Tag Archives: propaganda

‘Fox News Model’ Fomenting Divisions Within Democratic Societies, Global Watchdog Warns

“The ‘Fox News-ization’ of the media poses a fatal danger for democracies because it undermines the basis of civil harmony and tolerant public debate,” said the leader of Reporters Without Borders.

By Kenny Stancil   Published 5-3-2022 by Common Dreams

Members of Truth Tuesdays and Rise and Resist gathered at the first weekly “Fox Lies Democracy Dies” protest outside the NewsCorp Building in New York City on November 23, 2021. Photo: Diane Greene Lent/flickr/CC

A global press freedom watchdog group warned Tuesday in its annual report that media polarization within and between countries—driven by the rapid spread of right-wing disinformation on social media and the proliferation of pro-authoritarian propaganda—is “fueling increased tension” and escalating the likelihood of violence.

The 20th World Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) assesses the state of journalism around the globe. The 2022 edition details the “disastrous effects of news and information chaos”—the product of “a globalized and unregulated online information space that encourages fake news and propaganda.” Continue reading

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EU Enacts Landmark Social Media Law to End Self-Regulation by Big Tech

“As the U.S. agonizes over misinformation and hate speech on social media and the harm it does to democracy,” said one journalist, the European Union passed the Digital Services Act “to tackle the problem.”

By Kenny Stancil  Published 4-23-2022 by Common Dreams

Photo: Jason Howie/flickr/CC

The European Union on Saturday passed a landmark law that seeks to reduce social media’s harmful effects by requiring Big Tech corporations to quash disinformation and illicit content on their platforms or else face multibillion-dollar fines.

The Digital Services Act (DSA) would compel Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter, and other platforms “to set up new policies and procedures to remove flagged hate speech, terrorist propaganda, and other material defined as illegal by countries within the European Union,” the New York Times reported. Continue reading

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What will 2022 bring in the way of misinformation on social media? 3 experts weigh in

A cutout display at a protest highlighted the connection between social media and the real-world effects of misinformation.
Caroline Brehman/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images

Anjana Susarla, Michigan State University; Dam Hee Kim, University of Arizona, and Ethan Zuckerman, UMass Amherst

At the end of 2020, it seemed hard to imagine a worse year for misinformation on social media, given the intensity of the presidential election and the trauma of the COVID-19 pandemic. But 2021 proved up to the task, starting with the Jan. 6 insurrection and continuing with copious amounts of falsehoods and distortions about COVID-19 vaccines.

To get a sense of what 2022 could hold, we asked three researchers about the evolution of misinformation on social media. Continue reading

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Propaganda and Islam: What You’re Not Being Told

The truth about Muslims and Islam.

By Justin King.  Published 6-21-2014 by The Anti-Media

Image: braveandboldthinking

Propaganda is the wheel by which the government steers the bus of a nation; typically driving it into war or off the cliff of humanity. It is amazing to see how many people who are otherwise rational human beings will blindly follow the herd on the matter of how subhuman a perceived national enemy is.

Some western media wonderfully paints Islam as a death cult bent on world domination. Continue reading

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Warning of Propaganda ‘Loudspeakers’ in Every American’s Pocket, Lawsuit Aims to Stop Trump’s Unblockable Text Messages

The suit argues the presidential alert system violates “Americans’ First and Fourth Amendment rights to be free from government-compelled listening.”

By Jake Johnson, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 10-2-2018

Photo: Gage Skidmore [CC-BY-SA 3.0] via Wikimedia Commons

With President Donald Trump set to send out the first unblockable “presidential alert” to every single U.S. resident with a cellphone on Wednesday, three New Yorkers are attemping to stop the intrusive text messages with a lawsuit arguing that the new emergency alert system “is tantamount to hijacking private property for the purpose of planting a government-controlled loudspeaker in the home and on the person of every American.”

Filed last week in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan by three New York activists—J.B. Nicholas, Kristine Rakowsky and Liane Nikitovich—the suit (pdf) claims the presidential alert system violates “Americans’ First and Fourth Amendment rights to be free from government-compelled listening, as well as warrantless, non-consensual trespass into and seizure of their cellular devices.”

Continue reading

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Poll: ‘Scary’ Number of Republicans Support Court-Ordered Press Censorship

45 percent of Republicans favor giving courts the power to shutter “biased” media outlets—a number commentators argued should be “scary for anyone concerned about the future of American democracy.”

By Jake Johnson, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 8-1-2017

“This poll seems to show one way how Donald Trump’s norm breaking is trickling down and shaping the opinions of rank-and-file Republicans,” said Will Jordan of the Global Strategy Group. (Photo: Majunznk/Flickr/cc)

As the Trump administration continues to make headlines for its attacks on the press and its attempts to prevent journalists from adequately covering White House press briefings, a recent YouGov/Economist poll (pdf) found that 45 percent of Republicans support giving courts the power to shut down “biased” media outlets—a result commentators argued should be “scary for anyone concerned about the future of American democracy.”

During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump repeatedly pilloried specific journalists and the news media more broadly; at one point he suggested that the First Amendment gives the press “too much freedom.” He has also continued to label the press “the enemy of the American people.” Continue reading

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‘Classic Propaganda’: Sinclair Broadcasting Pushes Aside Fox News to Become ‘Trump TV’

“It’s unheard of to have one company pushing one specific agenda reaching so many people and doing it in a way designed to evade local input”

By Common Dreams. Published 7-30-2017

The Sinclair Broadcasting cut a biased deal with Jared Kushner and the Trump campaign. Now the Trump FCC is paying back the favor. (screenshot)

During the 2016 Presidential campaign, the Sinclair Broadcasting group cut a deal with Jared Kushner for “good” coverage of the Trump Administration, which seems to have paid off.

Politico reported last December:

  Sinclair would broadcast their Trump interviews across the country without    commentary,  Kushner said. Kushner highlighted that Sinclair, in states like Ohio,  reaches a much wider audience — around 250,000 viewers[sic]— than networks like  CNN, which reach somewhere around 30,000. Continue reading

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Massive Corporate Consolidation of Local News Underway

By Anti-Media Staff. Published 5-12-2017 by The Anti-Media

Image: LittleRoughRhinestone [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

In a deal that will allow one broadcasting company to reach 72 percent of U.S. households through ownership of local news stations, it was reported this week that Sinclair Broadcast Group is buying Tribune Media for nearly $4 billion.

Such a move wouldn’t have been possible a few weeks back, but Donald Trump’s new Federal Trade Commission (FCC) chairman, Ajit Pai, just began implementing sweeping changes to previously established media ownership rules. Bloomberg explains: Continue reading

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Under Cover of Christmas, Obama Establishes Controversial Anti-Propaganda Agency

“It owns all these not-at-all-important laws are smuggled into NDAAs that are signed on Christmas Eve with basically no public debate,” wrote media critic Adam Johnson

By Lauren McCauley, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 12-26-2016

Buried within the $619 billion military budget is a controversial provision that establishes a national anti-propaganda center that critics warn could be dangerous for press freedoms. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

In the final hours before the Christmas holiday weekend, U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday quietly signed the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law—and buried within the $619 billion military budget (pdf) is a controversial provision that establishes a national anti-propaganda center that critics warn could be dangerous for press freedoms.

The Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act, introduced by Republican Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, establishes the Global Engagement Center under the State Department which coordinates efforts to “recognize, understand, expose, and counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts aimed at undermining United Sates national security interests.” Continue reading

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5 Ways George Orwell’s 1984 Has Come True Since It Was Published 67 Years Ago

By Claire Bernish. Published 6-8-2016 by The Anti-Media

orwell-1984-propaganda

United States — It’s debatable whether George Orwell surmised the ominous threat of totalitarianism that inspired him to pen the dystopic vision, 1984, would extend worldwide and resurface nearly seven decades after its publication. But the novel’s apt description of a world on end have undoubtedly come to pass.

Innumerable examples evidence how 1984 would better be described as a dark portent than a fascinating read, but one thing — the political language dubbed Newspeak, employed by the ruling government, Ingsoc — seems to have served as an instruction manual for the American empire. Continue reading

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