This is a great video. Re-working the thesis a bit, I think it comes down to this: Trump's supporter's feel like they're on the "inside" and see Trump's lies as a way to distract and upset the...
This is a great video.
Re-working the thesis a bit, I think it comes down to this:
Trump's supporter's feel like they're on the "inside" and see Trump's lies as a way to distract and upset the media and non-supporters. They don't care about the truth because to them Trump's words don't matter. He's always behind the scenes fighting the real battles.
Non-supporters maintain the procedure of debate and waste time arguing with someone who can't be argued with.
There's a related though separate tactic called the Gish gallop, named after a creationist who would use it in debates about evolution:
There's a related though separate tactic called the Gish gallop, named after a creationist who would use it in debates about evolution:
a debater confronts an opponent with a rapid series of many specious arguments, half-truths, and misrepresentations in a short space of time, which makes it impossible for the opponent to refute all of them within the format of a formal debate
Oh, thanks. That’s really interesting. It made me find this counter technique, mostly referring to the written form.
Oh, thanks. That’s really interesting. It made me find this counter technique, mostly referring to the written form.
Simply calling attention to the technique should be sufficient. For example, "You have listed a number of arguments, all of which deserve to be addressed. However, let's take one at a time." A more assertive response might be "You have made many unsupported claims, all of which have been debunked ad nauseaum." You can continue with "I would be glad to debunk them all for you here, but this would be outside the scope of this debate." or "Let's take them one at a time."
Another technique is to simply provide a link to place where someone else responded to the claim. For example:
The big problem the way I see it is that the media and social media are enabling the people using this technique. Every time a news channel air a live press conference with Trump or Sanders, or a...
The big problem the way I see it is that the media and social media are enabling the people using this technique. Every time a news channel air a live press conference with Trump or Sanders, or a live interview with Giuliani or one of Trump's other goons, they expose the public to the rapid-fire lies. They eventually stopped interviewing Conway, but it took them months to realise airing her only helped Trump, and that not a single word she said was actually worth airing. Hopefully they'll eventually realise this with the rest of them as well.
None of these people should ever be given live coverage by the media.
The social media part is harder. How do we stop Russian bots and Trump's cultists from spreading these lies on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and the comment sections of every single online newspaper? Again I think it's up to the platforms. They need explicit rules against this kind of behaviour, and heavy-handed moderation, as well as making it harder to use bots by implementing captchas and scaling back API tools. Newspapers should probably just close their comment sections completely, they were never a very good idea to begin with.
I have thought about this a bit, and even registered the domain RationalOutreach.com. The idea is that we could use the same “brigading” tactics, for lack of a better term, to spread actual facts...
I have thought about this a bit, and even registered the domain RationalOutreach.com. The idea is that we could use the same “brigading” tactics, for lack of a better term, to spread actual facts around the web en masse.
My personal opinion is that the rational people of the world are the quiet majority, while the irrational, dogma-driven people are much louder and they are better organized. RationalOutreach.com could be a place for the true silent majority to organize and mobilize.
It would be like the Russian troll army (there are many other examples of organized comment armies,) but out in the open, posting only verifiable facts in comments around the web.
Something like a wiki/Reddit where irrefutably false threads could be identified and the combated where they began. There would be a wiki for best tactics. Maybe people could post these b.s. threads and they could be upvoted by the community. Then other members could be deployed to destroy b.s. with facts.
Two groups that jump to my mind that would be ideal for members would be librarians and college students. Who else, any other possible groups?
There are many issues with this idea, for example should it be real ID, or pseudonyms? How do you keep out bad actors?
I would love to work on this idea and share any credit and ownership with folks that help.
Edit: maybe this site could partially be a fork of Tildes, with groups to help contributors focus on their areas of expertise?
I've seen several users on this site look down on this method of countering, saying that it's a hollow technique that leads to missing large points and instead just nitpicking, and that it doesn't...
I've seen several users on this site look down on this method of countering, saying that it's a hollow technique that leads to missing large points and instead just nitpicking, and that it doesn't belong in a place like this.
If anyone who is of that belief reads this comment: What do you suggest doing instead? If you're forced to confront this kind of rapid-fire overload of misinformation, what is the correct way to respond, if not a point-by-point breakdown?
The problem is that telling a lie takes just seconds, while making a proper counter-argument takes minutes. I could spend 5 minutes writing a comment with dozens of lies, and you'd have to spend...
The problem is that telling a lie takes just seconds, while making a proper counter-argument takes minutes. I could spend 5 minutes writing a comment with dozens of lies, and you'd have to spend hours properly debunking them. That gives me the power.
Here on Tildes I hope and assume that anyone caught using the FIrehose of Lies technique will be banned, but most of the Web isn't so lucky. @Adams suggests meeting the Firehose of Lies with a Firehose of Truth, beating the lies back almost as fast as they can be told.
What if we're dealing with a non-malicious case? What if someone is making a lot of points at once to the point where it's overwhelming that just happen to be wrong? The "firehose of truth" seems...
What if we're dealing with a non-malicious case? What if someone is making a lot of points at once to the point where it's overwhelming that just happen to be wrong? The "firehose of truth" seems like a good tool in this instance, since simply being wrong is not a bannable offense, but it still seems to be frowned upon.
Thanks for your comment. I agree with it entirely, and I have the embryo of an idea to fight this trend, which is outlined in this comment. What do you think of that? TL;DR an organized troll army...
Thanks for your comment. I agree with it entirely, and I have the embryo of an idea to fight this trend, which is outlined in this comment. What do you think of that?
I'm more worried about personnel costs. The Internet Research Agency and the 50 Cent Party get paid for their services. I very much doubt you'll find enough volunteers to counter them.
I'm more worried about personnel costs. The Internet Research Agency and the 50 Cent Party get paid for their services. I very much doubt you'll find enough volunteers to counter them.
I would love to keep it volunteer only if at all possible, so that people could never claim that we were paid shills. However, if a paid model proved to be necessary, then I would be open to that....
I would love to keep it volunteer only if at all possible, so that people could never claim that we were paid shills. However, if a paid model proved to be necessary, then I would be open to that. Both scenarios would require really good marketing and excellent automated onboarding for contributors. The site itself would to be a marvel in that regard.
I should add that the success of this venture would require other people, besides myself, being concerned about the possibility that these paid troll armies have really led to the end of the age...
I very much doubt you'll find enough volunteers to counter them.
I should add that the success of this venture would require other people, besides myself, being concerned about the possibility that these paid troll armies have really led to the end of the age of reason. If that is not the case, then the idea is lost from go.
Sadly, it really doesn't work like that in person. Public debates no longer exist to find the truth. They are there to polarize people and assure them that their belief is true. That's why you...
Sadly, it really doesn't work like that in person. Public debates no longer exist to find the truth. They are there to polarize people and assure them that their belief is true. That's why you don't debate creationists. Sure, it may be an obvious lie, but telling them the truth isn't going to change their minds. I'm sure we don't need to bring up the presidential debates; those are just jokes.
Do you feel like you must be taking crazy pills? I do. This is not happening on accident. A month and a half ago I posted this Rand Corporation piece on The Russian "Firehose of Falsehood"...
Do you feel like you must be taking crazy pills? I do. This is not happening on accident.
Today Vox released this argument in snappy video format and it ties the same technique to Trump’s torrent of blantent lies.
I would like to add that this is not a new propaganda technique. Dick Cheney and Fox convinced most of the country that Iraq had something to do with 9/11, when that was certainly not the case. Goebels made fun of the Big Lie as well, which is part of the firehose technique.
I am posting this just to remind everyone, myself included, that we are not taking crazy pills, and that the rumors of the death of objective truth are greatly exaggerated.
In the US at the moment, it also seems to have the intended effect of keeping the media focused on him, and providing a constant enemy for him and his supporters to fight against. That last part...
In the US at the moment, it also seems to have the intended effect of keeping the media focused on him, and providing a constant enemy for him and his supporters to fight against. That last part is actually rampant in political parties and even ideologies.
Another reason this is effective, is that it's difficult to know the truth unless you're invested in the specific subject in question. And there's so much information out there that no one can keep track of it all. It's easier to just listen to someone you like and put your blind trust in them, especially if you don't have the time, energy or will to investigate things on your own. People are guilty of this in all facets of life to some degree, and this method uses it to their advantage.
I think that would happen regardless - the key innovation of this propaganda technique is that it keeps the media focused on him, but always on some different aspect of him. And it provides a...
keeping the media focused on him, and providing a constant enemy for him and his supporters to fight against
I think that would happen regardless - the key innovation of this propaganda technique is that it keeps the media focused on him, but always on some different aspect of him. And it provides a fairly stationary target for his supporters, while presenting a moving target to his opponents.
For a concrete example, it was only one week ago that Trump's former campaign manager was convicted of 8 felonies. On the same day, Trump's personal lawyer pled guilty to more felonies and testified under oath that he committed those crimes at Trump's direction.
side note, imagine the counter-factual where President Hillary Clinton sees both John Podesta and a senior attorney for the Clinton Foundation convicted / plead guilty to felonies in the same day, and the response you would see from conservatives
In the week since, we've had news about North Korean nukes, NAFTA, alleged bias of Google...and that's just off the top of my head. The media is forced, by standards of journalism that predate Trump and that Trump has learned to exploit, to cover all of them, meaning they can't cover anything in any great depth.
Meanwhile, his supporters are given a few key narratives they can see the rest of the world through. Mueller's doing a big witch-hunt. All the foreign deals are Making America Great Again. Anyone who tells you things aren't going amazing is part of the biased fake news media. And so on.
This is the key tactic - give your supporters a stationary target to root for, and your opponents a moving target to attack.
Maybe the defence against this is ignoring the perpetrator. To make them into a noisy puppet and only report indifferently, e.g. "Trump said this shit" and then go onto other news, and politicians...
Maybe the defence against this is ignoring the perpetrator. To make them into a noisy puppet and only report indifferently, e.g. "Trump said this shit" and then go onto other news, and politicians just don't respond to him. Obviously that assumes democracy and freedom of speech are not compromised yet.
Then the media ends up becoming the perpetrator's mouthpiece. They're just repeating whatever the liar says, without offering any context or providing any analysis. There's no indication whether...
Maybe the defence against this is ignoring the perpetrator. To make them into a noisy puppet and only report indifferently
Then the media ends up becoming the perpetrator's mouthpiece. They're just repeating whatever the liar says, without offering any context or providing any analysis. There's no indication whether what the liar says matches reality or not. Many readers will then read the liar's message and take it at face value. "John Smith says he gave a million dollars to charity yesterday. Isn't he a nice man?" But did Mr Smith actually give that money? Is he a nice man? Who knows? The media is simply reporting what he says, and noone is responding to him or his statements.
But seemingly responding and debating doesn't work too. In Turkey during the recent elections Erdogan's main rival was Muharrem Ince. Erdogan uses these techniques too. Initially Ince was...
But seemingly responding and debating doesn't work too. In Turkey during the recent elections Erdogan's main rival was Muharrem Ince. Erdogan uses these techniques too. Initially Ince was indifferent to him and presented his plans and his goals, promising a fresh, peaceful start. Erdogan was mostly silent, his hand was not that strong given the economic crisis that was there but covered up. But then Ince started responding to him and falling in to pissing contests, and bam, crushed. Erdogan gets more than half of the votes first leg, the remaining 5 candidates share the rest of votes.
We can't fight the bad guys with truth. We can't fight them using populism and lies like them, even if we try. We can't fight them if we shout back at them. We can't fight them with reason an indifference. Then, how? What do we do? I don't have an answer, but then if no one has, then the world is destined to fail it seems... We'll all have to be islands of reason in an ocean of dishonesty idiocy selfishness and filth. Which is not something new, but still rather depressing.
This is a great video.
Re-working the thesis a bit, I think it comes down to this:
There's a related though separate tactic called the Gish gallop, named after a creationist who would use it in debates about evolution:
Oh, thanks. That’s really interesting. It made me find this counter technique, mostly referring to the written form.
This could work in a one-on-one debate, but is there some way for the public to combat this tactic on the much larger scale it's at right now?
The big problem the way I see it is that the media and social media are enabling the people using this technique. Every time a news channel air a live press conference with Trump or Sanders, or a live interview with Giuliani or one of Trump's other goons, they expose the public to the rapid-fire lies. They eventually stopped interviewing Conway, but it took them months to realise airing her only helped Trump, and that not a single word she said was actually worth airing. Hopefully they'll eventually realise this with the rest of them as well.
None of these people should ever be given live coverage by the media.
The social media part is harder. How do we stop Russian bots and Trump's cultists from spreading these lies on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and the comment sections of every single online newspaper? Again I think it's up to the platforms. They need explicit rules against this kind of behaviour, and heavy-handed moderation, as well as making it harder to use bots by implementing captchas and scaling back API tools. Newspapers should probably just close their comment sections completely, they were never a very good idea to begin with.
I have thought about this a bit, and even registered the domain RationalOutreach.com. The idea is that we could use the same “brigading” tactics, for lack of a better term, to spread actual facts around the web en masse.
My personal opinion is that the rational people of the world are the quiet majority, while the irrational, dogma-driven people are much louder and they are better organized. RationalOutreach.com could be a place for the true silent majority to organize and mobilize.
It would be like the Russian troll army (there are many other examples of organized comment armies,) but out in the open, posting only verifiable facts in comments around the web.
Something like a wiki/Reddit where irrefutably false threads could be identified and the combated where they began. There would be a wiki for best tactics. Maybe people could post these b.s. threads and they could be upvoted by the community. Then other members could be deployed to destroy b.s. with facts.
Two groups that jump to my mind that would be ideal for members would be librarians and college students. Who else, any other possible groups?
There are many issues with this idea, for example should it be real ID, or pseudonyms? How do you keep out bad actors?
I would love to work on this idea and share any credit and ownership with folks that help.
Edit: maybe this site could partially be a fork of Tildes, with groups to help contributors focus on their areas of expertise?
I've seen several users on this site look down on this method of countering, saying that it's a hollow technique that leads to missing large points and instead just nitpicking, and that it doesn't belong in a place like this.
If anyone who is of that belief reads this comment: What do you suggest doing instead? If you're forced to confront this kind of rapid-fire overload of misinformation, what is the correct way to respond, if not a point-by-point breakdown?
The problem is that telling a lie takes just seconds, while making a proper counter-argument takes minutes. I could spend 5 minutes writing a comment with dozens of lies, and you'd have to spend hours properly debunking them. That gives me the power.
Here on Tildes I hope and assume that anyone caught using the FIrehose of Lies technique will be banned, but most of the Web isn't so lucky. @Adams suggests meeting the Firehose of Lies with a Firehose of Truth, beating the lies back almost as fast as they can be told.
What if we're dealing with a non-malicious case? What if someone is making a lot of points at once to the point where it's overwhelming that just happen to be wrong? The "firehose of truth" seems like a good tool in this instance, since simply being wrong is not a bannable offense, but it still seems to be frowned upon.
You're right, banning should probably be reserved for repeat offenders.
Thanks for your comment. I agree with it entirely, and I have the embryo of an idea to fight this trend, which is outlined in this comment. What do you think of that?
TL;DR an organized troll army of fact checkers
Who's going to pay for it?
As far as server costs? Me for a few months, but it would have to become self-sustaining via donations to survive.
Edit: missed words
I'm more worried about personnel costs. The Internet Research Agency and the 50 Cent Party get paid for their services. I very much doubt you'll find enough volunteers to counter them.
I would love to keep it volunteer only if at all possible, so that people could never claim that we were paid shills. However, if a paid model proved to be necessary, then I would be open to that. Both scenarios would require really good marketing and excellent automated onboarding for contributors. The site itself would to be a marvel in that regard.
I should add that the success of this venture would require other people, besides myself, being concerned about the possibility that these paid troll armies have really led to the end of the age of reason. If that is not the case, then the idea is lost from go.
Sadly, it really doesn't work like that in person. Public debates no longer exist to find the truth. They are there to polarize people and assure them that their belief is true. That's why you don't debate creationists. Sure, it may be an obvious lie, but telling them the truth isn't going to change their minds. I'm sure we don't need to bring up the presidential debates; those are just jokes.
Do you feel like you must be taking crazy pills? I do. This is not happening on accident.
A month and a half ago I posted this Rand Corporation piece on The Russian "Firehose of Falsehood" Propaganda Model - Why It Might Work and Options to Counter It.
Today Vox released this argument in snappy video format and it ties the same technique to Trump’s torrent of blantent lies.
I would like to add that this is not a new propaganda technique. Dick Cheney and Fox convinced most of the country that Iraq had something to do with 9/11, when that was certainly not the case. Goebels made fun of the Big Lie as well, which is part of the firehose technique.
I am posting this just to remind everyone, myself included, that we are not taking crazy pills, and that the rumors of the death of objective truth are greatly exaggerated.
In the US at the moment, it also seems to have the intended effect of keeping the media focused on him, and providing a constant enemy for him and his supporters to fight against. That last part is actually rampant in political parties and even ideologies.
Another reason this is effective, is that it's difficult to know the truth unless you're invested in the specific subject in question. And there's so much information out there that no one can keep track of it all. It's easier to just listen to someone you like and put your blind trust in them, especially if you don't have the time, energy or will to investigate things on your own. People are guilty of this in all facets of life to some degree, and this method uses it to their advantage.
I think that would happen regardless - the key innovation of this propaganda technique is that it keeps the media focused on him, but always on some different aspect of him. And it provides a fairly stationary target for his supporters, while presenting a moving target to his opponents.
For a concrete example, it was only one week ago that Trump's former campaign manager was convicted of 8 felonies. On the same day, Trump's personal lawyer pled guilty to more felonies and testified under oath that he committed those crimes at Trump's direction.
side note, imagine the counter-factual where President Hillary Clinton sees both John Podesta and a senior attorney for the Clinton Foundation convicted / plead guilty to felonies in the same day, and the response you would see from conservatives
In the week since, we've had news about North Korean nukes, NAFTA, alleged bias of Google...and that's just off the top of my head. The media is forced, by standards of journalism that predate Trump and that Trump has learned to exploit, to cover all of them, meaning they can't cover anything in any great depth.
Meanwhile, his supporters are given a few key narratives they can see the rest of the world through. Mueller's doing a big witch-hunt. All the foreign deals are Making America Great Again. Anyone who tells you things aren't going amazing is part of the biased fake news media. And so on.
This is the key tactic - give your supporters a stationary target to root for, and your opponents a moving target to attack.
Maybe the defence against this is ignoring the perpetrator. To make them into a noisy puppet and only report indifferently, e.g. "Trump said this shit" and then go onto other news, and politicians just don't respond to him. Obviously that assumes democracy and freedom of speech are not compromised yet.
Then the media ends up becoming the perpetrator's mouthpiece. They're just repeating whatever the liar says, without offering any context or providing any analysis. There's no indication whether what the liar says matches reality or not. Many readers will then read the liar's message and take it at face value. "John Smith says he gave a million dollars to charity yesterday. Isn't he a nice man?" But did Mr Smith actually give that money? Is he a nice man? Who knows? The media is simply reporting what he says, and noone is responding to him or his statements.
But seemingly responding and debating doesn't work too. In Turkey during the recent elections Erdogan's main rival was Muharrem Ince. Erdogan uses these techniques too. Initially Ince was indifferent to him and presented his plans and his goals, promising a fresh, peaceful start. Erdogan was mostly silent, his hand was not that strong given the economic crisis that was there but covered up. But then Ince started responding to him and falling in to pissing contests, and bam, crushed. Erdogan gets more than half of the votes first leg, the remaining 5 candidates share the rest of votes.
We can't fight the bad guys with truth. We can't fight them using populism and lies like them, even if we try. We can't fight them if we shout back at them. We can't fight them with reason an indifference. Then, how? What do we do? I don't have an answer, but then if no one has, then the world is destined to fail it seems... We'll all have to be islands of reason in an ocean of dishonesty idiocy selfishness and filth. Which is not something new, but still rather depressing.