6 ms·

My family grew up behind the iron curtain. At a family event once I heard someone tell a story that I think has been the most accurate prediction of the last fe

My family grew up behind the iron curtain. At a family event once I heard someone tell a story that I think has been the most accurate prediction of the last few years (if anyone knows the actual interview event, please tell me more so I can get the exact wording, this is all paraphrasing from childhood memories). A western reporter travelled to the other side of the iron curtain once and was doing what he thought would be an easy west-is-great gotcha-style interview. He asked someone over there, "How do you even know what's going on in your country if your media is so tightly controlled?" Think Chernobyl-levels of tight-lipped ministry-of-information-approved newspapers. The easterner replied, "Oh, we're better informed than you guys. You see, the difference is we know what we're reading is all propaganda, so we try to piece together the truth from all the sources and from what isn't said. You in the west don't realize you're reading propaganda." I've been thinking about this more and more the last few years seeing how media bubbles have polarized, fragmented, and destabilized everyone and everything. God help us when cheap ubiquitous deepfakes industrialize the dissemination of perfectly-tailored engineered narratives.

catsdanxe 6y ago
Ask anyone from China and they will tell you the exact same thing. They know their news is state sponsored and all propaganda. People in the united states are blissfully unaware.
- istjohn 6y ago
  We still have a robust ecosystem of quality journalism in the US. There is bias, there are mistakes made, and there is false information masquerading as news that can mislead media consumers if they are not careful. But we are still very far from the situation in China and Russia. To be clear there is a problem, and it's growing, but let's not exaggerate.
  - justatdotin 6y ago
    https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/julian-assanges-treatment-amounts-torture-it-must-end https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/julian-assanges-treatme...
  - pydry 6y ago
    If Julian Assange were a Chinese citizen blowing the lid on Chinese war crimes in Xinjiang while they accused him of not feeding his cat we wouldn't bat an eyelid at denouncing their crackdown on journalism in their country.
Robotbeat 6y ago
Ah but universal cynicism and nihilism is also a form of control. When the very idea of objective truth has been destroyed, this makes the job of authoritarians easier, not harder.
- shadowfox 6y ago
  > Ah but universal cynicism and nihilism is also a form of control. When the very idea of objective truth has been destroyed, this makes the job of authoritarians easier, not harder. Universal cynicism and nihilism may function that way. But that was not the attitude of the person in the description. So I am not sure how that is relevant?
  - warkdarrior 6y ago
    The step from "I don't trust anyone so I need to triple check everything" to "cynicism and nihilism" is quite small, especially given the effort in triple checking all information.
- istjohn 6y ago
  Yes, which is why Russian propaganda is more concerned about muddying the waters than constructing any particular narrative.
  - asdff 6y ago
    Also, they realized how to take advantage of potential energy. Give groups a nudge, and they will write their own propaganda and circulate it, and it snowballs from there. I read a recent interview from someone working in the Internet Research Agency, and they said they don't even bother making content themselves anymore, they just try to push and amplify what's already there at the bottom of the fish tank and it works just as well.
    - jay3ss 6y ago
      Do you have a link to the interview? I'd like to give it a read too
ecoqba11 6y ago
Exactly, ask the same to anyone in Cuba or Venezuela.
dooglius 6y ago
> we try to piece together the truth from all the sources and from what isn't said I'm skeptical that this can be done effectively
- 082349872349872 6y ago
  Dr. Linebarger[1] wrote first a textbook (for the US army) and then a book (for the general public) on "Psychological Warfare" which incidentally contains a section, with an outlined method complete with mnemonic acronym (STASM), on media analysis. "If you agree with it, it's truth. If you don't agree, it's propaganda. Pretend that it is all propaganda. See what happens on your analysis reports." Mad magazine used to run "reading between the lines" pieces. [1] A while ago I learned The Game of Rat and Dragon is accurate insofar as felines not only have better reflexes than ours, they're among the best.
mturmon 6y ago
I find this unpersuasive. The level of control/conformity on canonical Western media was such that, for most topics of daily news, thinking about the bias of the reporter was not a first-order concern. For some topics (let's say, hot-button US-vs-USSR things, or race issues in the US), the bias of the source was of course important, anywhere. But for, say, reporting inflation, unemployment, or the wheat harvest, whether NBC news or the Washington Post was biased wasn't critical in the same way it would have been in the USSR. Basically, my argument is that the difference in degree is still a worthwhile difference.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- hindsightbias 6y ago
  While a segment of HN commenters could go on for hours about U-3 or U-6 unemployment numbers, the politicization of such, there is no real difference with most media consumers. Truth largely settles along a binary choice of the mainstream alternatives. Within those strains, views are very self-congruent. Perhaps that’s coincidence, or there are only two real truths, but I’ll defer to PG’s writings on that. The real difference is that those in the east were predisposed to be suspicious, whereas in the west that disposition or curiousity is not a thing.
  - blaser-waffle 6y ago
    There are plenty of real truths, it's not strictly binary. But it's in Pepsi's and Coke's best interest to have you think it's only those two.
- elgfare 6y ago
  Bias can be reflected in which stats are reported at all. There's also the framing of the numbers and the conclusions stated or implied.
- 082349872349872 6y ago
  Have you noticed the topics for which there's remarkable conformity between US and UK media compared with other western media? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23858477 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23858477 As to reporting unemployment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24364947 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24364947
nonsapreiche 6y ago
Remember me a joke, in USSR to know the truth you only need to put a NOT in front of an article of the Pravda, because are all false, in USA you can't because only half are false
DanielleMolloy 6y ago
I’ve heard this story too when growing up. I belong to one of the last generations born in the German Democratic Republic. A quite prominent element of our History and German lessons in the 2000s was critical reading of historic news and caricatures, we did these analyses in exams up to A-levels. Propaganda was a big topic, not only when learning about the Third Reich. One reason certainly was that all our teachers spent most of their lives in the GDR system. I’ve been wondering whether teachers who grew up on the other side of the curtain put a similar emphasis on the topic of propaganda, especially after social media uncovered lots of gullibility in the general public and a for me very difficult-to-understand trust in anything as long as it is written down somewhere, often not even looking at the source. Political effects of eastern german brain drain aside, one important difference between people in the former western and eastern parts of Germany up until today is how much they trust media and institutions like the church.
ptero 6y ago
It is sad that the wisdom from behind the iron curtain (where I grew up, too) is so fitting in the US (where I now live) today. I find that critical assessment of the media, resistance to propaganda and brainwashing detection skills acquired over there served me very well in the US. I wish those skills were teachable without recreating the full environment...
m463 6y ago
Somehow what you were saying reminded me of reading The Onion. You know, where they have those opinion pieces always with the same 6 photos (but a different name & occupation) each spouting something humorous? and curiously there is some truth at the hidden within each onion article.

catsdanxe 6y ago

Ask anyone from China and they will tell you the exact same thing. They know their news is state sponsored and all propaganda. People in the united states are blissfully unaware.

istjohn 6y ago
We still have a robust ecosystem of quality journalism in the US. There is bias, there are mistakes made, and there is false information masquerading as news that can mislead media consumers if they are not careful. But we are still very far from the situation in China and Russia. To be clear there is a problem, and it's growing, but let's not exaggerate.
- justatdotin 6y ago
  https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/julian-assanges-treatment-amounts-torture-it-must-end https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/julian-assanges-treatme...
- pydry 6y ago
  If Julian Assange were a Chinese citizen blowing the lid on Chinese war crimes in Xinjiang while they accused him of not feeding his cat we wouldn't bat an eyelid at denouncing their crackdown on journalism in their country.

Robotbeat 6y ago

Ah but universal cynicism and nihilism is also a form of control. When the very idea of objective truth has been destroyed, this makes the job of authoritarians easier, not harder.

shadowfox 6y ago
> Ah but universal cynicism and nihilism is also a form of control. When the very idea of objective truth has been destroyed, this makes the job of authoritarians easier, not harder. Universal cynicism and nihilism may function that way. But that was not the attitude of the person in the description. So I am not sure how that is relevant?
- warkdarrior 6y ago
  The step from "I don't trust anyone so I need to triple check everything" to "cynicism and nihilism" is quite small, especially given the effort in triple checking all information.
istjohn 6y ago
Yes, which is why Russian propaganda is more concerned about muddying the waters than constructing any particular narrative.
- asdff 6y ago
  Also, they realized how to take advantage of potential energy. Give groups a nudge, and they will write their own propaganda and circulate it, and it snowballs from there. I read a recent interview from someone working in the Internet Research Agency, and they said they don't even bother making content themselves anymore, they just try to push and amplify what's already there at the bottom of the fish tank and it works just as well.
  - jay3ss 6y ago
    Do you have a link to the interview? I'd like to give it a read too

ecoqba11 6y ago

Exactly, ask the same to anyone in Cuba or Venezuela.

dooglius 6y ago

> we try to piece together the truth from all the sources and from what isn't said I'm skeptical that this can be done effectively

082349872349872 6y ago
Dr. Linebarger[1] wrote first a textbook (for the US army) and then a book (for the general public) on "Psychological Warfare" which incidentally contains a section, with an outlined method complete with mnemonic acronym (STASM), on media analysis. "If you agree with it, it's truth. If you don't agree, it's propaganda. Pretend that it is all propaganda. See what happens on your analysis reports." Mad magazine used to run "reading between the lines" pieces. [1] A while ago I learned The Game of Rat and Dragon is accurate insofar as felines not only have better reflexes than ours, they're among the best.

mturmon 6y ago

I find this unpersuasive. The level of control/conformity on canonical Western media was such that, for most topics of daily news, thinking about the bias of the reporter was not a first-order concern. For some topics (let's say, hot-button US-vs-USSR things, or race issues in the US), the bias of the source was of course important, anywhere. But for, say, reporting inflation, unemployment, or the wheat harvest, whether NBC news or the Washington Post was biased wasn't critical in the same way it would have been in the USSR. Basically, my argument is that the difference in degree is still a worthwhile difference.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
hindsightbias 6y ago
While a segment of HN commenters could go on for hours about U-3 or U-6 unemployment numbers, the politicization of such, there is no real difference with most media consumers. Truth largely settles along a binary choice of the mainstream alternatives. Within those strains, views are very self-congruent. Perhaps that’s coincidence, or there are only two real truths, but I’ll defer to PG’s writings on that. The real difference is that those in the east were predisposed to be suspicious, whereas in the west that disposition or curiousity is not a thing.
- blaser-waffle 6y ago
  There are plenty of real truths, it's not strictly binary. But it's in Pepsi's and Coke's best interest to have you think it's only those two.
elgfare 6y ago
Bias can be reflected in which stats are reported at all. There's also the framing of the numbers and the conclusions stated or implied.
082349872349872 6y ago
Have you noticed the topics for which there's remarkable conformity between US and UK media compared with other western media? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23858477 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23858477 As to reporting unemployment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24364947 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24364947

nonsapreiche 6y ago

Remember me a joke, in USSR to know the truth you only need to put a NOT in front of an article of the Pravda, because are all false, in USA you can't because only half are false

DanielleMolloy 6y ago

I’ve heard this story too when growing up. I belong to one of the last generations born in the German Democratic Republic. A quite prominent element of our History and German lessons in the 2000s was critical reading of historic news and caricatures, we did these analyses in exams up to A-levels. Propaganda was a big topic, not only when learning about the Third Reich. One reason certainly was that all our teachers spent most of their lives in the GDR system. I’ve been wondering whether teachers who grew up on the other side of the curtain put a similar emphasis on the topic of propaganda, especially after social media uncovered lots of gullibility in the general public and a for me very difficult-to-understand trust in anything as long as it is written down somewhere, often not even looking at the source. Political effects of eastern german brain drain aside, one important difference between people in the former western and eastern parts of Germany up until today is how much they trust media and institutions like the church.

ptero 6y ago

It is sad that the wisdom from behind the iron curtain (where I grew up, too) is so fitting in the US (where I now live) today. I find that critical assessment of the media, resistance to propaganda and brainwashing detection skills acquired over there served me very well in the US. I wish those skills were teachable without recreating the full environment...

m463 6y ago

Somehow what you were saying reminded me of reading The Onion. You know, where they have those opinion pieces always with the same 6 photos (but a different name & occupation) each spouting something humorous? and curiously there is some truth at the hidden within each onion article.