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Fake News is a Threat to the Marxist Social Order

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posted on Mar, 21 2018 @ 09:19 AM
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Much has been said over the last couple of years about the extent of fake news and its threat to democracy.

Even though fake news has existed for quite some time in one form or another—yellow journalism, tabloids, false or fabricated click-bait—it is only now, in the age of social media, that people of various stripes deem it a threat to our way of life. According to the European Commission, 83% of European citizens see fake news as a danger to democracy.

I suppose that’s why, in 2016, Obama mentioned to the White House Frontiers Conference that “we’re going to have to build within this Wild Wild West some kind of curating function that people can agree to”. According to the Los Angeles Times, “two months before Trump's inauguration, Obama made a personal appeal to Zuckerberg to take the threat of fake news and political disinformation seriously. Unless Facebook and the government did more to address the threat, Obama warned, it would only get worse in the next presidential race.”

It is further disconcerting that other western nations have threatened government intervention into Facebook—a service reportedly used by nearly one-third of the planet—using “fake news” as the common rallying cry. Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau threatened strict government regulation. French President Emmanuel Macron promised the same, suggesting to ban it during election time. A new law in Germany, pushed by Merkel, took effect on January 1st, threatening social media companies with vast penalties if they did not censor illegal opinions. Twitter has already moved to block the posts of members of opposition parties in that country, lest they pay the price. All of this based on the shifty, untenable claim that fake news is a threat to our liberal democracies.

All of it is humbug, if not a concerted lie. Those who misrepresent both fake news and democracy the most turn out to be the ones who want to regulate it. The idea alone reeks of oily doublespeak, and private companies and individuals alike should have none of it.

A greater threat to democracy is government censorship and the state regulation of public and private opinion, freedom of speech, the freedom of information, the freedom of the press, and the freedom to associate with whomever we please. Besides, a government that does not protect the civil rights of its citizens, but actively suppresses them, is no longer liberal anyways, and belongs in the political landfill with monarchism, theocracy, and...Marxism?

All of it suspiciously sounds like China’s campaign against “rumors”, which can encompass everything from speculation, unverified commentary, and false information posted online. “Rumors” are treated like weapons, drugs or disease, sure to destabilize the country.

In 2009, the Chinese censors were reportedly introducing blacklists in order to exclude journalists who engage in “unhealthy professional conduct” from news reporting and editing. These regulations were required to “resolutely halt fake news”.

In 2011, Hu Zhanfan, who the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party appointed head of the state-run CCTV, “officially” said this of fake news before getting his shiny new position:


The third and underlying root reason for fake news was the question of the Marxist View of Journalism (马克思主义新闻观). A number of news workers have not defined their own role in terms of the propaganda work of the Party, but rather have defined themselves as journalism professionals, and this is a fundamentally erroneous role definition. Strengthening education in the Marxist View of Journalism and raising the quality and character of news teams is not just very necessary, it is a matter of extreme urgency.

... fake news and false reports (失实报道) not only damage the reputation of news journalists and the credibility of the media, but they also hamper, interfere with and destroy guidance of public opinion, damaging social order and economic order and seriously and even directly impacting social stability. For the media, winning the trust of the people is a project that will take years and years, built up through report after report. But the emergence of a single false report can extinguish everything that has been gained.

...the first and foremost social responsibility [of journalists] is to serve well as a mouthpiece tool (当好喉舌工具). This is the most core content of the Marxist View of Journalism, and it is the most fundamental of principles.


Sound familiar? The same excuse, the same double speak, the same canard of fake news, can be used to defend Marxist, totalitarian states as well as it can liberal democracies. I suspect the Chinese propaganda machine is at least more honest in its intentions, and western leaders are simply taking a page from their little red playbook. But given that the Chinese are further along in their war against fake news and “rumors”, having proposed the same solutions, we can see where our own battles are ultimately headed if it keeps up.


edit on 21-3-2018 by LesMisanthrope because: (no reason given)



posted on Mar, 21 2018 @ 09:46 AM
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Scary that people think that only the government can tell you what is real news. That's treating government like a religion, pure faith.


Personally, i go with the theory

no gnus is good gnus with gary gnu



posted on Mar, 21 2018 @ 09:55 AM
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The people are not suppose to agree with their government or the news outlets.

Ya know that basic tenet of that word freedom.

What's scary is people putting them both on pedestals or deify them.



posted on Mar, 21 2018 @ 10:02 AM
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a reply to: LesMisanthrope

Great thread.

Wanting to censor your opponents is an admission that your ideas are incapable of standing up to scrutiny, so therefore you must ban that scrutiny from being allowed.

As you aptly show, this is common place for dictatorships.

Now we see is supposedly free countries such as Canada, the UK, Germany, the US, etc., this becoming more prevalent.

The very people screaming the loudest that Trump would be a terrible dictator are pleading for the censorship of pro trump views.

And I repeat, for those on the left that are ok with right wing people being censored, we are already seeing anti establishment left wing people like jill stein reporters, Jimmy Dore, Glenn greenwald and many others suffer from attempts at censorship.



posted on Mar, 21 2018 @ 10:56 AM
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So.. I take from this thread and its topic that Fake News is Good News, because Fake News is Bad News to Marxist Social Order (which in itself is so very, very obviously Bad)?

Oh, you want that famous and never seen Free Speach?

How about some common sense? You do not need to apply censorship to everything. Using common sense, obvious and verfiable lies should always stay punishable by law.



posted on Mar, 21 2018 @ 11:02 AM
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originally posted by: ManFromEurope
So.. I take from this thread and its topic that Fake News is Good News, because Fake News is Bad News to Marxist Social Order (which in itself is so very, very obviously Bad)?

Oh, you want that famous and never seen Free Speach?

How about some common sense? You do not need to apply censorship to everything. Using common sense, obvious and verfiable lies should always stay punishable by law.


That’s not common sense. That’s censorship, which is contrary to both liberalism and democracy.



posted on Mar, 21 2018 @ 11:11 AM
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a reply to: LesMisanthrope

I take your OP very seriously and on one hand, I'd have to agree with your statement that:

" A greater threat to democracy is government censorship and the state regulation of public and private opinion, freedom of speech, the freedom of information, the freedom of the press, and the freedom to associate with whomever we please. Besides, a government that does not protect the civil rights of its citizens, but actively suppresses them, is no longer liberal anyways, and belongs in the political landfill with monarchism, theocracy, and...Marxism? "

On the other hand, I'd have to point out several reasons why you're a bit off point on this issue vis-a-vis fake news.

Consider for a moment that the Chinese are quite correct in their language:

"fake news and false reports (失实报道) not only damage the reputation of news journalists and the credibility of the media, but they also hamper, interfere with and destroy guidance of public opinion, damaging social order and economic order and seriously and even directly impacting social stability. For the media, winning the trust of the people is a project that will take years and years, built up through report after report. But the emergence of a single false report can extinguish everything that has been gained. "

They are correct in that fake news undermines the credibility of the MSM Journalism and by so doing, undermines "Democracy". We all know that at this point in US History, the general public has no faith whatsoever in the Media, Congress, the Executive branch and the Judicial system. If something isn't done to shore up the Media's credibility, this country is going to spin out of control as everyone comes to believe that its all fake news.

There's another reality at work here as well that suggests a far greater need for regulations that strengthen media credibility. The fact of the matter is that going forward, the US society is moving ever closer to a more Marxist like society. The "hive mind" effect is spreading over the land like a grey cloud and that's probably a normal evolution. This isn't the days of the wild west; there's no shared value system and this culture is rapidly abandoning the ideals of self reliance. Every day, more and more people expect the government to protect them from all manner of threats, perceived or real. This fact coupled with the continuous and rapid dumbing down of the general population means that the best and ultimately only way to maintain some semblance of order is a gradual shift to a more Marxist type State apparatus which plays to the hive mind values system inculcated into the youth by the Education system which has, for better or worse, become the chief architect of the value system of the Uber culture of the useless eater class.

Put another way, the "People of Walmart" don't need more freedom of speech. They have nothing of value to say; they don't "think" anything of any value. As far as their concerned, all they need is more Twinkies! Their offspring come home talking about how awful Global Warming is and how scared they are of White Privilege and scared of people with scary guns and how Donald Trump is a racist because..................that's all they hear in school. They can't reason and can barely process enough thought to make their way to grab another bag of chips before going to their filthy rooms to play Xbox.

When viewed from this perspective, Macron and Trudeau are drop dead correct! You really don't want the People of Walmart reading trash news on the internet as "truth"! They can't discern the real from the fake! Spread enough fake stories on the Internet that Candidate X wants to round up all the fat people and kill them and the People of Walmart will believe it! And that is a real threat to Democracy, (which in fact isn't really anymore the political system in place).

I see this best developing as sort of a three tiered system.

The top tier is the Politician and Corporate class that actually "controls" stuff and has the money to pay for "real" news and true information.

The second tier is the NPR class; the elites that promulgate the belief systems for the plebes and who guides and orchestrates the necessary educational materials to spin out the propaganda to the third tier, the Plebian tier, telling them what they need to think and believe. The NPR tier is essential in creating and maintaining order by managing consensus about what is right and wrong, about acceptable priorities. Fake news entirely undermines this effort and could ultimately lead to a complete breakdown in social order.

The third tier is obvious. The Plebian class; the people of Walmart, almost entirely informed by "Social Media" and/or the NPR class if they're still in school. You really don't want them racing about the parking lots of Walmart on their scooter carts in sheer panic and mayhem. As a result, social media needs to be heavily regulated and controlled and as I've suggested before, I'd argue that Facebook should be Nationalized.

A strong argument for Nationalizing Facebook is made at:
www.slate.com...

And at:
theweek.com...

From the first link:


By “nationalizing Facebook,” I mean public ownership and at least a majority share at first. When nationalizing the company restores the public trust, that controlling interest could be reduced. There are three very good reasons for this drastic step: It could fix the company’s woeful privacy practices, allow the social network to fulfill its true potential for providing social good, and force it to put its valuable data to work on significant social problems.



It would be better to have a national privacy commissioner with real authority, some stringent privacy standards set at the federal level, and programs for making good use of some of the socially valuable data mining that firms like Facebook do. But in the United States, such sweeping innovations are probably too difficult to actually pull off, and nationalization would almost get us there. Facebook would have to rise to First Amendment standards rather than their own terms of service. The company could be regulated the way public utilities often are.



Many academics are finding that big social network data sets can generate surprising and valuable information for addressing social problems—for instance, public health and national security. Researchers are working on ways to use social networking patterns to predict the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. We could even use Facebook data to analyze criminal networks in the United States or terrorist networks around the world. We'd want to be careful about the circumstances under which our security services had access to Facebook data, but if the firm had been nationalized, at least there could be some reasonable public oversight. And while academics have to meet ethical standards for protecting the people they study, Facebook has no such guidelines. Nationalization could allow us to review the ethical implications of their management decisions.



posted on Mar, 21 2018 @ 01:12 PM
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a reply to: TonyS




They are correct in that fake news undermines the credibility of the MSM Journalism and by so doing, undermines "Democracy". We all know that at this point in US History, the general public has no faith whatsoever in the Media, Congress, the Executive branch and the Judicial system. If something isn't done to shore up the Media's credibility, this country is going to spin out of control as everyone comes to believe that its all fake news.

There's another reality at work here as well that suggests a far greater need for regulations that strengthen media credibility. The fact of the matter is that going forward, the US society is moving ever closer to a more Marxist like society. The "hive mind" effect is spreading over the land like a grey cloud and that's probably a normal evolution. This isn't the days of the wild west; there's no shared value system and this culture is rapidly abandoning the ideals of self reliance. Every day, more and more people expect the government to protect them from all manner of threats, perceived or real. This fact coupled with the continuous and rapid dumbing down of the general population means that the best and ultimately only way to maintain some semblance of order is a gradual shift to a more Marxist type State apparatus which plays to the hive mind values system inculcated into the youth by the Education system which has, for better or worse, become the chief architect of the value system of the Uber culture of the useless eater class.

Put another way, the "People of Walmart" don't need more freedom of speech. They have nothing of value to say; they don't "think" anything of any value. As far as their concerned, all they need is more Twinkies! Their offspring come home talking about how awful Global Warming is and how scared they are of White Privilege and scared of people with scary guns and how Donald Trump is a racist because..................that's all they hear in school. They can't reason and can barely process enough thought to make their way to grab another bag of chips before going to their filthy rooms to play Xbox.

When viewed from this perspective, Macron and Trudeau are drop dead correct! You really don't want the People of Walmart reading trash news on the internet as "truth"! They can't discern the real from the fake! Spread enough fake stories on the Internet that Candidate X wants to round up all the fat people and kill them and the People of Walmart will believe it! And that is a real threat to Democracy, (which in fact isn't really anymore the political system in place).

I see this best developing as sort of a three tiered system.

The top tier is the Politician and Corporate class that actually "controls" stuff and has the money to pay for "real" news and true information.

The second tier is the NPR class; the elites that promulgate the belief systems for the plebes and who guides and orchestrates the necessary educational materials to spin out the propaganda to the third tier, the Plebian tier, telling them what they need to think and believe. The NPR tier is essential in creating and maintaining order by managing consensus about what is right and wrong, about acceptable priorities. Fake news entirely undermines this effort and could ultimately lead to a complete breakdown in social order.

The third tier is obvious. The Plebian class; the people of Walmart, almost entirely informed by "Social Media" and/or the NPR class if they're still in school. You really don't want them racing about the parking lots of Walmart on their scooter carts in sheer panic and mayhem. As a result, social media needs to be heavily regulated and controlled and as I've suggested before, I'd argue that Facebook should be Nationalized.

A strong argument for Nationalizing Facebook is made at:
www.slate.com...

And at:
theweek.com...


The only thing that undermines the credibility of mainstream journalism is mainstream journalism. The idea that fake news has any hand in it is fake, if not a bureaucratic ploy to wrangle power away from the people.

I completely disagree that facebook should be nationalized. The nationalizing of Facebook would make it a wholly coercive state monopoly.



posted on Mar, 21 2018 @ 02:05 PM
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the reality is that "fake news" is rampant. and just a hint the worst purveyors of fake news is in fact mainstream media. in fact any more pretty much every source of news is now put through a blender to match the beliefs of those publishing it. i don't think i could even come up with a single news source now, where you don't have to read or listen to every news item through a bias filter. yet the real issue is not actually fake news at all. for most people now the meaning of fake news has been twisted an has a new meaning. it actually does not mean the news is actually "fake", but that it goes against the person's opinions and or beliefs. and that is really where the danger of wanting to censor fake news comes from. because it is not really about getting the TRUTH. it is about controlling people's opinions, by controlling what they read, hear and see. if there is nothing to counter one set of lies and half truths. people will very obviously have to except them as truth.

personally things like facebook and other main line social media should not be nationalized. because that means controlled by a country. no they should be globalized as they have become world wide communications platforms. and as such NO censoring should be allowed at all. and the reason for not allowing ANY censoring i simply because every country has different laws. what is legal in one place may very well be illegal somewhere else, and vice versa. if someone is breaking the law, then it is up to their county's law enforcement to deal with. not up to some guy in the US (or anywhere else), like Zuckerberg, to decide what is right, and what is wrong. to use the Germany example, if someone says something that breaks the law in Germany, then it is up to the German police to deal with, not facebook. these big world wide social media sites need to be completely neutral. it would be a different matter if it was USbook, Canadabook, or Germanbook, where it was just available to Americans, Canadians or Germans within their county. then it would be perfectly fine to censer to that country's laws. not when it is a tool that everyone in the world uses. the fact is that these world reaching social media sites are too important to communication on a global scale to be allowed to censor things that they don't like.



posted on Mar, 21 2018 @ 03:38 PM
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a reply to: TonyS

Is the US really moving toward Marxism? Or is that maybe just an illusion?

The gap between rich and poor seems to be widening. The growth of the tech industry has launched a new round of Laissez-faire capitalism. Robber barons like Google are just running rampant over this country.

We have an illusion of Marxism because the media and academia are oriented toward that perspective. The media is controlled by a small number of like minded conglomerates who try to control public opinion on everything they come across. Likewise with academia. This consolidation of control produces the fake news. There are no opposing viewpoints to keep it in check. The only way to fight fake news is to bust up these giant media companies.

China's problem stems from their tendency to centralize everything. This leads to the same problem.



posted on Mar, 21 2018 @ 03:43 PM
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originally posted by: ManFromEurope
Using common sense, obvious and verfiable lies should always stay punishable by law.


Ok, donald trum[p did not have hookers pee on the smae bed Obama slept in.

Michael Cohen never went to prague, let alone worked with russians there to steal the election.

SO I assume you are all for the arrest of the people that wrote, paid for, and promoted the steele dossier.



posted on Mar, 21 2018 @ 04:01 PM
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a reply to: generik

I think there is such a thing as fake news that is really fake. Sure, the type you describe exits as well. There might even be types of fake news we haven't imagined yet, who knows? In the past this was counterbalanced by the existence of many smaller news sources. There was more of a diversity of opinion, not a couple of monolithic conglomerates that own all media - TV, radio, newspapers, books, textbooks, motion pictures, news outlets. You get the idea.

Like you, I am opposed to nationalizing Facebook. I don't really know how to break it up but I would definitely prevent it from buying up newspapers and broadcasting networks if it tries to do that. What a monster that would create.

Maybe we should regulate it like any monopoly but not way Europe is doing. I'm more in favor of free speech than enforcing politically correct guidelines but there has to be some of a clearly defined balance.



posted on Mar, 21 2018 @ 07:44 PM
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a reply to: LesMisanthrope

S+F

I feel you. The god-father of Propaganda, Edward Bernays, wrote a book in 1928 titled "Propaganda: History As A Weapon" detailing how fake the news and other forms of media is — along with how it is used to engineer consent.

www.historyisaweapon.com...


CHAPTER I: ORGANIZING CHAOS

THE conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.


As you can see, the hypocrisy and twisted philosophy is evident from the get-go. He goes on to state in the second paragraph of the opening chapter:


We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society.


The problem in these present times is that media no longer can be used strictly as a tool for the establishment to socially engineer the masses. Hence:




It is further disconcerting that other western nations have threatened government intervention into Facebook—a service reportedly used by nearly one-third of the planet—using “fake news” as the common rallying cry. Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau threatened strict government regulation. French President Emmanuel Macron promised the same, suggesting to ban it during election time. A new law in Germany, pushed by Merkel, took effect on January 1st, threatening social media companies with vast penalties if they did not censor illegal opinions. Twitter has already moved to block the posts of members of opposition parties in that country, lest they pay the price. All of this based on the shifty, untenable claim that fake news is a threat to our liberal democracies.


The problem I personally have with society is that many seem to accept authority as truth instead of truth as authority. Therefore, Edward Bernays and his ilk still have the upper-hidden hand...

Excellent OP, as always, LesMis.



posted on Mar, 21 2018 @ 11:57 PM
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a reply to: TonyS


Consider for a moment that the Chinese are quite correct in their language:

"fake news and false reports (失实报道) not only damage the reputation of news journalists and the credibility of the media, but they also hamper, interfere with and destroy guidance of public opinion, damaging social order and economic order and seriously and even directly impacting social stability. For the media, winning the trust of the people is a project that will take years and years, built up through report after report. But the emergence of a single false report can extinguish everything that has been gained. "

They are correct in that fake news undermines the credibility of the MSM Journalism and by so doing, undermines "Democracy". We all know that at this point in US History, the general public has no faith whatsoever in the Media, Congress, the Executive branch and the Judicial system. If something isn't done to shore up the Media's credibility, this country is going to spin out of control as everyone comes to believe that its all fake news.

So you're quoting something from a nation where they just decided it's a great idea to have the same guy lead them as long as he feels like. A place which is so scared of outside opinions they have crap like the great firewall of China to filter out anything that may be deemed unacceptable for public viewing. How about instead of trying to vehemently control what people see online you just trust that people will question what they see online. And also ask yourself why they are so obsessed with upholding the credibility of the MSM, if they do a good job people will naturally trust them, it's not something that should require an huge amount of effort and dedication, unless you are spreading misinformation all the time.

The fact is most MSM news is fake news or twisted in some way to suit an agenda, so perhaps people being aware of that fact isn't such a bad thing and wont cause the type of instability you predict, and will actually cause some positive changes within the industry. The MSM is not part of the government, at least not openly, so unless you can explain to me exactly why the MSM automatically deserve more credit than any other source of news then I have to believe you're just trying to appeal to authority and don't really care about the truth, so long as people are placid and trust what the deep state tells them through their MSM mouthpieces.
edit on 21/3/2018 by ChaoticOrder because: (no reason given)



posted on Mar, 22 2018 @ 03:14 AM
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OP - I am not surprised you've spotted the agenda.

For those of you not paying attention, the Zuckerberg interview last night might wake you up.


During an interview broadcast on Wednesday’s edition of CNN’s “AC360,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated that he isn’t sure that Facebook shouldn’t be regulated and that he would “love to see” regulations on ad transparency.


The Cambridge Analytica saga is staged. What has been going on for years in terms of data mining was turned into a big scary story, then up pops Zuckerberg to fall on his sword and start the ball rolling on regulations to determine what you can read.
edit on 22/3/2018 by UKTruth because: (no reason given)



posted on Mar, 22 2018 @ 04:06 AM
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a reply to: Grambler

You make this claim as if it was fact, yet there is no proof either that is true or a lie.

Of course the only ones saying this is not true is one of the biggest purveyors of fake news, the right wing media.

Yes the left has it's moments but the right wing media constantly spreads fake news, in fact I cannot count how many times a thread has been started on here using one those same sources and the right flag and star en masse those same threads.

So for the right to be complaining about fake news and it being a threat to democracy is laughable. LMAO



posted on Mar, 22 2018 @ 10:20 AM
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a reply to: Involutionist

Sounds about right. Thanks for sharing that

Fake news is the result of liberty and democracy, not a threat to it. It should always be up to the individual to determine truth from falsity, and eventually the free market will sort them out. I’ll tell you one thing, the market is ripe for an unbiased, factual and ethical news agency.



posted on Mar, 23 2018 @ 07:42 AM
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a reply to: LesMisanthrope



Fake news is the result of liberty and democracy, not a threat to it.


As ironic as that may sound — it's the truth. And a welcomed one. It demonstrates that liberty and democracy is still alive in some form.




It should always be up to the individual to determine truth from falsity, and eventually the free market will sort them out.


I agree. Critical thinking is a prerequisite.




I’ll tell you one thing, the market is ripe for an unbiased, factual and ethical news agency.


Yes, indeed!

After all, when one's only source of information arise from being spoon fed from corporate news media and the internet—ignorance becomes built into the syntax of acceptable thought.

edit on 23-3-2018 by Involutionist because: ...because my grammar and punctuation SUCKS!



posted on Mar, 23 2018 @ 08:12 AM
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a reply to: LesMisanthrope

Didnt the US government pass legislation that the US government were legally allowed to use propaganda on its citizens ?



posted on Mar, 23 2018 @ 08:32 AM
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originally posted by: UKTruth
OP - I am not surprised you've spotted the agenda.

For those of you not paying attention, the Zuckerberg interview last night might wake you up.


During an interview broadcast on Wednesday’s edition of CNN’s “AC360,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated that he isn’t sure that Facebook shouldn’t be regulated and that he would “love to see” regulations on ad transparency.


The Cambridge Analytica saga is staged. What has been going on for years in terms of data mining was turned into a big scary story, then up pops Zuckerberg to fall on his sword and start the ball rolling on regulations to determine what you can read.


This right here^^^

This all we should be discussing.......




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