren't are clearly out of their pond. This is a good thing, but today reading it all here on this platform is downright depressing. Didn't stop me from resteeming two of them though lol. Do you know cecicastor and what is happening to her? Just found out today, and it's heartbreaking. Not tagging her because it might put her in danger. She needs our support so I had to resteem her post today... Check it out if you're curious.

Totally went off topic there though! Thanks for spreading the news about fake news. ;)

Care for truth is hard to awaken in many :/

Yet, when we examine their stories and narrative of so-called "facts" and "real news", we can see that they are engaging in fake news, twisting events, misleading viewers, fabricating news, and blacklisting other stories that are counter-narratives to their own.

And never for our good. It is always to promote harmful things on us, from bad chemicals to modes of behavior that are destructive to self worth or strong families. Designed to make us hate those they get us to pay to bomb for them, to send our fathers, brothers and sons off to kill and be killed, to make us hate even our neighbors.

Their evil is plain to see and I view anyone now with suspicion the moment I hear the talking points start.

Talking heads and repeated gibber jabber to condition the masses into a streamlined of decisions to keep things going the way they want.

Citing each other is far too pervasive in our society; it happens in the news outlets as well in the scientific realm as well. People will just cite each other ad nauseum. I read an article a while back where they discovered a selection of papers were just blindly citing others because of the titles or the abstracts and not even reading the actual content. Citing to spread a false net of being correct is definitely troubling.

Yeah, that bad when even the scientific ppl are doing it, then the news picks up on such "research" to repeat it.

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I am looking forward to Facebook implementing their policy of deleting "Fake News". The backlash will be fun to watch as more and more people leave the platform.

Haha, that's one way to look at it ;)

Social media is not monolithic, IMHO. Steemit is social media, so is Gab, so is Minds, so is FB. So I wouldn't paint it all with a wide brush.

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