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Censorship Your Rights Online

Digging For Truth Online Is Up To You 124

Posted by timothy from the and-here's-a-shovel dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has released the second annual report on obstacles to the free flow of information online. Vint Cerf wrote the forward, where he argues it is the responsibility of every citizen to test the truth of information on the Web, and draw attention to incorrect information, rather than the government's responsibility to dictate the 'truth.' ZDNet Australia has an article on the report."
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Digging For Truth Online Is Up To You More

Digging For Truth Online Is Up To You

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  • Holy shit! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 23, 2003 @06:38AM (#6271886)
    Does that mean I must aquire common sense?

  • Should I believe? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 23, 2003 @06:42AM (#6271905)
    How can I "trust" this statement?



    Mother, Should I Trust the Government?

  • Government control of speech on the internet (Score:5, Interesting)

    by T40 Dude ( 668317 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @06:44AM (#6271912)
    Interestingly, the German geovernment tries to implement legislation that would require/force anybody who writes about a company or a person on the internet to publish a corrcection/opposing view from that company/person. If one would not agree to do that, one could be charged and fined or jailed. The government wants to implement the same rules that govern the professional print media to each and every internet post of a private citizen, including all the sanctions associated with a possible "breach". This could potentially result in web spiders looking for e.g. the name SCO, and force each and every slashdot poster to publish a correction. It would bring the internet and any discussoin to a crawl.

    • Re:Government control of speech on the internet (Score:5, Insightful)

      by DaveHowe ( 51510 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @06:55AM (#6271954)
      That isn't entirely a bad thing - There is draft European legislation to mandate that - if requested, any web page or blog entry be amended to include a link to the requester's counter-comment.
      I suggest the text "And if you want to know what PR-spun bullshit this firm uses to justify this, click >here" be used :)

    • Re:Government control of speech on the internet (Score:5, Informative)

      by pubjames ( 468013 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @07:00AM (#6271967)
      Interestingly, the German geovernment...

      The US government isn't any saint when it comes to stifling free speech. The only difference is that the US government does it in an underhand way using whatever tactics it can to bully or coherce to get what it wants, rather than by using laws. Which is better? At least with laws it is out in the open and gets discussed in a transparent manner.

      A worrying development: Bush's government are trying to coherce NGOs to promote positive views of the government and the USA, saying that NGOs (that's Non-Governmental Organisations) are just another arm of the government. Read more here:

      Now Bush wants to buy the complicity of aid workers [guardian.co.uk]
    • That is provided they have any idea at all who you are and you bother taking them seriously. I'd like to see /them/ dig through an 8 node deep proxy chain just to convince you that you should (take them seriously). Other examples are Freenet, which seems to be growing still.
      Again, legislation and reality clash. When will people realize we live and die by our own sense of morals, regardless of what they write in their books?

      (What was the topic again?)
    • The government wants to implement the same rules that govern the professional print media to each and every internet post of a private citizen, including all the sanctions associated with a possible "breach

      The reason these kinds of law exist is not because the media are making money, but because a large number of people may read what they print. Without such laws, successful papers could use their power at will against third parties. In what way is a popular blogger in any way different? Or any non-prof

      • Furthermore, why are you not providing space for potential replies to what you are writing anyway?

        Seriously, I don't see how this is any violation of freedom of speech. It's speech+ not speech-
        • If its my site, I am buggered if I am paying for the bandwidth for my competitors to give "opposing views", possibly including huge graphics and/or annoying flash animations.

          However, if I say something about another company, it is only fair to provide a link to that company's reply (and of course, for that reply to contain a link to my reply to... well, you know where this is going) Not everything uploaded is ideal for analysis and discussion - at least, not on my dime :)

          • If you read some article about it, you see the minimum proposed requirement is effectively to put a link to the reply.

            You won't be paying for the bandwith.
            • I know - but I am answering CashCarStar's post here [slashdot.org] not the original question, and my argument is that it is fair for me to add a link to their reply on *their* site on request, (and for a link back to my reply to their reply) but not fair for there to be an expectation of a "reply" box right on the page (requiring backend storage, cgi and so forth)
      • The reason these kinds of law exist is not because the media are making money, but because a large number of people may read what they print.

        that's funny. isn't there a connection between making money and presumed size of audience?

        the government, intimately connected to big business, has many options to allow it to reduce competition. requirements that have unequal impacts on small and big producers is one of those.

    • So yeah make people dialogue rather than have monologues is bad for critical thinking right?

      Maybe Germany should stop doing those kinds of efforts and do like they did just before Hitler came to power. Have all media more patriotic than the other in a time their mark was loosing grounds to other currencies, when their country was living a recession (wait a minute isn't that what is happening in the US right now???). Damn I just had a thought and that isn't popular right now.

      I better go watch CNN so my

  • Not True? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by KingArthur10 ( 679328 ) <`moc.liamg' `ta' `dragob.ruhtra'> on Monday June 23, 2003 @06:47AM (#6271920)
    WHA!? You mean everything I read on the net isn't true? *gasp* My world is crumbling before me. Now the trick is, how can you always tell if it is true or not? Heck, my mother, a 7-8th grade advanced science teacher did a test with the class showing them an online article about the evils of hydrogen hydroxide. At the end of the class, over half the class believed that there was a serious problem in the world with hydrogen hydroxide that needs to be dealt with. Only one student in the class knew the truth of what hydrogen hydroxide really is: water. Now, if we can so easily be tricked into believing water is evil, how the heck are we suppose to be aware of what is true or not? Make a professional looking page and sound smart, and the masses will follow! Just a thought
    • Well, are you really surprised when the education system seems to deliberately NOT teach people to think? I think what you described above is a rather poor inditement of your mother's teaching don't you think? Especially since she is a science teacher and surely science is the field in which epistemologically sound reasoning is paramount? Scientists are meant to question, reason with evidence and control groups and so on. Hmm, although research shows of course that they are incapable of transferring thi

      • Re:Not True? (Score:2, Insightful)

        by DaveHowe ( 51510 )
        Unfortunately, there are two sorts of "product" that are suited to the commercial world that awaits you outside of schooling.
        The first type is a cookie-cut worker who will put in his 9-5 for minimum wage (without even thinking the word "union") then take his pay and spend it on whatever fad advertising tells him he can't live without
        The second type goes on to university, performs useful research and/or innovates to fuel the next generation of fads (under the exclusive contract-locked control of the market
    • When I first read your article, I thought: hydrogen hydroxide? That's very familiar ... almost like ... WATER! Oh yeah. It's early yet. :)

    • Re:Not True? (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Pah, hydrogen hydroxide is nothing compared to the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide. Your mother needs to get her priorities straight!

    • Re:Not True? (Score:3, Informative)

      by tsvk ( 624784 )

      Heck, my mother, a 7-8th grade advanced science teacher did a test with the class showing them an online article about the evils of hydrogen hydroxide. At the end of the class, over half the class believed that there was a serious problem in the world with hydrogen hydroxide that needs to be dealt with. Only one student in the class knew the truth of what hydrogen hydroxide really is: water.

      Did she by any chance use the Dihydrogen Monoxide Research Division (DMRD) [dhmo.org] site? It's really hilarious, especially

    • Her mistake was that she forgot to blame the hydrogen hydroxide problem on SUVs and "Evil Corporations". Then she could have had a whole classroom full of freshly minted "activists"...oh shit, wait, she's teaching at the 7-8th grade level? Nevermind, she'd have to be teaching at the University level for this to work.

    • [...] Now, if we can so easily be tricked into believing water is evil, how the heck are we suppose to be aware of what is true or not? Make a professional looking page and sound smart, and the masses will follow!

      Sheesh, it is really that complicated? Here are a few principles for critical internet reading:

      Cross-check new "facts." If something is bogus, someone out there has probably already pointed it out. On the other hand, if it is true and significant, you can probably find the same informatio

    • > Heck, my mother, a 7-8th grade advanced science teacher did a test with the class showing them an online article about the evils of hydrogen hydroxide. At the end of the class, over half the class believed that there was a serious problem in the world with hydrogen hydroxide that needs to be dealt with.

      The problem was that she neglected to mention that Dihydrogen Monoxide (DHMO), Dihydrogen Oxide, Hydroxyl acid, and Hydric acid are just as prevalent and just as dangerous.
    • that even an advanced science class of 7th/8th graders would only have one student who'd get the joke?

      Sounds like either you're got outstandingly fucked schools or we still haven't heard the worst news about the state of US public education.

  • Being critical (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Arioch of Chaos ( 674116 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @06:48AM (#6271924) Journal
    I know several teachers who have a hard time getting their pupils to understand that information they find on the internet is not necessarily acurate. Teaching people to be critical is a majour task for schools, I think.

    • Re:Being critical (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Guppy06 ( 410832 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @07:13AM (#6272001)
      "Teaching people to be critical is a majour task for schools, I think."

      Most teachers and schools I can think of would rather their students not be too critical. They'd rather have a room of docile students that jot down everything their teacher says than to have them ask too many questions.
      • Luckily, my schools have been nothing like that. :-) I'm sure that attitude is not uncommon, though.

      • Re:Being critical (Score:3, Insightful)

        by wiggen ( 189285 )
        Actually, most teacher and schools *I* can think of (and as a former school district administrator, I have worked with many) wish their students would be more critical. Unfortunately, though, unfunded mandates such as the "No Child Left Behind" act in the US require just the opposite. We are now required to judge our teachers and schools on how they perform on tests that have been developed by central authorities, working under the mandates of politicians. These "high stakes" tests do anything but deman
        • Exactly.. politicians want our schools to prepare our population for work.

          I fear the day when we can build robots that can do this work cheaper than us. For if you judge how much we care about eachother by our schools. The only logical conclusion is that we'll simply let the unproductive masses starve if they can't afford a job. We don't bring them to school to educate them. But we'll see.

          At least I still have a few braincells left. I'll be useful until at least the second generation of robots come
          • Or do you mean the economic planners want it? Politicians are driven by something, and it's not just what they want.

            At a top level, everyone acting predictably makes economic planning possible.
            • I don't know what I meant, I think I was high when I wrote that.

              I still don't understand exactly what goes on at that level yet. But I think its more intense than simply predicting trends, but actually manipulating, creating and setting new direction or controlling and blocking natural movement.

              For some strange reason I think our economy and media can be manipulated to affect our environment in subtle ways, but eventually changing the overall tone of both our external environment and its reflection on ou

    • Re:Being critical (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Surak ( 18578 ) * <surakNO@SPAMmailblocks.com> on Monday June 23, 2003 @07:25AM (#6272048) Homepage Journal
      Yup. Bottom line: people need to learn critical thinking skills. I think everyone should be required to pass at least one college-level critical thinking class.

      You need a bullshit detector, and that's what critical thinking skills provide for you.

      You also need a healthy dose of skepticism. Most of us Slashdotters (well, the non-posers anyway) are the people who have lived the online experience before it became commercialized. We almost inherently KNOW to look at things skeptically. Look at every article on /.. There's always more than a few people out there to cry "bullshit" when it's warranted. We don't believe everything we see on TV, and we don't believe everything we see on the Net.

      But that's one of the inherent problems in American society. It was on TV, so it must be true! That's transforming into "I saw it on the Net, therefore it must be true!"

      For every piece of truth you'll find on the Net, you'll find at least two pieces of complete, total utter bullshit. It's up to the reader to decide for him/herself what's truth and what's just something some idiot is spouting out off about he either doesn't understand -- or worse -- that he does understand but is trying to manipulate you into agreeing with him or even worse giving him money.

      Don't buy it. Wear your bullshit detector. And if you don't have one get one. I highly recommend Asking the Right Questions: A Guide to Critical Thinking [amazon.com] by Browne and Keeley. It was the text I used in college, and is still used in many, many college critical thinking classes.

      • Don't just learn about critical thinking and how to detect bs. Learn about psycheology and how to manipulate the mind. Then you might begin to understand both why and how we do these things. Its human nature.

        But sadly what phycheology taught me was that school is designed to prepare a person for work instead of make them a critical thinker. Want to be a critical thinker? Read some books about the topic and be a critical thinker, school won't help you much.

        I would love to perform some psychelogical op
    • It is not just online. Students, adults, everyone must be critical of all information no matter what the source. Good teachers try to promote critical thinking. They make a game out finding the mistakes in the textbooks. They encourage students to test all statements made by anyone.

      The problem is that such critical thinking is inefficient. Those who want schools to produce worker drones and cannon fodder do not wants the kids learning that authority is fallible. The executives do not want the public

    • Any teacher in that position should have every student create a hoax web page related to current events and post it on the school server.

      Once they've read a few, hopefully they'll wonder just what else they're reading that ain't so.

  • I understand completely. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Prince_Ali ( 614163 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @06:49AM (#6271932) Journal
    So if it is +5 informative it is true?

  • Easy (Score:1, Funny)

    by jmaatta ( 550428 )
    If you're not sure whether you should trust something you read from the net, just post the site to slashdot and read the comments after a few hours.
    • That isn't going to help much.

      Try posting something pro-microsoft and see how much strift you get from slashdotters (and ms *must* have done something right in the last ten years, although possibly accidentally; they are sueing spammers for instance :)

  • Uh oh... (Score:3, Funny)

    by bad_fx ( 493443 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @06:50AM (#6271935) Journal
    Moreover, where disinformation or misinformation exists, thoughtful citizens have a responsibility to draw attention to the problem, possibly even to provide information to counteract the bad data.

    Oh no! I just hope no one finds out about slashdot or they'll have a field day!

    Oh... hang on a sec... No... my mistake, I was thinking of the NYT.
    • I notice few of the big commercial news sites (eg CNN) have an automated comment system - some provide an email link to the author, and some provide a limited feedback section on selected news items (the bbc site does this) with the proviso that the feedback is subject to inspection and editing by the site owners before it is actually posted to the web...

  • Just on the web? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DaveHowe ( 51510 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @06:50AM (#6271937)
    Given the extent to which various forces act on the big commercial media companies, Surely it makes more sense to doubt almost all media coverage in isolation? compare Fox/CNN with Indymedia with the BBC with various web blogs from people who are *there* and then come to your own conclusions.... each of those sources will be biassed (either by the opinions of their owners or their governments) but by comparing enough sources you might find a germ of truth somewhere....
  • "And some want to ensure growth of the Internet does not increase the domination of one language and culture,"


    Hmmmn, I wonder which culture he was referring to?

  • Public monitoring of accuracy - right here (Score:4, Insightful)

    by thelandp ( 632129 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @06:55AM (#6271952)
    Slashdot is a good example of the public taking a role in providing feedback on the quality of information.

    The internet's strength - it gives everyone a voice - is also it's weakness because there is too much noise.

    Filtering the signal from the noise is the challenge, and it's one the government is not up to.

  • We need a new /. moderation... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 23, 2003 @06:56AM (#6271955)
    +1 True
    • Somewhat redundant, but yeah, /. moderation *IS* a great tool to separate crap from interesting. It's not perfect of course.

      I even believe -most- webboards / mailing lists would benefit from using the Slashcode.org... but again, you need time, software knowledge & hardware to implement a slashcode-slashdot-like solution.

      ... and big organisations, such as the RSF, have these resources...

      ... dreaming of the day metamoderations will be used in more places... :-)
    • +1 True

      Knowing Slashdot, it should be

      +1 I "think" its True

      --
      SuaraMalaysia.com [suaramalaysia.com] - Driving free speech initiatives in Malaysia

  • One of the best things (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Cowdog ( 154277 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @06:58AM (#6271961) Journal
    In my opinion one of the best things about the internet is its ability to (help people) shine light in dark corners.

    Especially with more people making the Internet read/write instead of read-only, with blogs and Wikis for example.

    As DRM systems come into play, I wonder if they will also be applied to text, not just music and video. If so, that will lock up more content, and be a serious barrier to information flow. Imagine if 90% of slashdot outbound links became pay-per-view. Maybe the silver lining of such a scenario would be that blogs and other bottom-up content would have even more importance.
  • The article itself is rather empty and intended for the "citizen"(you got what I mean;o))), however if you bother to read the "by country" reports (pick from the menu on the right), and you choose the right countries(once again, you know what I mean), there's an awful bunch of interesting facts.....
    It's definitely a better read, and there're things I didn't even suspect....

  • Snake oil merchants (Score:3, Interesting)

    by panurge ( 573432 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @07:03AM (#6271976)
    I'm totally alongside Vint Cerf on this one: almost goes without saying. But there are many, many snake oil merchants and most of them are not on the WWW. At least google turns up many references to a subject, and it is not too hard to find differing views. Anyone who gets their world view from the TV or the less responsible print media is likely to be getting just as much disinformation, without being shown the alternative sources.

    Replying to an earlier post, the science teacher should not be too surprised that her class missed the point about hydrogen hydroxide. Only yesterday we had a link to an article in which a former head of a House Committee on Science appeared not to know the difference between helium and hydrogen, twice. Poor understanding of science is a general disease of society, not something the Internet has brought about.

  • Free Media (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Heartz ( 562803 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @07:11AM (#6271993) Homepage
    With media like CNN [cnn.com] throwing blind support behind the government policies in the USA, free media even have any more meaning? It seems like the American media is under tremendous pressure to appear patriotic rather than objective.

    ---
    SuaraMalaysia.com [suaramalaysia.com] - Driving free speech initiatives in Malaysia

    • Re:Free Media (Score:5, Interesting)

      by LauraScudder ( 670475 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @07:35AM (#6272098) Journal
      The scary thing is that this isn't even something that just started after 9.11, when suddenly the whole press acted like not backing the President was a sin. Back in early 2001 I would read the cnn articles about a Bush speech just as they went up online (I guess before a senior editor got their hands on them or something) and they'd include rather shockingly blunt quotes by Bush on religion. (Always made me think that Bush's keepers must have been pretty angry that he couldn't stick to his speeches. I couldn't imagine a speech writer throwing around talk about God and crusades so liberally.) Check again 2 hours later, the quotes had been edited to remove the most inflamatory parts or replaced by a 'summary' of the speech without any excerpts. Ever since then my remaining trust of cnn's impartiality was gone.
      • "they'd include rather shockingly blunt quotes by Bush on religion"

        What the hell does that mean? Do you have a link to these dastardly speeches? Or do you just not like Bush because he is Republican?
        • Well, I actually think our two party system is the biggest load of crap ever. In business two competitors is still effectively a monopoly (just look at island hopping flights in Hawaii), so why don't people understand that the same's true in politics. Just ignore the party labels and see what the candidates say, or better yet, what they do. Or is that too hard?

          As for links, the convienant side effect of cnn altering stories is that the old stories I'm thinking of are, well, altered. A newer story does [cnn.com]
  • I dunno. I'm still waiting for one of The Onion's horoscopes to be accurate..... What do you mean they're not serious?
  • Vint Cerf wrote the forward, where he argues it is the responsibility of every citizen to test the truth of information on the Web

    That's what I've always thought! Finally, I have an argument for downloading and checking if the audio data in that mp3 truly represent what its filename (i.e. the "information" we see when using P2P software) suggest, since it is the responsibility of every citizen. Take that, RIAA! :-D

  • Slashdot has needed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Idimmu Xul ( 204345 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @07:17AM (#6272016) Homepage Journal
    +1 True / -1 False for a long time, as none of the other moderations really fit, when someone is doing their best to be insightful or informative but is just getting it all wrong. As if you have already modded the thread, you cant reply to point out their inaccuracies :/
    • isn't that what "flamebait" is for? if you're getting it wrong, no matter how much you try to be interesting or honest ... you'll get flamed. yes, that modding is just a 'prophecy' of sorts ... but ... close enough?
  • Then you're at the wrong website :P Or at least you shouldn't be reading the comments.
  • CeÃi n'est pas une pipe "|" (This is not a pipe "|")

  • More /. sarcasm...**sigh** (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jtrascap ( 526135 ) <bitbucket@nOSpam.mediaplaza.nl> on Monday June 23, 2003 @07:55AM (#6272189)
    Sometimes I can't stand this group.

    The article's about taking some personal responsibility to fact-check the crap you read - turn your brain on instead of take what you hear for granted - whether here, on Fox or CNN, from the govt. of your choice or even the online rantings of your Uncle Morty... perhaps especially your Uncle Morty.

    I wish I could convince this group that sarcasm isn't truth. It's not even entirely healthy - it's as dangerous as naiveté and certainly more destructive.

    The big problem here always is signal-to-noise, and the weenies who stopped doing "FP!" now contribute with their idea of wit. But often "witless" comes closer to the truth, in every sense of the word. Will it spark some kind of discussion? 'Prolly not - I'll just get flamed out the wazoo for saying it. Whoops, there goes my lousy 2 karma points.

    It's easier to jabber on, brain in check, no matter what you believe. Blind faith in the worst makes you no smarter, no wiser and no productive than blindly believing in the positive.

    Got a gripe? Listen, think, act - how hard is it? DO something about it. Heathly scepticism is a good thing, as long as it's combined with an inquisitive mind.

    Talk is cheap - even more so nowadays.
  • Doubleplusungood! How is this any diferent than print media, TV, or anmost anything else? Look at some of the wild statements which have appeared elsewhere! The one which comes to mind immediately is Al Gore's invention of the internet.
  • With Vince's role there [icann.org], you'd think they'd be a model for truth and honesty. And yet...

    Cheers,
    Ian

  • take out cnn.com, foxnews.com,...
  • I always thought it would be a good idea to have a service that verifies sites, then issues some sort of certificate that lets people know that the site and its contents are legit.
  • Indymedia [indymedia.org] has great coverage of most events and also has news about issues you would never here of through the main stream media.

  • [it's] the responsibility of every citizen to test the truth of information on the Web, and draw attention to incorrect information....

    Ok, so how do you draw attention to it, but posting or linking to the site and saying, "This is wrong." Meanwhile the search engines pick up that the site has been linked to and increases the site's "score" for future searches.

    This isn't idle speculation, I have seen a search engine come up with a high score site which has actually been incorrect. (I wish I could remem

  • " if you scream anything loud enough and long enough, esecially the more absurd it is, eventually people will start to believe you" -- Aldolf Hitler "Mine conft"( no idea how to spell that last bit).

  • Newsfighter (Score:2, Informative)

    by __aaklbk2114 ( 220755 )
    Disclamer: I'm not affiliated with this project in any way, I just saw it and thought it looked cool...

    There's an interesting project at Sourceforce called Newsfighter [sourceforge.net] that's working to build an open source reporting and colaboration system for fighting repressive control or censorship of information.

    From their web site:

    Newsfighter is a set of tools that web designers and independent journalists can use to protect the integrity of their written work against abusive governments, guarantee its dispersal a

  • So were there WMDs in Iraq or were there none?

  • How to Detect Bullshit (A Very Simple Guide) (Score:3, Informative)

    by SilentMajority ( 674573 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @01:46PM (#6274972) Homepage
    After you read this simple guide to bullshit detection [propagandacritic.com] , you'll be shocked to see how much of the 10 common propaganda techniques we are exposed to daily from managers, media, and even friends who sometimes don't even realize they're using these specific propaganda techniques.

    I rediscovered this guide today after many years and had a good laugh when I ran into a few of the propaganda techniques after lunch.

    After 15-30 minutes reading this guide, you'll be amused if you practice it on:
    1. Fox News Channel (easy place to start for beginners--you can sometimes detect 5 different techniques within a few minutes)
    2. Slashdot Posts (if you're into picking apart someone's flawed argument, you'll become a pro)
    3. CNN Crossfire (watch 2 pros battle each other using these techniques)

    IMHO, they should teach this (bullshit detection) in high school and assign homework to find specific examples of common propaganda techniques in advertising, news media, etc. Can you detect which one(s), if any, I'm using in this post?

    Index of 10 common techniques

    Word games
    ....Name-calling
    ....Glittering generalities
    ....Euphemisms

    False connections
    ....Transfer
    ....Testimonial

    Special Appeals
    ....Plain Folks
    ....Bandwagon
    ....Fear

    Logical fallacies
    ....Bad Logic or propaganda?
    ....Unwarranted extrapolation

    Source: http://www.propagandacritic.com/

  • Orwell and Bradbury (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Crispy Critters ( 226798 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @03:43PM (#6276645)
    There was a piece in the Sunday NYT WiR complaining about overzealous use of the word "Orwellian" (also that it refers to what the author described rather than what he espoused, but that is a separate issue). A main point was that every minor restriction in access to information or political euphemism should not be compared to the total control of language and information in 1984.

    When I recently reread Farhenheit 451, I caught a detail that I never paid attention to before. The firemen did not start burning books because the government wanted to eliminate them. The people demanded that thought-provoking, controversial and therefore disruptive works be destroyed. For any book, you could find some group who was bothered by it, so all books came under the kerosene.

    I see aspects of a sort of reverse-Orwellian society today. Varied viewpoints and honest criticism may be available, but most people don't want to hear them, any more than Bradbury's society wanted their books. Given the choice between the happy myth and reality, people will choose the myth. How many Americans care about the truth of Iraqi WMD's, the Lynch "rescue", or whether Iraq was involved in the 9/11 attacks? Or that fuel cells are not an energy source? Far too few for my comfort.

    This is worse than 1984, which envisions domination under an authoritarian government (as I remember; it has been a while). You don't have to beat down the people. Just tell the people the lies they want to hear, and they will do the rest. Whatever contradicts what people already want to believe will be ignored.

    This is something fascinating about information access and the internet. The net does not serve to widely disseminate information, except in the most literal geographic sense. Instead, it allows people to form communities with others who already share the same opinions. Memes bounce around in a mostly closed community, building up power and credibility.

    I can think of one concrete example. I received a forwarded email in 2000 of stupid statements allegedly made by Al Gore. I replied with an email from 1992 with the same set of quotes, but attributed to Dan Quayle. Did the original sender feel humiliated and send an apologetic retraction to everyone he had forwarded the message to? Of course not. The truth was easily available, but they liked the lie better.

    • I can think of one concrete example. I received a forwarded email in 2000 of stupid statements allegedly made by Al Gore. I replied with an email from 1992 with the same set of quotes, but attributed to Dan Quayle. Did the original sender feel humiliated and send an apologetic retraction to everyone he had forwarded the message to? Of course not. The truth was easily available, but they liked the lie better.

      What makes you think that the 1992 email was accurate?

  • Vint Cerf wrote the forward,
    Since he's a foreword thinking guy, I suppose.

    Sheesh!

  • Seems like a good time to quote Starship Troopers [imdb.com]:

    Rico: "A citizen is someone who makes the safety of the human race their personal responsibility."

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