Opinion | Trump didn’t win — disinformation did

https://www.rawstory.com/raw-investigates/trump-disinfo/

Posted by AlexandrTheTolerable

24 comments

  1. Some snippets from the article:

    Americans have embraced a known monster, someone who sells political violence and hatred, who tried to overthrow the last election. But it’s more complicated than that. Trump supporters in the US consume right wing propaganda far more than the rest of the country, which means they were either not informed about Trump’s sinister plans, or Fox and Musk succeeded in scaring them with a firehose of disinformation.

    An un-informed public cannot sustain a freely elected democracy. This is exactly what Musk, Murdoch, Putin, and destabilizing forces from around the world are banking on.

    I’ve been a trial lawyer for decades, and I’ve had the misfortune of litigating arcane aspects of First Amendment law. Fox and Musk have gotten away with spreading disinformation because of a self-serving [misinterpretation] of the political speech doctrine: The First Amendment protects ‘core political speech’. But Musk purchasing the world’s town square only to weaponize it to support his own agenda, and Fox admittedly lying to viewers nonstop to promote Trump, isn’t political speech [guaranteed] to legal protection.

    Weaponized disinformation will ultimately kill the First Amendment, which the Supreme Court recognized back in 1969 when it approved the Fairness Doctrine and required accuracy in the media. Even in politics, the foundational role of free speech is the promotion of free ideas, not to protect a nefarious publisher’s monopoly.

    Elon Musk is a disinformation superspreader who weaponized Twitter/X to amplify blatant lies to his 200 million followers. Fox is an admitted network of lies, one with nationwide reach close to that of Musk’s. Russia also disseminated false information to benefit Trump.

    US courts need to carefully consider the political speech doctrine before it does us in, if it hasn’t already.

    [Musk] and Fox’s willingness to skirt the law show the fruits of an intimidation campaign by Republican attorneys general and legislators designed to force social media to platform falsehoods and hate speech. These same nefarious forces will oppose any efforts to impose fairness in the media’s coverage of politics, because, for now, they benefit politically from the lies.

  2. Lmao, no, democrats didn’t have anything to show for 4 years

  3. Trump was probably the biggest source of disinformation, along with Elon Musk and his version of Twitter, and Putin’s brigade of cyber soldiers, trolls and bots. Oh, and Fox News and other right-wing propaganda outlets.

  4. We are in the middle of a dangerous crossroad.

    A large group that feel disenfranchised.

    Most of those people don’t trust traditional media.

    Don’t read books and or lack of understanding of history.

    AI is better than it’s ever been. Easier to trick people.

    Siloed by internet social media groups.

    These people have the ability to filter misinformation to cherry pick what fits their emotional narrative.

    We have a lot to learn from this mistakes made so far and what is to come. We also might have to wait until we have have a generation of people that are immune to this kind of misinformation before we can recover.

    I really don’t know what to the solution is right now. But I remain hopeful that these times won’t last forever. Nothing ever does.

  5. Now that Trump has won mass censorship on social media will be proposed as a response.

  6. Anything you didn’t hear from MSNBC is disinformation. 🙄

  7. Something very wrong with this election. Was it because she was a woman and black? Why in God’s name would a woman vote for him?

  8. People literally think kids are going to school as boys and coming back as girls

  9. He won due to the imaginary bad economy. You know, the one with the high stock market and low inflation. I will never get how so many people believed him.

  10. Racism, misogyny, the uneducated, and White supremacy won.

  11. Corporate media ha a lot to do with spreading disinformation and helping him win

  12. I truly believe that all their supporters who were against them before, and suddenly started supporting them have ties to Epstein and P Diddy.

    They need Trump to win because he will protect or prevent them from being prosecute, because he also has ties to Epstein and P Diddy.

  13. Disagree because voters feeling disenfranchised by both Parties led to 20 million people not voting; and “non-vote” is really saying “none of the above”

  14. My thoughts EXACTLY. How can a democracy survive without shared truth? The answer is, it can’t. Either this society gets more sophisticated in its media consumption, or we’re in trouble. I’m not optimistic about that.

  15. THIS

    THIS

    THIS

    Protest the mass Right wing media. Get arrested (if you are able).

  18. You guys are all crazy . lol. Huh that’s funny lol over half of the country doesn’t share the sand sentimrntbaxx as you guys. Disinformation the left controls 90% of

  19. Oh, NOW the media gives a shit about misinformation. The mainstream media played a huge part in misinformation by sane washing Trump’s bat shit crazy rhetoric.

  20. Elon musk sent the info to his satellites and it came back with Trump as the winner & his selected congress people.

  22. The Republicans have a laser pointer. It’s the attack on the trans community, gender neutral bathrooms and immigrants stealing your job. The Democrats are the cat chasing the laser.

    Stop being distracted so easily.
    Point out how decent people should behave.
    Focus the light on the issues that impact the most citizens.

  23. Of course.

    The billionaires one. The constitutional era is over.

    Welcome to the oligarchy.

    We were warned. Billionaires buying up media left and right.

    A party that prides itself on patriotism just re-elected someone who tried to steal the election and overthrow the government, as well as side with our enemies.

    Washington’s farewell address warned us of the two party system:

    “answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion. “

  24. “Trump” is just another word for “disinformation”

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