CaughtInThe
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Good stuff...
"Obama's effort has been sweeping, say the former President's confidants and outside advisers with experience in the tech industry, with Obama convening meetings and conversations with academics, activists, researchers, tech sector leaders, media executives, former government officials and former regulators. People who have met with the former President describe him as gripped by the issue, showing up to meetings with handwritten notes and questions and often referring to reading he has done on the topic, including reports by the RAND Corporation and the Aspen Institute, and a research study on partisan media by David Broockman and Joshua Kalla."
"There was what has been called truth decay. There was an erosion of what was considered acceptable to assert in the press, period. That is all pre-social media," he said. "And then when social media hits, then I think you saw it spread and accelerate. ... I think it was actually in my second term that you start to see now just bad information, but you also start to see an acceleration of misinformation."
And that has given him, this person said, not just a better understanding of the way disinformation has personally affected his life and career but also a deep concern that the spread of disinformation will lead to a form of "political nihilism," where many Americans don't know what to believe and just check out from politics all together.
"That is the real nemesis and the real environment that disinformation creates and allows autocracy to flourish," the outside adviser said. "Birtherism is obviously a part of that story, but the stakes have, in some ways, changed so dramatically since then, that it's become part of the context of democracy itself."
www.cnn.com
"Obama's effort has been sweeping, say the former President's confidants and outside advisers with experience in the tech industry, with Obama convening meetings and conversations with academics, activists, researchers, tech sector leaders, media executives, former government officials and former regulators. People who have met with the former President describe him as gripped by the issue, showing up to meetings with handwritten notes and questions and often referring to reading he has done on the topic, including reports by the RAND Corporation and the Aspen Institute, and a research study on partisan media by David Broockman and Joshua Kalla."
"There was what has been called truth decay. There was an erosion of what was considered acceptable to assert in the press, period. That is all pre-social media," he said. "And then when social media hits, then I think you saw it spread and accelerate. ... I think it was actually in my second term that you start to see now just bad information, but you also start to see an acceleration of misinformation."
And that has given him, this person said, not just a better understanding of the way disinformation has personally affected his life and career but also a deep concern that the spread of disinformation will lead to a form of "political nihilism," where many Americans don't know what to believe and just check out from politics all together.
"That is the real nemesis and the real environment that disinformation creates and allows autocracy to flourish," the outside adviser said. "Birtherism is obviously a part of that story, but the stakes have, in some ways, changed so dramatically since then, that it's become part of the context of democracy itself."
'Birtherism' to the 'Big Lie': Inside Obama's fight to counter disinformation | CNN Politics
Former President Barack Obama is urgently throwing himself into the fight against disinformation, taking a yearslong private fascination into the open as he makes addressing the issue a key pillar of his post-presidency.
"Big Lie" believer.
