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When the Iraq WMD situation unfolded, it was met with plenty of skepticism. “MSM” gave it air time, but it was overcome by the deception of the administration a

When the Iraq WMD situation unfolded, it was met with plenty of skepticism. “MSM” gave it air time, but it was overcome by the deception of the administration at the time, e.g., Sec. Powell’s statements and the cherry-picked CIA assessment. Your example actually undermines your argument. If anything, we need honest actors around to poke holes in narratives produced by authorities, not ones with the goal of weakening society. This goes for nations that experience interference from the US as well. It makes sense that Iranian society should protect itself from covert US attempts at influence.

chiefalchemist 9y ago
It was "overcome" because the reporting had little backbone to begin with. Most of the rest of the world was demanding proof but the MSM did little to make the American public aware of that. Powell, the IC statements, etc. were just part of the theatre, part of the spin. The bottom line was, the MSM was on board and played a key roll in the WMDs snow job.
- raverbashing 9y ago
  Yes and not everybody bought what msm sold
  - chiefalchemist 9y ago
    True. But those who didn't believe were marginalized as unpatriotic.
- willyt 9y ago
  But no-one believed it. At the time there was a protest of well over 1M people in London against the war. Which is huge, between 1.5% and 3.3% of the entire population of Britain. My work actually gave us the day off to go to it.
  - chiefalchemist 9y ago
    Yes, basically that's what I said. That is, the USA MSM "under-reported" the lack of belief internationally. The American people were sold fiction and they gladly bought it.
    - erikpukinskis 9y ago
      That’s simply not true. There was a huge anti-war response in the U.S. too. The country was very divided on the subject.
      - chiefalchemist 9y ago
        Wrong issue. The issue here is the validity of the WMDs. There would be no war debate is that lie was exposed for what it was (i.e., a lie).
        deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
    - soundwave106 9y ago
      Mmm, there was definitely enough reports in US media that reported on the criticism if you listened hard enough. Linkregister's account was what I remembered. The polling history shows a distinctive minority that opposed the war (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_opinion_in_the_United_States_on_the_invasion_of_Iraq https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_opinion_in_the_United_...). I will buy the criticism that some media definitely did stick too obediently to the administration line, the question is how much did media influence opinion? Post-9/11 "feelings" were involved after all. From my viewpoint, Abu Ghraib and the "Mission Accomplished" statement that wasn't, among other things, were needed to change many people's minds.
      - chiefalchemist 9y ago
        > if you listened hard enough _that_ is the key. If The Fourth Estate is doing their job you shouldn't have to turn down the MSM noise to hear The Truth. Facts should be the majority not some passing fringe moment. And don't forget Bush's follow up lie "Mission Accomplished" wasn't scrutinized as it should have been.
mistermann 9y ago
I think his point was, if it happened now, any skepticism would be immediately dismissed as Russian trolls, as it is not consistent with the "correct" mainstream narrative. I see this happening frequently even where there is zero motive for Russians to be involved, but it is no less effective as we've let the authorities do our thinking for us for so long.
- paganel 9y ago
  Things are different the closer to Russia a country is (like Romania, from where I'm from). The thing with the fake FB accounts only showing "nice girls" as profile photos is all too real, I think I've reported 2 or 3 of them directly to FB, nothing happened, at which point I started calling them out as shill accounts directly. It's interesting seeing Russian propaganda in action. For Romania they have a website called sputnik.md which apparently is centered on Republic of Moldova's domestic issues, but every couple of days or so they have an article on Romania whose exact ideas then get regurgitated by some of the Romanian corrupt politicians or by the local corrupt media supporting them another couple of days later. > I see this happening frequently even where there is zero motive for Russians to be involved, but it is no less effective as we've let the authorities do our thinking for us for so long. Everybody gets involved, everybody, because it's so easy and relatively cheap and because the stakes are so high (controlling the public discourse, world-wide). It's just that at the moment the Russians are better at this internet-influencing game compared to the Americans and their allies (imho the Israelis are the best, but they only get involved when there's talk about Gaza and the West Bank). I guess this is payback for Radio Free Europe and Radio Voice of America, when the US used to have the upper hand.
  - linkregister 9y ago
    I agree, Russia has invested the most capital toward this tactic, and it has paid off. It also has had more historical success with this “sowing discord” tactic than the US, which preferred to spend money on puppet revolutionaries and coups during the cold war. I would rather that instead of the US government responding in kind with sockpuppets, it would do the much harder work of coming up with an enormous transparency initiative that would nullify the effectiveness of foreign and domestic attempts at sowing discord and propagating falsehoods. The best Soviet propaganda successes used instances that were genuine weaknesses for the US, such as civil rights and suspicion over US intelligence agencies’ abuses.

chiefalchemist 9y ago

It was "overcome" because the reporting had little backbone to begin with. Most of the rest of the world was demanding proof but the MSM did little to make the American public aware of that. Powell, the IC statements, etc. were just part of the theatre, part of the spin. The bottom line was, the MSM was on board and played a key roll in the WMDs snow job.

raverbashing 9y ago
Yes and not everybody bought what msm sold
- chiefalchemist 9y ago
  True. But those who didn't believe were marginalized as unpatriotic.
willyt 9y ago
But no-one believed it. At the time there was a protest of well over 1M people in London against the war. Which is huge, between 1.5% and 3.3% of the entire population of Britain. My work actually gave us the day off to go to it.
- chiefalchemist 9y ago
  Yes, basically that's what I said. That is, the USA MSM "under-reported" the lack of belief internationally. The American people were sold fiction and they gladly bought it.
  - erikpukinskis 9y ago
    That’s simply not true. There was a huge anti-war response in the U.S. too. The country was very divided on the subject.
    - chiefalchemist 9y ago
      Wrong issue. The issue here is the validity of the WMDs. There would be no war debate is that lie was exposed for what it was (i.e., a lie).
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
  - soundwave106 9y ago
    Mmm, there was definitely enough reports in US media that reported on the criticism if you listened hard enough. Linkregister's account was what I remembered. The polling history shows a distinctive minority that opposed the war (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_opinion_in_the_United_States_on_the_invasion_of_Iraq https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_opinion_in_the_United_...). I will buy the criticism that some media definitely did stick too obediently to the administration line, the question is how much did media influence opinion? Post-9/11 "feelings" were involved after all. From my viewpoint, Abu Ghraib and the "Mission Accomplished" statement that wasn't, among other things, were needed to change many people's minds.
    - chiefalchemist 9y ago
      > if you listened hard enough _that_ is the key. If The Fourth Estate is doing their job you shouldn't have to turn down the MSM noise to hear The Truth. Facts should be the majority not some passing fringe moment. And don't forget Bush's follow up lie "Mission Accomplished" wasn't scrutinized as it should have been.

mistermann 9y ago

I think his point was, if it happened now, any skepticism would be immediately dismissed as Russian trolls, as it is not consistent with the "correct" mainstream narrative. I see this happening frequently even where there is zero motive for Russians to be involved, but it is no less effective as we've let the authorities do our thinking for us for so long.

paganel 9y ago
Things are different the closer to Russia a country is (like Romania, from where I'm from). The thing with the fake FB accounts only showing "nice girls" as profile photos is all too real, I think I've reported 2 or 3 of them directly to FB, nothing happened, at which point I started calling them out as shill accounts directly. It's interesting seeing Russian propaganda in action. For Romania they have a website called sputnik.md which apparently is centered on Republic of Moldova's domestic issues, but every couple of days or so they have an article on Romania whose exact ideas then get regurgitated by some of the Romanian corrupt politicians or by the local corrupt media supporting them another couple of days later. > I see this happening frequently even where there is zero motive for Russians to be involved, but it is no less effective as we've let the authorities do our thinking for us for so long. Everybody gets involved, everybody, because it's so easy and relatively cheap and because the stakes are so high (controlling the public discourse, world-wide). It's just that at the moment the Russians are better at this internet-influencing game compared to the Americans and their allies (imho the Israelis are the best, but they only get involved when there's talk about Gaza and the West Bank). I guess this is payback for Radio Free Europe and Radio Voice of America, when the US used to have the upper hand.
- linkregister 9y ago
  I agree, Russia has invested the most capital toward this tactic, and it has paid off. It also has had more historical success with this “sowing discord” tactic than the US, which preferred to spend money on puppet revolutionaries and coups during the cold war. I would rather that instead of the US government responding in kind with sockpuppets, it would do the much harder work of coming up with an enormous transparency initiative that would nullify the effectiveness of foreign and domestic attempts at sowing discord and propagating falsehoods. The best Soviet propaganda successes used instances that were genuine weaknesses for the US, such as civil rights and suspicion over US intelligence agencies’ abuses.