The political economy of bullshit.
The truth has got its boots on: what the evidence says about Mr. Damore’s Google memo
I’m saying, sir, that a lie can run round the world before the truth has got its boots on.
Never Mind The Deepfakes, Chatbots Have To Deal With Election Lies Being Free, While Truth Is Paywalled
It seems that every election cycle over the last decade has had concerns being raised about the state of “political deepfakes” and their ability to impact the election. So far, these ha…
Facebook Fact Checks Were Never Going to Save Us. They Just Made Liberals Feel Better.
Billionaires gonna billionaire — and lick the boots of whoever will bring them more riches and impunity.
The Uncensored Library – Reporters without borders
I support The Uncensored Library and the fight for press freedom. #TruthFindsAWay
A Knowledge Commons for the 21st Century
Truth-seeking infrastructure at scale
The year we rebuild the infrastructure of truth
"Truth is more than a collection of facts; it's a mechanism for belonging."
Deepfakes, Elections, and Shrinking the Liar’s Dividend
Heightened public awareness of the power of generative AI could give politicians an incentive to lie about the authenticity of real content.
The Free Market Lie: Why Switzerland Has 25 Gbit Internet and America Doesn't
The Free Market Lie: Why Switzerland Has 25 Gbit Internet and America Doesn't
What's Wrong with Bullshit
Past philosophical analyses of bullshit have generally presented bullshit as a formidable threat to truth. However, most of these analyses also reduce bullshit to a mere symptom of a greater evil (e.g. indifference towards truth). In this paper, I introduce a new account of bullshit which, I argue, is more suited to understand the threat posed by bullshit. I begin by introducing a few examples of “truth-tracking bullshit”, before arguing that these examples cannot be accommodated by past, process-based accounts of bullshit. I then introduce my new, output-based account of bullshit, according to which a claim is bullshit when it is presented as or appears as interesting at first sight but is revealed not to be that interesting under closer scrutiny. I present several arguments in favor of this account, then argue that it is more promising than past accounts when it comes to explaining how bullshit spreads and why it is a serious threat to truth.
Trump's Truth
'Trump's Truth' is a searchable archive of Donald Trump's posts on TRUTH Social.
Everyone Is Lying To You For Money
The Forge present Ben McKenzie's, Everyone Is Lying to You for Money where he explores cryptocurrency in his directorial debut, moving from curiosity to exposing harsh truths. His documentary both educates and entertains while delivering a powerful critique of the crypto world.
The Liar’s Dividend: Can Politicians Claim Misinformation to Evade Accountability?
This study addresses the phenomenon of misinformation about misinformation, or politicians "crying wolf"' over fake news. Strategic and false claims that stories are fake news or deepfakes may benefit politicians by helping them maintain support after a scandal. We posit that this benefit, known as the "liar's dividend," may be achieved through two politician strategies: by invoking informational uncertainty or by encouraging oppositional rallying of core supporters. We administer five survey experiments to over 15,000 American adults detailing hypothetical politician responses to stories describing real politician scandals. We find that claims of misinformation representing both strategies raise politician support across partisan subgroups. These strategies are effective against text-based reports of scandals, but are largely ineffective against video evidence and do not reduce general trust in media. Finally, these false claims produce greater dividends for politicians than alternative responses to scandal, such as remaining silent or apologizing.
Show your work: The new terms for trust in journalism - PressThink
The transparency movement has finally come of age. Power has shifted to the users. Their trust has to be earned in different ways now.
So maybe now we can agree that having an unchecked research integrity militia who unfortunately has the ear of the press and increasingly that of the the publishers, but who fiercely rejects any… | Ioana A. Cristea
So maybe now we can agree that having an unchecked research integrity militia who unfortunately has the ear of the press and increasingly that of the the publishers, but who fiercely rejects any minimal ethics or code of conduct, is a (growing) problem? Also, that 1. problems have to be investigated before deciding they are are legitimate and serious; 2. this investigation is not social media, blogs and the press; 3. this investigation should not be on the front page of journals and Retraction Watch; 4. there are degrees of seriousness and some things can just be corrected or are simply not very consequential (no, it's not a house of bricks where we have to check every brick, that's a dumb analogy), so being absolutely hysterical and overdramatic about any lie, inaccuracy or mistake is purposeful at worse and should be ignored at best and 5. it is not only unnecessary, but harmful, to also go into other, non-academic things the person did or does to complete "investigations" that you (press, sleuth, blogger, etc) do not have the tools and information to do completely and accurately (this fixation would be called harassment in the before times). Others will justly write about what the institutions did or did not do, but what I want to say is that we really should end it with the blank credit we give to any and all allegations that come from the establish research integrity truth fighters.
Tech and the Fake Market tactic
Tech helped Fake Markets took over Free Markets without media or politicians even noticing.
‘Dark money’ networks hide political agendas behind fake news sites
Political operations are pouring millions of “dark money” dollars into ads masquerading as news to influence the 2020 election. Fake News abounds.
