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None of these effects is new. One could print anything on pamphlets, or shout it in the town square before literacy was widespread. When searching for that boo

None of these effects is new. One could print anything on pamphlets, or shout it in the town square before literacy was widespread. When searching for that boots quote to put here, I found this reference with excellent 18th century quotes about the issue: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/07/13/truth/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/07/13/truth/ There's the possibility that the internet has made it worse, but that's a theory I've yet to see evidence for. You could spread fake news a day before the election in ancient Rome or Greece, what would stop you? Today at least we have most people doubting candidate cannibalism stories because if they were true they would be on mainstream sites. What did they have back then? It was normal to not have access to a second news source to seek out at reasonable effort for months. Even with all the garbage out there, I think the cheap mass access to information was a net gain. Lies can be made up on the spot, while the truth must be carefully researched. Being able to put a well-researched rebut on a blog where someone might read it is something, something they didn't have before. Everyone would just go home after the people who could produce information on the spot had shouted it.

joejerryronnie 8y ago
While this may be true, it doesn’t provide a scapegoat for why I can’t buy a house in SF.
Amezarak 8y ago
Indeed, there is nothing new about this issue at all. It was even one of the arguments used in the Constitutional Convention as to why the new American government needed to be much less democratic than it ended up being. > Mr. GERRY. The evils we experience flow from the excess of democracy. The people do not want virtue, but are the dupes of pretended patriots. In Massts. it had been fully confirmed by experience that they are daily misled into the most baneful measures and opinions by the false reports circulated by designing men, and which no one on the spot can refute. One principal evil arises from the want of due provision for those employed in the administration of Governmt. It would seem to be a maxim of democracy to starve the public servants. He mentioned the popular clamour in Massts. for the reduction of salaries and the attack made on that of the Govr. though secured by the spirit of the Constitution itself. He had he said been too republican heretofore: he was still however republican, but had been taught by experience the danger of the levilling spirit. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/debates_531.asp http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/debates_531.asp Outright propaganda, foreign 'interference', and yellow journalism were extremely common in the era that the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were created! The media of the day was substantially less centralized, even a medium-sized town had multiple newspapers, and political pamphlets of all natures were common. Complaints that the people are voting 'wrong' because they're misinformed by 'designing men' are absolutely nothing new and date back to our earliest democracies. Really, the only interesting part is that the complainants are almost always defending entrenched, powerful interests. In American history, it has always been populist and/or socialist movements decried as the result of a woefully misinformed populace, and it was always analogous movements in e.g., Athens and Rome (the Gracchi, for example.) Propaganda supporting the entrenched rich and powerful and their policies is, somehow, never seen as an issue. Going back again to the early years of America, the hysteria about 'propaganda' led to the passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts, which were used to suppress the Democratic-Republicans and their press outlets...which ended with the Federalists being crushed in the 1800 election. When I hear complaints about propaganda in democracies, what I hear is the complaints of the rich and powerful that the common people might be voting in their own interest, instead of those of the rich and powerful.
ben_w 8y ago
Indeed. My apologies for being unclear as you are not the only one to misunderstand me. Obviously the Internet didn’t result in the invention of propaganda, my point was merely that it makes propaganda much easier. It puts the tools of mass propaganda in reach of ordinary people. If you use “democratise” to mean “make equality available to all” (the meaning which I object to), then you could say that it democratises propaganda.
- Amezarak 8y ago
  > It puts the tools of mass propaganda in reach of ordinary people. But this is exactly what we're saying is not new. It only appears new to some because the 20th century was characterized by both expensive, government-licensed mass media (radio and television) and by the consolidation of the media industry. These factors had the effect of taking media access away from the common man and giving authority to a new set of gatekeepers, as well as (we've increasingly seen), the government, which the media depends on, and which is also much more easily able to control the output of the media than previously. In the past, there was an incredible proliferation of newspapers, not by any means all or even mostly owned by the rich, and even the common man could afford to take out an ad or have some pamphlets printed. By doing this he could easily achieve obtain a regional and even a national audience. And in pre-printing press societies, most non-state news traveled by word of mouth, which was free and could not be controlled by the state except with difficulty. You might object this wasn't mass media, but the objection is moot - one person speaking in the Assembly in Athens was sufficient to move the entire state. It appears that Internet media is quickly moving toward the 20th century model - owned and controlled by a small contingent of very wealthy men. The difference is that yes, the content is produced by the people, rather than generated by an editor and his staff, but nevertheless, it's clear that with government and established media pressure, social media networks are all too happy to control what opinions are allowed on their platform.

joejerryronnie 8y ago

While this may be true, it doesn’t provide a scapegoat for why I can’t buy a house in SF.

Amezarak 8y ago

Indeed, there is nothing new about this issue at all. It was even one of the arguments used in the Constitutional Convention as to why the new American government needed to be much less democratic than it ended up being. > Mr. GERRY. The evils we experience flow from the excess of democracy. The people do not want virtue, but are the dupes of pretended patriots. In Massts. it had been fully confirmed by experience that they are daily misled into the most baneful measures and opinions by the false reports circulated by designing men, and which no one on the spot can refute. One principal evil arises from the want of due provision for those employed in the administration of Governmt. It would seem to be a maxim of democracy to starve the public servants. He mentioned the popular clamour in Massts. for the reduction of salaries and the attack made on that of the Govr. though secured by the spirit of the Constitution itself. He had he said been too republican heretofore: he was still however republican, but had been taught by experience the danger of the levilling spirit. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/debates_531.asp http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/debates_531.asp Outright propaganda, foreign 'interference', and yellow journalism were extremely common in the era that the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were created! The media of the day was substantially less centralized, even a medium-sized town had multiple newspapers, and political pamphlets of all natures were common. Complaints that the people are voting 'wrong' because they're misinformed by 'designing men' are absolutely nothing new and date back to our earliest democracies. Really, the only interesting part is that the complainants are almost always defending entrenched, powerful interests. In American history, it has always been populist and/or socialist movements decried as the result of a woefully misinformed populace, and it was always analogous movements in e.g., Athens and Rome (the Gracchi, for example.) Propaganda supporting the entrenched rich and powerful and their policies is, somehow, never seen as an issue. Going back again to the early years of America, the hysteria about 'propaganda' led to the passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts, which were used to suppress the Democratic-Republicans and their press outlets...which ended with the Federalists being crushed in the 1800 election. When I hear complaints about propaganda in democracies, what I hear is the complaints of the rich and powerful that the common people might be voting in their own interest, instead of those of the rich and powerful.

ben_w 8y ago

Indeed. My apologies for being unclear as you are not the only one to misunderstand me. Obviously the Internet didn’t result in the invention of propaganda, my point was merely that it makes propaganda much easier. It puts the tools of mass propaganda in reach of ordinary people. If you use “democratise” to mean “make equality available to all” (the meaning which I object to), then you could say that it democratises propaganda.

Amezarak 8y ago
> It puts the tools of mass propaganda in reach of ordinary people. But this is exactly what we're saying is not new. It only appears new to some because the 20th century was characterized by both expensive, government-licensed mass media (radio and television) and by the consolidation of the media industry. These factors had the effect of taking media access away from the common man and giving authority to a new set of gatekeepers, as well as (we've increasingly seen), the government, which the media depends on, and which is also much more easily able to control the output of the media than previously. In the past, there was an incredible proliferation of newspapers, not by any means all or even mostly owned by the rich, and even the common man could afford to take out an ad or have some pamphlets printed. By doing this he could easily achieve obtain a regional and even a national audience. And in pre-printing press societies, most non-state news traveled by word of mouth, which was free and could not be controlled by the state except with difficulty. You might object this wasn't mass media, but the objection is moot - one person speaking in the Assembly in Athens was sufficient to move the entire state. It appears that Internet media is quickly moving toward the 20th century model - owned and controlled by a small contingent of very wealthy men. The difference is that yes, the content is produced by the people, rather than generated by an editor and his staff, but nevertheless, it's clear that with government and established media pressure, social media networks are all too happy to control what opinions are allowed on their platform.