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0 pointssomenameforme2y ago0 comments

Don't you think your own example contradicts your premise? People have radically different biases. And so manufacturing consent requires the elimination of dissenting views, yet the internet specifically enables those views to flourish. For instance I had absolutely no idea what you were talking about with regards to Bin Laden, yet 30 seconds later I was reading a letter he wrote that there have apparently been widespread efforts to try to censor.

Manufacturing consent in this context would require the gradual but systematic elimination of every major platform and medium that might publish narratives contrary to the desired one, and that's simply not possible. And even if it were, that clearly artificial homogeneity would itself drive distrust. See the USSR where the government not only directly controlled literally every single medium for communication, but also strictly ideologically filtered for admittance (or exit) from the country. Nonetheless this led to widespread jokes like, "Why do we have two newspapers, Pravda (meaning truth) and Novesti (meaning news)? Well that's because there's no news in the truth, and no truth in the news."

So we can even go one step further and say that to manufacture consent you need to not only eliminate all dissenting views, but you also need to somehow hide that from your public and make them believe that what they are reading is free to diverge from the official narrative. Chomsky, of course, hit on this exact nuance with his famous quote, "The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum..." But now a days you can no longer limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, because with the internet you can find communities where basically any view, no matter how fringe, is the norm.

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TaylorAlexander2y ago

> Manufacturing consent in this context would require the gradual but systematic elimination of every major platform and medium that might publish narratives contrary to the desired one

Why do you think they’re forcing TikTok to change ownership? US corporations are much easier to control.

riehwvfbk2y ago

Notice that you had to seek that content out. The algorithm would have just kept you safely cocooned in your bubble. This Bin Laden content was viral. Spread like wildfire. Talked about on the news. And you had 0 awareness of it. If this doesn't convince you that information bubbles exist, I don't know what will.

Here's what I mean by manufacture of consent - the system knows your "syntax": the set of memes you'll respond to, and can deliver any message over that channel. Note that another person's "syntax" may be different, yet the same message can be delivered to both of you while maintaining the illusion of information topic diversity.

It's also possible to eliminate a viewpoint by associating it with people who are crazy, or otherwise unpalatable. By spreading stories about a select few people on the right, for example, the mainstream media has now manufactured a "far-right" label that can now be used to mean "anything a Berkeley coffee shop customer would disagree with". Here's a recent example: https://www.politico.eu/article/alternative-for-germany-afd-... After a few pages of ridiculing the supporters they interview a single person, a chain smoking mother of 8 from Eastern Germany. The implication of course being: if you listen to anything these people say, that's who you are. Never mind that even chain-smoking mothers of 8 are supposed to have representation in a democracy.

Or you can stop an effort to create some financial accountability with a simple "they are with the Russians" and leave it at that.

somenameformeOP2y ago

I think you need to prefix your assumptions here with a large ostensibly. Of course you're right that this is what "they" are trying to do and what they believe. But the only real result has been that trust in media has essentially disappeared, with government not far behind. This [1] article was shared on here sometime back. Only 25% do not think the media is trying to actively mislead them (50% do, 25% undecided), only 23% believe journalists act in the public's best interest, and so on. This is why I offered the USSR as an example.

This sort of propaganda/censorship package is tried by literally every single collapsing empire, and it just backfires horribly every single time. The only modern feature will be propaganda bots, but that will likely be even worse. Because the thing is, you can't just convince people that 2+2=5 by screaming it at them endlessly. The only time propaganda really works is on topics that people know absolutely nothing about and have no preformed opinions - like certain wars. But even that tends to very liminal, and then once people realize that things weren't exactly as they were led to believe, they're now that much less trusting of you.

I think your own example also emphasizes this reality. AfD isn't unique. Such parties are skyrocketing in popularity all throughout Europe. See the Sweden Democrats [2] who may soon become the largest party in Sweden. If you took out the ad hominem attacks against them, that Wiki page would be about 10% as long. Yet not only is the propaganda failing to change minds in the desired direction, if anything it seems to be having the exact opposite effect. Like always. But if politicians, let alone countries, were capable of learning from the past - then we might not find ourselves where are today, playing history on repeat like hamsters going around on a treadmill, with little but technology offering a refreshing change of scenery.

[1] - https://fortune.com/2023/02/15/trust-in-media-low-misinform-...

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden_Democrats

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