Politics is not a game. It is an earnest business.
-Winston Churchill
The Season Begins
Not that the political season actually ever ends. But without a doubt members of every part of the spectrum are ramping up their efforts to discredit opposing forces heading into the mid-term elections. As per American tradition, truth has taken an enormous amount of vacation time these past few months. While the distribution method of the information has started to switch from traditional emails to open forums, partisan websites and social media to pull them all together, email lists still play a critical role.
In this and other articles, we will be exploring common tactics of disinformation and political spin in the information world. Additionally, we’ll examine sources and websites to help guide you through the web, armed with knowledge of warning signs and some specific places to avoid as well as trust. Ric Romero fans will enjoy this article.
As there are only a few viral emails out there right now that are highly active and related to the military, so we’ll take a look at those in the coming days.
Key Words and Phrases
For ease of purpose, let’s just call emails/articles/tweets/messages on forums and all other type of information an article.
Working with the evidence of the most common bilge articles, there are a few similarities among highly inaccurate messages both in style and argumentative methods. If an article contains any of the following statements (especially more than one), consider it partisan and seek another source:
- Wake up (usually followed by ‘America’)
- Socialist
- Birth certificate
- Destroy our way of life
- New World Order
- Neocon
- Zionist
- Obamacare
- Teabagger
While some of these are obviously directed at liberals, it works both ways. While the ‘Birther’ movement is a right wing effort (which most analysts agree it is, at least in the majority of cases), the 9/11 ‘Truthers’ tend to be more geared against the conservatives or ‘Neo-Cons’. This generalization does not hold together in all cases of course. A feeling of urgency and anti-government sentiment drives almost all of these efforts and in more cases than not the ‘us vs. them’ is not among the citizenry but ‘us’ vs. the federal government. While articles can be focused on individuals such as President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Rupert Murdoch, Rush Limbaugh or President Bush and others, the attacks on individuals are most commonly due to the fact that they are representations of a particular group.
If an article frequently uses New World Order and Zionist, you can usually count on it being an anti-Semitic source, and the information is almost always twisted beyond any semblance of truth. In this group’s eyes, the end of the world is always just around the corner and whatever is being done (from the Gulf spill to banking manipulation) is in preparation for a global takeover of the country and is being coordinated by a small cabal of power. Supporting evidence for an issue, however weak, is trumpeted loudly, while other evidence and reality as a whole is attacked.
Writing Methods
There are three major red flags that should tell you further investigation is necessary. The first two depend on the writer’s belief that readers will not actually check out any supporting documentation or links closely. The third is common boilerplate.
‘Check it out on Snopes’ – Often put in the first line with a ‘This is 100% true’ qualifier, there are two variations of this ruse. Either they won’t actually provide the link to Snopes, or the link they provide actually points someone to a Snopes page that states clearly that the email is not accurate. Just because something is written up on Snopes does not mean that it is true, and checking it out first will save you a bit of heartache and trouble.
‘Don’t believe me, check out the links at the bottom’ – A common feature in viral disinformation is creating or linking to websites that parrot the exact same bad information. This tactic goes hand in hand with presenting opinions as facts and does nothing to promote truth. Check the links, but don’t expect them to be from overly critical or unbiased sources. A link to a message board posting or a diary at DailyKos does not necessarily mean the information is accurate, it only means that someone else has the same feelings on an issue and has used the platform to promote it.
‘You won’t hear about this in the Mainstream Media’ – Used almost as a template for emails or blog postings from the ‘alternative’ media, this is the go-to phrase to try and establish credibility. It reaches deep into the psyche of the reader and connects them to the ‘us vs. them’ mentality. While most of what you’ll read that contains this verbiage is directed towards the supposed left wing bias of the media, it is really more of an opposition tactic. When President Bush was in office, many articles attacked the media for not reporting on the good things happening in Iraq and Afghanistan, just as we see them today attacking the media for being too soft on President Obama. The media is seen as a propaganda arm of the group in power in Washington, regardless of which power that is. And opposing the ‘traditional’ media by ‘telling it like it is’ is one of the most powerful ways to get a message across. But it is usually just smoke. More times than not, there’s a reason you don’t see these stories on the networks or in the major newspapers – staffs have researched them and found them to be inaccurate or overtly partisan.
Using the Tools Available
One word: Google. The first thing you should do before taking any article to heart and passing it on is to go to the middle of the message, copy a paragraph or two that are relatively unique, and plug it in to Google to see what comes up. You’ll instantly see one of two things. If the article is new and especially if it is based on opinion, you will get a result that shows dozens of the parrot sites mentioned above that have spread the message verbatim. Click on some of these links and pay attention to what the website looks like, check out their ‘about us’ page if they have one, and most importantly look at the discussion or comments. User comments are an excellent way to gauge what kind of people are visiting the site and always blow the actual article out of the water when it comes to incendiary rhetoric. If you see a slew of the same commentary, you know you are in partisan land.
The second Google result possibility is that the first page is a mix between debunking sites and parrots. Usually if an article contains inaccuracies that are obvious and non-opinion oriented, the debunking sites will carry a heavier search weight and will have multiple sources to choose from. For example, a Google search for ‘Obama $50 Gun Tax’, a thoroughly debunked email from 2009 and 2010, gives you the following result:
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FactCheck beats MOAA to the top on that one, but that’s OK, they do great work. The biggest tool at your disposal is, of course, your own mind. If something doesn’t smell right, don’t forward it until you’ve taken the time to understand the issue and done the research that makes you feel confident that the information is accurate.
In part 2 of this series we’ll take a look at websites and news outlets and identify specific signs of bilge and provide a list of places to avoid and sites to trust. Although the second part of that comes with a strong caveat. Never trust anyone all the time.
Related Reading:
Book Review of Idiot America
Newsweek’s Attempt at Conspiracy Theory Debunking
Last Year’s Top Bilge
Discussion
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