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10
Oct
2021
Sunday October 10, 2021
A rising tide of people in this country apparently believe – body, mind, and spirit – that they are called overthrow the established powers-that-be. By any means. Including physical insurrection.
They seem to buy into some kind of conspiracy which they – and they alone – know about.
I have a deep suspicion of all conspiracy theories. I find it far simpler to blame basic human emotions –greed, anger, ignorance, even stupidity – than to imagine vast numbers of people somehow collaborating in a mass movement to take over the world.
But that works the other way, too. I do not believe that the mainstream media – television, radio, newspapers, and magazines – conspire to censor negative information about masks and vaccines.
Categories: Sharp Edges
Tags: algorithms, Facebook, conspiracies, Haugen
9
Jan
I think my dog is paranoid. If she thinks she hears something that might be a doorbell – such as, say, clinking pots together as I prepare a meal – she launches into a paroxysm of growls and howls, races to the front door, and barks furiously at nothing at all.
\ Her behaviour makes me suspect she’s been watching too much social media.
Most social media postings are, in my opinion, basically Pablum for adults. Bland meaningless chat. But there’s a subgroup of users who can see conspiracies under every news report.
As a journalist, I subscribe to several non-mainstream news sources. Sometimes merely following a link, to check the authenticity of a story, is enough to put me onto someone’s mailing list for a steady stream of fear, anger, and venom.
Tags: social media, conspiracies, misinformation