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When the media and establishment are repeatedly caught misleading the public, the result is the proliferation of conspiracy theories and a culture of distrust.

When the media and establishment are repeatedly caught misleading the public, the result is the proliferation of conspiracy theories and a culture of distrust. Alex Jones isn't the answer, but neither is he the main problem. The problem is corruption in the mainstream media. That's far more pressing than grassroots videos that while probably incorrect at least challenge people to question what they're told. I think there's a general and growing distrust of media that feeds into people like Alex Jones' popularity. I don't know how many of those people take him 100% seriously vs how many are just happy listening to an outsider that's taking shots at known corruption.

wavefunction 7y ago
My issue with conspiracy theory commercializers is that they don't give or promote the intellectual tools to "question what they're told", they just prompt people (primarily through appeals to emotion, especially fear and anger) and then turn it into a commercial product that justifies any lie. And there are real social effects from these conspiracy peddlers, like people who've lost their young children in a mass shooting receiving death threats and accusations that their dear child never existed and it's all a hoax. I mean, I saw an anti-vaxxer post from social media that unknowingly suggested "a small piece of a virus instead of toxic chemicals" as an alternative to vaccines...
- krapp 7y ago
  It would be one thing if Alex Jones and his ilk were actually challenging people to think critically and be skeptical, and look for evidence before reaching conclusions and to be aware of biases both external and internal. Those are useful values. But they simply declare that the entirety of the mainstream narrative is a lie (and that, therefore, only the alternative can be trusted) and then tell you exactly what to believe and then eventually sell you gold coins to hide under your mattress for when the globalist feminazi lizard-men finally come for your guns and precious bodily fluids. People like Alex Jones aren't helping anyone, certainly not honest skeptics, I don't understand the efforts I see to portray him and others like him as merely the loyal opposition telling truth to power, or something akin to a court jester. Ok. The mainstream media is biased and corrupt... but if someone thinks the mainstream media is more biased and more corrupt than much of the alt-conspiracy media, they're very much mistaken.
majormajor 7y ago
Crackpots and nutjobs have always been with us, their existence doesn't tell us anything about today vs yesterday. A claim that today is "more dishonest" than times in the past is also tough to substantiate. The useful part of the debate today is if there is a responsibility for those who have ended up as potential gatekeepers to either help promote those people or to limit their audience by moderating platforms. Historically, the unhinged got distributed only as far as they could personally manage to coordinate; should we be handing bullhorns out to everyone? Free speech vs personal responsibility vs whatever other buzzword you like.
- reaperducer 7y ago
  A claim that today is "more dishonest" than times in the past is also tough to substantiate. It's like how PBS has been pounding in its promos for the last few months that "We're a country divided like never before." Well, not really. Yes, American politics is terrible now, but it's nothing like back in the 1800's. Posting some of the campaign literature that was distributed back then would get you banned from any modern electronic medium today.
  - creaghpatr 7y ago
    Eh, I'm ok with a little commercial puffery. It is an election year, after all. When the Olympics roll around this summer the promos are going to say "it's that time when America comes together".
  - uxp100 7y ago
    Divided like no time in the past 80 years would be true I think. Maybe not the last 100?
    - creaghpatr 7y ago
      That time we sacrificed 58,000 Americans in the Vietnam War was pretty controversial.
      - 7y ago
reaperducer 7y ago
When the media and establishment are repeatedly caught misleading the public, the result is the proliferation of conspiracy theories and a culture of distrust Conspiracy theories happen whether the media is trustworthy or not. They existed many hundreds of years before there was mass media. There's just something about certain people that makes their brains click, "That logical thing doesn't make sense to me. But this crazy thing does. And I need to tell everyone about it." The internet has enabled the third part of that like never before. Before the internet, it was whackjobs in online fora. Before that they were on BBSes. Before that, shortwave radio. Before that, books, pamphlets, fly posters, leaflets, and handbills. Before that, they would just stand on street corners shouting. Most of the non-electronic methods still exist and are used frequently. From the guy with the megaphone walking around the Chicago Loop bitching about the FBI in his brain to Screamin' Jesus on the street corner of Lock Haven, Pennsylvania. The promise of the internet was to give everyone an "equal voice." We probably should have solved mental health first.
- ng12 7y ago
  > The promise of the internet was to give everyone an "equal voice." We probably should have solved mental health first. This idea that you're only allowed a platform once you've been "fixed" is exactly what pushes people towards conspiracy theories in the first place. It's a reaction to authoritarian mono-culture.
- LinuxBender 7y ago
  I have a slightly different take on it. From what I have seen, conspiracy theorists, some of them at least, will see snippets of truth and will start to fill in the blanks. Their methods of communication are usually filled in with passion and emotion. The end result often looks "crazy", but has bits of truth that have to be sifted out. I've learned to pay attention to some of the nutters, because they may not really be entirely nuts. Rather, they may have serotonin balance issues and communication problems. I have found more often than not that they were right more or less, at least partially. Alex Jones is actually a prime example of this. Most of the things he has espoused for many years have actually turned out to be true, but when he communicates these ideas, he sounds really out there. I personally know a couple people just like him. It's the same story. They see a series of events. They try to put them together and are usually just a little off base. The real problem is how they convey the picture. I find that I have to calm them down and "bring them back to earth" to find out what they really saw.
colordrops 7y ago
Good point, in summary, Alex Jones is the symptom, not the disease.
- VerDeTerre 7y ago
  Or, to belabor the disease analogy, an opportunistic infection. Distrust makes it easier for otherwise fringe sources to spread beyond what would be expected in a healthy media environment.
trekrich 7y ago
i watch alex jones, and fox news. And CNN and MSNBC. BBC Sky news etc. To try to get all the view points.
- creaghpatr 7y ago
  Both Alex Jones and Hacker News are concerned about toxins in the US water supply!
powowow 7y ago
I strongly suggest you learn more about the history of media. Your post has nostalgia for a time that never existed. You may also wish to consider the notion that your perception of newfound media dishonesty has more to do with a well-known demagogue who has made it a mission to destroy all media outlets that do not fully support him than anything in the media.
yalogin 7y ago
Can you give me an example of "media and establishment are repeatedly caught misleading the public"? Are there documented cases outside of Fox news? Its a genuine question. I thought the rest of the main stream doesn't lie and if they realize what they reported is wrong they retract and issue and correction/apology as needed. My impression is the whole "media is lying" is a narrative furthered by Fox, right wing talk radio and more so Trump now to discredit the good institutions and to bring their trust level down.
- kaffeemitsahne 7y ago
  I can give an example from the New York Times relating to the Iraq War, I took it from wikipedia [1]: In the buildup to the 2003 war, the New York Times published a number of stories claiming to prove that Iraq possessed WMD. One story in particular, written by Judith Miller, helped persuade the American public that Iraq had WMD: in September 2002 she wrote about an intercepted shipment of aluminum tubes which the NYT said were to be used to develop nuclear material.[83] It is now generally understood that they were not intended (or well suited) for that purpose but rather for artillery rockets.[84] The story was followed up with television appearances by Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice all pointing to the story as part of the basis for taking military action against Iraq. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_and_weapons_of_mass_destr...
  - thinkcontext 7y ago
    That was not "the media is lying". Miller used Bush administration sources and confirmed with an Iraqi source that turned out to be the source of the Bush info. Its disputed whether she was misled by one or both of these sources or perhaps one of the sources misled the other. That the administration would rely on this reporting, rather than their own CIA which was calling it into question, is a reflection on their deception not the media's. It was bad reporting that was compounded by the editors not pushing back, as the article you cite goes on to say.
    - catalogia 7y ago
dobleboble 7y ago
Oh wow, a new account criticizing the "main stream media".

wavefunction 7y ago

My issue with conspiracy theory commercializers is that they don't give or promote the intellectual tools to "question what they're told", they just prompt people (primarily through appeals to emotion, especially fear and anger) and then turn it into a commercial product that justifies any lie. And there are real social effects from these conspiracy peddlers, like people who've lost their young children in a mass shooting receiving death threats and accusations that their dear child never existed and it's all a hoax. I mean, I saw an anti-vaxxer post from social media that unknowingly suggested "a small piece of a virus instead of toxic chemicals" as an alternative to vaccines...

krapp 7y ago
It would be one thing if Alex Jones and his ilk were actually challenging people to think critically and be skeptical, and look for evidence before reaching conclusions and to be aware of biases both external and internal. Those are useful values. But they simply declare that the entirety of the mainstream narrative is a lie (and that, therefore, only the alternative can be trusted) and then tell you exactly what to believe and then eventually sell you gold coins to hide under your mattress for when the globalist feminazi lizard-men finally come for your guns and precious bodily fluids. People like Alex Jones aren't helping anyone, certainly not honest skeptics, I don't understand the efforts I see to portray him and others like him as merely the loyal opposition telling truth to power, or something akin to a court jester. Ok. The mainstream media is biased and corrupt... but if someone thinks the mainstream media is more biased and more corrupt than much of the alt-conspiracy media, they're very much mistaken.

majormajor 7y ago

Crackpots and nutjobs have always been with us, their existence doesn't tell us anything about today vs yesterday. A claim that today is "more dishonest" than times in the past is also tough to substantiate. The useful part of the debate today is if there is a responsibility for those who have ended up as potential gatekeepers to either help promote those people or to limit their audience by moderating platforms. Historically, the unhinged got distributed only as far as they could personally manage to coordinate; should we be handing bullhorns out to everyone? Free speech vs personal responsibility vs whatever other buzzword you like.

reaperducer 7y ago
A claim that today is "more dishonest" than times in the past is also tough to substantiate. It's like how PBS has been pounding in its promos for the last few months that "We're a country divided like never before." Well, not really. Yes, American politics is terrible now, but it's nothing like back in the 1800's. Posting some of the campaign literature that was distributed back then would get you banned from any modern electronic medium today.
- creaghpatr 7y ago
  Eh, I'm ok with a little commercial puffery. It is an election year, after all. When the Olympics roll around this summer the promos are going to say "it's that time when America comes together".
- uxp100 7y ago
  Divided like no time in the past 80 years would be true I think. Maybe not the last 100?
  - creaghpatr 7y ago
    That time we sacrificed 58,000 Americans in the Vietnam War was pretty controversial.
    - 7y ago

reaperducer 7y ago

When the media and establishment are repeatedly caught misleading the public, the result is the proliferation of conspiracy theories and a culture of distrust Conspiracy theories happen whether the media is trustworthy or not. They existed many hundreds of years before there was mass media. There's just something about certain people that makes their brains click, "That logical thing doesn't make sense to me. But this crazy thing does. And I need to tell everyone about it." The internet has enabled the third part of that like never before. Before the internet, it was whackjobs in online fora. Before that they were on BBSes. Before that, shortwave radio. Before that, books, pamphlets, fly posters, leaflets, and handbills. Before that, they would just stand on street corners shouting. Most of the non-electronic methods still exist and are used frequently. From the guy with the megaphone walking around the Chicago Loop bitching about the FBI in his brain to Screamin' Jesus on the street corner of Lock Haven, Pennsylvania. The promise of the internet was to give everyone an "equal voice." We probably should have solved mental health first.

ng12 7y ago
> The promise of the internet was to give everyone an "equal voice." We probably should have solved mental health first. This idea that you're only allowed a platform once you've been "fixed" is exactly what pushes people towards conspiracy theories in the first place. It's a reaction to authoritarian mono-culture.
LinuxBender 7y ago
I have a slightly different take on it. From what I have seen, conspiracy theorists, some of them at least, will see snippets of truth and will start to fill in the blanks. Their methods of communication are usually filled in with passion and emotion. The end result often looks "crazy", but has bits of truth that have to be sifted out. I've learned to pay attention to some of the nutters, because they may not really be entirely nuts. Rather, they may have serotonin balance issues and communication problems. I have found more often than not that they were right more or less, at least partially. Alex Jones is actually a prime example of this. Most of the things he has espoused for many years have actually turned out to be true, but when he communicates these ideas, he sounds really out there. I personally know a couple people just like him. It's the same story. They see a series of events. They try to put them together and are usually just a little off base. The real problem is how they convey the picture. I find that I have to calm them down and "bring them back to earth" to find out what they really saw.

colordrops 7y ago

Good point, in summary, Alex Jones is the symptom, not the disease.

VerDeTerre 7y ago
Or, to belabor the disease analogy, an opportunistic infection. Distrust makes it easier for otherwise fringe sources to spread beyond what would be expected in a healthy media environment.

trekrich 7y ago

i watch alex jones, and fox news. And CNN and MSNBC. BBC Sky news etc. To try to get all the view points.

creaghpatr 7y ago
Both Alex Jones and Hacker News are concerned about toxins in the US water supply!

powowow 7y ago

I strongly suggest you learn more about the history of media. Your post has nostalgia for a time that never existed. You may also wish to consider the notion that your perception of newfound media dishonesty has more to do with a well-known demagogue who has made it a mission to destroy all media outlets that do not fully support him than anything in the media.

yalogin 7y ago

Can you give me an example of "media and establishment are repeatedly caught misleading the public"? Are there documented cases outside of Fox news? Its a genuine question. I thought the rest of the main stream doesn't lie and if they realize what they reported is wrong they retract and issue and correction/apology as needed. My impression is the whole "media is lying" is a narrative furthered by Fox, right wing talk radio and more so Trump now to discredit the good institutions and to bring their trust level down.

kaffeemitsahne 7y ago
I can give an example from the New York Times relating to the Iraq War, I took it from wikipedia [1]: In the buildup to the 2003 war, the New York Times published a number of stories claiming to prove that Iraq possessed WMD. One story in particular, written by Judith Miller, helped persuade the American public that Iraq had WMD: in September 2002 she wrote about an intercepted shipment of aluminum tubes which the NYT said were to be used to develop nuclear material.[83] It is now generally understood that they were not intended (or well suited) for that purpose but rather for artillery rockets.[84] The story was followed up with television appearances by Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice all pointing to the story as part of the basis for taking military action against Iraq. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_and_weapons_of_mass_destr...
- thinkcontext 7y ago
  That was not "the media is lying". Miller used Bush administration sources and confirmed with an Iraqi source that turned out to be the source of the Bush info. Its disputed whether she was misled by one or both of these sources or perhaps one of the sources misled the other. That the administration would rely on this reporting, rather than their own CIA which was calling it into question, is a reflection on their deception not the media's. It was bad reporting that was compounded by the editors not pushing back, as the article you cite goes on to say.
  - catalogia 7y ago

dobleboble 7y ago

Oh wow, a new account criticizing the "main stream media".