4 ms·

> as long as people are trying to figure out how to fling mud at other publications And that's half of what this article boils down to, "as if these websites a

by ygaf 9y ago

> as long as people are trying to figure out how to fling mud at other publications And that's half of what this article boils down to, "as if these websites are above these". Google rankings for one story - the author is very specific in fetching that story - aren't going to strictly follow alexa rankings of entire websites. I can see pro-trump users clicking "No evidence of trump-russia collaboration" much more commonly than people who don't want to believe it is true. The author is onto something very believable, but he doesn't so much have evidence as whining.

mistermann 9y ago
From TFA: > Now let’s see exactly what’s up here. Together, we’re going to Google the phrase “trump no evidence collusion.” (And because Google searches change over time, I’ll drop screenshots of my results here.) What will emerge is a picture of an invisible hand writing a specific argument, over and over and over. That hand belongs to Robert Mercer, Trump’s data man, who gamed Google and fake news during the campaign and whose return to the scene is heralded by Trump’s war room and bot boom. If you want, you can read more about this crazyAF, richAF, crackpot genius with a heart of shit. > Before we begin, though, we need to establish the fact that this statement is a lie: “There’s no evidence of collusion!” The reason I’m using this specific example is because this highly nuanced claim is the perfect loophole to exploit for misinformation, to shade the truth as lie and get away with it clean. > The truth: no one in the intelligence community and no one on any of the Congressional committees looking into this thing, be they Democrat or Republican, none of them have said categorically, flat-out, “There is no evidence of collusion.” Period. People investigating the case will only go so far as to say they haven’t seen any evidence. Or that there hasn’t been any evidence made available to them yet. But they don’t ever say there flat-out isn’t any evidence of collusion. Ever. Read this if you don’t believe me. Maybe I misread/skimmed the article, or misunderstood the premise, but are these statements not more or less guilty of the same thing? Most any left-leaning (or at least anti-Trump) person I know is highly certain that Trump/Russia collusion is a fact, despite (as far as I know) no hard evidence being found. So to my mind, accusing pro-Trump people of being intellectually dishonest by saying "There’s no evidence of collusion!" is at least as great of a crime as whatever it is the pro-Trump side is doing. When we have reporting 24x7 on numerous news networks and casual news shows like the Daily Show repeating the Trump-Rusia story ad nauseum, stating the correct (is it not?) fact that no hard evidence of Trump/Russia collusion has so far at least been found seems like the lesser of two crimes. (Being pedantic, it is actually a true statement as far as the public record is concerned, based on my understanding). But them maybe I'm misunderstanding. If one wants to see something truly illuminating, set aside a few hours some evening, go on YouTube and watch some Noam Chomsky interviews, especially the more recent ones. Indeed I'm sure my mind is biased, but what you will see, albeit skewed by Noam's political leanings, is pretty damning to both sides. The hypocrisy of Americans being so incredibly morally outraged at election tampering is probably one of the biggest recurring gems you will come across, this whole thing borders on hilarious if you take off your partisan hat and actually think about it. About the only thing I feel quite confident about, is that anyone who has very strong leanings to one side or the other is likely wrong (compared to the actual omniscient truth).

by ygaf 9y ago

mistermann 9y ago

From TFA: > Now let’s see exactly what’s up here. Together, we’re going to Google the phrase “trump no evidence collusion.” (And because Google searches change over time, I’ll drop screenshots of my results here.) What will emerge is a picture of an invisible hand writing a specific argument, over and over and over. That hand belongs to Robert Mercer, Trump’s data man, who gamed Google and fake news during the campaign and whose return to the scene is heralded by Trump’s war room and bot boom. If you want, you can read more about this crazyAF, richAF, crackpot genius with a heart of shit. > Before we begin, though, we need to establish the fact that this statement is a lie: “There’s no evidence of collusion!” The reason I’m using this specific example is because this highly nuanced claim is the perfect loophole to exploit for misinformation, to shade the truth as lie and get away with it clean. > The truth: no one in the intelligence community and no one on any of the Congressional committees looking into this thing, be they Democrat or Republican, none of them have said categorically, flat-out, “There is no evidence of collusion.” Period. People investigating the case will only go so far as to say they haven’t seen any evidence. Or that there hasn’t been any evidence made available to them yet. But they don’t ever say there flat-out isn’t any evidence of collusion. Ever. Read this if you don’t believe me. Maybe I misread/skimmed the article, or misunderstood the premise, but are these statements not more or less guilty of the same thing? Most any left-leaning (or at least anti-Trump) person I know is highly certain that Trump/Russia collusion is a fact, despite (as far as I know) no hard evidence being found. So to my mind, accusing pro-Trump people of being intellectually dishonest by saying "There’s no evidence of collusion!" is at least as great of a crime as whatever it is the pro-Trump side is doing. When we have reporting 24x7 on numerous news networks and casual news shows like the Daily Show repeating the Trump-Rusia story ad nauseum, stating the correct (is it not?) fact that no hard evidence of Trump/Russia collusion has so far at least been found seems like the lesser of two crimes. (Being pedantic, it is actually a true statement as far as the public record is concerned, based on my understanding). But them maybe I'm misunderstanding. If one wants to see something truly illuminating, set aside a few hours some evening, go on YouTube and watch some Noam Chomsky interviews, especially the more recent ones. Indeed I'm sure my mind is biased, but what you will see, albeit skewed by Noam's political leanings, is pretty damning to both sides. The hypocrisy of Americans being so incredibly morally outraged at election tampering is probably one of the biggest recurring gems you will come across, this whole thing borders on hilarious if you take off your partisan hat and actually think about it. About the only thing I feel quite confident about, is that anyone who has very strong leanings to one side or the other is likely wrong (compared to the actual omniscient truth).