This is an email to Timothy Jost, who appeared on NPR Morning Edition to discuss how "Death Panel" and other wild myths got spread about the healthcare reform act.
(Emails from an unsuccessful attempt in 9/2010 at some anti-propaganda action.)
Sat, 4 Sep 2010
I listened with interest to what you had to say with Julie Rovner on Morning Edition, 9/3. I'm glad you are looking into this matter, but I don't think it is as simple as "People combing the Web found these microchips and saw this implantable medical device registry as an attempt to implant microchips in people," Jost says. "And then the rumor expanded to say that all people who signed up for the public plan that was in that bill would have to have a microchip implanted."
My belief, based on what I've seen, is that these wild rumors get much, and possibly most of their strength from carefully planted disinformation which looks to people like "Email from a friend of a friend". I am 58 years old and have never seen such wide belief in preposterous claims (nearly all of which seem aimed at bringing down the Obama presidency and/or Democrat majority in Congress).
In spring and Summer of 2009, as Town Hall meetings on Health Care were being shouted down all over the country, I started getting emails from my parents which they and their friends seemed to see no reason to doubt.
It is my impression, based on a strong similarity in general approach and content, that a very high proportion of these come from one source or a handful of sources.
There is a website that collects and categorizes these emails, called MyRightWingDad.com
I would like to test that hypothesis but do not have the means -- I work 80 hours a week just to keep my head above water, but if you know of any academic or journalist who might take an interest in this, I'd like to pass along some ideas:
1) Might some kind of textual analysis show a high probability that the emails or many of them, come from the same source? As I said, hundreds can be found archived at MyRightWingDad.com.
2) Part of my hypothesis is that these emails are making a big difference, and if not exposed are likely to have a big impact on the coming election. I believe there are a couple of ways to test this.
A) A simple starting point might to ask people in a poll to list some of the most surprising things they have learned from "new media" sources that aren't being reported by the mainstream media, with a multiple choice question about WHICH sources provided the information (e.g. various categories of blogs, **email forwarded by
a friend**, talk radio, ...).
B) A more difficult but really convincing approach would be with the help of a site that monitors these emails, using much more extensive polling, to determine whether some set of untrue beliefs are more widely held when the claims are being circulated in emails, and to see if they peak and then trail off as the that particular rumor starts making fewer appearances.
If this could be established, then I think it should be possible to find someone to take on the more difficult task of finding the sources. I think they get much of their power from the idea that they are the "people's grapevine" as opposed to all those biased new sources.
Thank you for your work, and any attention you may give this. What I really need is someone with the means (financial/institutional) to do something, or if not that, to find some forum of people some of whom might be able to take action in response to a convincing case.
To which I got the following reply:
Mr. Morris,
This is fascinating. I would suspect that you are probably right. I also, however, unfortunately lack the resources (or the necessary skills) to take this on. I am taking the liberty to copy this to Wendell Potter who has been thinking about how to deal with these lies as well. I will also try to think about how further to respond.
Please keep in touch,
Thanks
Tim
Timothy Stoltzfus Jost
Robert L. Willett Professor
Washington and Lee University School of Law
I greatly appreciate your reply.
Here's the latest one I got:
http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/socialpoliticalissues/ss/sign_in_harwin_central_mall.htm
Check it out if you have a moment. It's quite typical. There's quite a lot of sleight of hand being done with real pictures cleverly reinterpreted.
These things won't stand up the the least bit of scrutiny, but the beauty of it is they are almost totally ignored by serious people. Yet my 80-ish parents and their neighbors in a posh gated community, who have run successful businesses and been all over the world, seem to swallow it until I tell them how the trick was done.
Another vulnerability of the right wing noise machine is the more scurrilous blogs pass around falsehoods of a slightly less obvious nature, but still so disreputable that Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck won't touch them, but what RL and GB do is they take people whose heads are full of all these bizarre claims -- e.g. Obama is a Muslim, or he made millions of dollars on inside speculation around the BP oil disaster, and they give them a coherent conceptual frame to put it in.
E.g. early in the year, blogs like Lucianne, MichelleMalkin, BigGovernment.com, Hotair.com, etc. were citing a paper by climatologist Wolfgang Knorr saying the "airborne fraction of anthropogenic CO2 emissions" had not changed significantly in 150 years and showing data to demonstrate this. When anybody in the piling on of commentary hinted that "airborne fraction of anthropogenic CO2 emissions" was the ratio of how much C02 is taken up by the atmosphere divided by the amount absorbed by water, soil, etc. they would get verbally beaten up. Since the blogs clearly implied Knorr was saying the proportion of C02 in the atmosphere hadn't changed, there was a lot of talk about the "final nail in the coffin of the Global Warming Hoax".
Here's where it gets interesting. When I searched transcript archives for the big name right wing commentators like Limbaugh and Beck they were completely silent on Wolfgang Knorr, as if he never existed. Was this because nobody told them about the "final nail in the coffin of the Global Warming Hoax"?
Not likely. I conclude they do some fact checking and try not to get caught in the blatant lies that their less visible allies are spreading. Possible response? Get people to call them on their talk shows and ask "Isn't this great, Wolgang Knorr has just dealt the death blow to Global Warming?" or "What about all that money Obama made in inside trades...? Surely that's an impeachable offence. What are you (Rush) planning to do about it, or advising that
we should do?"
I hope I haven't tried your patience too much, but I've been all over looking for a bit of encouragement and getting none.
Hal,
This is fascinating. How does one deal with it? It seems to me that simply telling the truth is not enough. It is like telling an alcoholic that drinking is bad for them. A person who emailed me yesterday is working on comedy videos with prominent comedians ridiculing the healthcare myths. Maybe that will reach some people. I guess people have always had to deal with maliciously spread rumors, but the internet takes it to a whole new level.
Thanks for your work on this,
Tim
Timothy Stoltzfus Jost
Robert L. Willett Professor
Washington and Lee University School of Law
Tim, I'd appreciate your forwarding our conversation to anyone who may take an interest; possibly Julie Rovner who did that report I first refered to. I was trying to find a way to contact her, but even reporters seem hard to contact by email these days probably due to all the spam and other nastiness on the web.
Anyway, I can't do much myself unless somebody wants to really run with these ideas and hire me as a temporary associate. I am self employed at selling used books over venues like Amazon (there is at least some flexibility in that), and trying to struggle through a big financial problem that will last til the end of the year at least.
"Fascinating" is just the word for it on one level. I think it has both a conspiratorial aspect, like whispering campaigns of old, which is nothing new, and a self organizing system aspect facilitated by the Internet, which is very new, and its effectiveness may well have taken the perpetrators by surprise, though they are smart enough to run with it.
It should make a good study for anyone interested in the Economics of ideas, if there is such a thing -- I mean treating the life of ideas somewhat as economics treats the life of money and valued goods -- NOT anything to do with intellectual property which is most of what you'll find if you google "Economics of ideas".
I don't think debunking one hoax at a time (such as Snopes, MediaMatters, ...) can have much affect on the people who want to believe this stuff - it's like "whack-a-mole" but at least it has facilitated what I am able or might be able to do. A massive expose of people systematically generating and circulating extremely and systematically dishonest emails disguised as coming from a friend of a friend -- some regular citizen who's just sick and tired and not going to take it any more -- to show that that image is a total fraud -- I think that might have some impact.
I also think it is largely invulnerable to satire. The whole populist paranoid right movement has a giant chip on its shoulder such that they are likely to have violent (emotional and verbal I mean) reactions to any ridicule directed at them.
Tim, I'd appreciate your forwarding our conversation to anyone who may take an interest; possibly Julie Rovner who did that report I first refered to. I was trying to find a way to contact her, but even reporters seem hard to contact by email these days probably due to all the spam and other nastiness on the web.
Anyway, I can't do much myself unless somebody wants to really run with these ideas and hire me as a temporary associate. I am self employed at selling used books over venues like Amazon (there is at least some flexibility in that), and trying to struggle through a big financial problem that will last til the end of the year at least.
"Fascinating" is just the word for it on one level. I think it has both a conspiratorial aspect, like whispering campaigns of old, which is nothing new, and a self organizing system aspect facilitated by the Internet, which is very new, and its effectiveness may well have taken the perpetrators by surprise, though they are smart enough to run with it.
It should make a good study for anyone interested in the Economics of ideas, if there is such a thing -- I mean treating the life of ideas somewhat as economics treats the life of money and valued goods -- NOT anything to do with intellectual property which is most of what you'll find if you google "Economics of ideas".
I don't think debunking one hoax at a time (such as Snopes, MediaMatters, ...) can have much affect on the people who want to believe this stuff - it's like "whack-a-mole" but at least it has facilitated what I am able or might be able to do. A massive expose of people systematically generating and circulating extremely and systematically dishonest emails disguised as coming from a friend of a friend -- some regular citizen who's just sick and tired and not going to take it any more -- to show that that image is a total fraud -- I think that might have some impact.
I also think it is largely invulnerable to satire. The whole populist paranoid right movement has a giant chip on its shoulder such that they are likely to have violent (emotional and verbal I mean) reactions to any ridicule directed at them.
WRONG PAGE (See Below)
7 years ago
What does it mean that this book is #8 Amazon bestseller today 2/18/2011?
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