DandomRude

Please explain it to me. And by that I don’t mean a general explanation of how journalism works, because I probably know a whole lot more about that than you do, but an explanation of why you believe that the US, together with Israel, should not be held responsible for the murder of innocent children. And then I would also like to know what your motivation is for defending the current US regime, because I don’t understand it.

This is likely a physical defense reaction against the prosecution of serious criminals who are waging a war to cover up their own misdeeds. Perhaps he should seek advice from Bibi.

Yes, I’m simplistic when it comes to this: I wouldn’t accept being ruled by organized crime that covers up its heinous crimes by starting a war. But hey, it’s nice that you know the names of two renowned psychologists.

I have given up hope that the US population can be counted on. They have allowed too many atrocities to happen, and it is equally obvious that they will not even act for their own sake.

I simply do not accept arguments such as “there is no evidence,” because only the worst can be expected from the US - the evidence is the president who leads the US.

Looking at the comments here, even here in the Fediverse, it’s quite easy to understand how the US regime is possible despite its completely obvious depravity.

Thank you very much for the explanation :)

Can someone explain this to me? I’m out of the loop when it comes to mainstream social media, and I suspect that’s what this is about…

I think it’s fair to say that pretty much all the dystopian visions of the future from literature and films have now become reality. Brave new world…

What do they mean by “turned him into a joke”? Haven’t they seen excerpts from the State of the Union Address or any of his speeches? What else could the Kremlin possibly add to that to make it more ridiculous?

Yes, it would be desirable if truth were rewarded and deliberate false information punished. Unfortunately, neither is even remotely realistic:

True, or at least objectively researched, information was the business of journalism, which for the reasons mentioned above now exists only as a farce of itself (but still retains parts of its former reputation as a reliable source of information). I just don’t think there is any way to make journalism work in the age of the Internet (and I’m from Germany where we have publicly funded media).

Criminalizing misinformation would in turn require appropriate legislation. And as is always the case with laws, those in power would use them to make their worldview the only one that is widely disseminated. To see this, one need only look to the US, where the criminal but also wealthy president is already using current legislation to sue anyone who dares to make him look bad.

So, I think the only option that remains, despite all its flaws and problems, is decentralized social media. Of course, it is susceptible to manipulation, but at least it is not directly controlled by those who want to manipulate the discourse in their favor.

It is certainly not a solution in the true sense of the word - in a purely profit-oriented system, there can be no such thing - but in my opinion, it would at least be an improvement on the status quo, in which people like Zuckerberg and Musk can de facto directly control what people perceive as their reality.

Yes, that’s true. The Fediverse is also susceptible to manipulation. That’s why I’m not a fan of broad rules such as “no politics” in the largest communities, as their breadth would make it easy to buy off a few moderators, which shouldn’t be a problem at all if you have even a little capital.

Nevertheless, traditional journalism is dead because its business model is simply no longer financially viable today. Investigative journalism is very expensive and, with the loss of advertising revenue (wnet to search engines and mainstream social media apps), it is simply an impossible business model today. In fact, most of the traditional media today is run at a loss by billionaires like Bezos (Washington Post, among others).

I’m not saying that the Fediverse is a promise of salvation. I’m just saying that it’s the only option left.

The internet as such was originally designed to be decentralized, but it was taken over by big capital, for which we are now being presented with the bill in all the remaining democracies of the world.

In my opinion, the only response can be to do everything possible to return to decentralization, in order to at least put obstacles in the way of the powerful of this world.

That goes without saying, but the choice of information media that people use influences their decision. As long as these information media are controlled by billionaires, which is absolutely the case for the majority of voters, not only in the US, the outcome of the elections is a foregone conclusion.

One should not assume that even obvious misinformation has no effect if it is spread widely enough. It is, of course, commendable to believe in people, but this hope is clearly dashed by the US.

Do not believe for a moment that something like this cannot happen in your home country.

In itself, the answer is really simple, at least for the remaining democracies, and a solution would be entirely possible: people would have to switch to decentralized media apps, such as those provided by the Fediverse, and stop attributing so much credibility to legacy media. This would significantly reduce the scope for concerted disinformation, which is the main reason for any autocratic form of government being possible, which is of course never in the interests of citizens.

How this can be achieved is the question, and the answer can of course only be education, because the majority of people are obviously unaware of how they are being duped.

I think the problem these people face is more about how to implement the directive to funnel most of this absurd supplementary budget directly into the pockets of a few, preferably conservative, cronies of this criminal regime…

The German philosopher Hannah Arendt asked herself a very similar question when, during the trial of Nazi official and war criminal Adolf Eichmann, she attempted to understand how a human being could be capable of such monstrous atrocities. In this context, she coined the expression “banality of evil.”

It is worth taking a look at her book “Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil,” because her observations in it are, unfortunately, once again highly relevant today.