In How I Learned The Facts of Life, I devote a chapter to Russian interference in our 2016 election, and specifiy some things they did to deliver crapola to us Americans.
I wrote a later chapter about what kind of fakery will be spewed out for our upcoming election.
There seems to be no question that, having congratulated themselves at their epic 2016 success, the Russians would be at it again. For them, it’s a low cost war with, so far, no nasty consequences.
The thing is, I don’t think the Russians — and other adversaries — are particularly interested in whom we elect to office. Their primary interest is in making us confused, worried, untrusting of factual information and the free press which provide its. I fancy Putin has a vision of us in the United States running around like terrified chickens, pecking at each other. Being fools for fakery.
So I keep a sharp eye on factual news about what the Russians are doing. And yesterday, The Times provided me with, “To Influence Americans In Election Year, Russia Spreads Fake Virus Data.”
Well, sure. Instead of planting lies about Hillary, we now have a pandemic to face, so why not stir up crazy trouble among people who are generally fearful, or can be made fearful, about vaccines or science? People who get their “facts” from propaganda TV or conspiracy media. (According to the article, the Russians are also putting out fake stuff to discredit NATO. The only person I know who believes it is Trump.)
But the most important information in this article is within the sub-headline: “Declassified U.S. intelligence accuses Moscow of pushing propaganda through alternative websites as Russia refines techniques used in 2016.”
I bolded the most important part.
The article is full of names of such newly created sites and even “foundations” created to distribute Russian crapola to newly invented websites. It’s certainly worth a full read but you don’t have to memorize the names of these sites in order to avoid them.
Indeed, How I Learned The Facts of Life is totally dedicated to letting everyone know that we (more bolding) can’t get facts from ‘alternative websites.’ We can’t get reliable facts from TV news. We can’t get factual news from social media.
More bolding. We can only get facts from credible newspapers, supplemented by highly regarded magazines.
It’s so easy. Don’t get your facts from ‘alternative websites,’ or social media, like Facebook and Twitter. If a piece of suspicious “information” manages to sneak into your awareness and you have a moment of wondering whether it’s real, check it in your newspaper.
Read newspapers for factual news.
So easy.