Saturday, November 23rd, 2019
Stephan: In my opinion social media platforms have become a strongy negative force degrading American democracy. Americans as a group are astonishingly ignorant about their government's structure. According the latest research about 64% of Americans cannot name the three branches of the federal government. This vast ignorance renders them gullible and easily influenced, by even the most blatant disinformation. Proof: FOX a deiberate disinformation operation is the most watched cable network and, as this story describes, Facebook is filled with racism and disinformation. The Russians used it to manipulate the 2016 election.
A body of law needs to be created that assures these outlets are fact based because the mass of disinformation that flows out of them constitutes a cancer on the body politic.
Mark Zuckerberg has called for a ‘diversity’ of views. Credit: Erin Scott/Reuters
SAN FRANCISCO — On 7 November, Lana Lokteff, an American white nationalist, introduced a “thought criminal and political prisoner and friend” as a featured guest on her internet talk show, Red Ice TV.
For about 90 minutes, Lokteff and her guest – Greg Johnson, a prominent white nationalist and editor-in-chief of the white nationalist publisher Counter-Currents – discussed Johnson’s recent arrest in Norway amid authorities’ concerns about his past expression of “respect” for the far-right mass murderer Anders Breivik. In 2012, Johnson wrote that he was angered by Breivik’s crimes because he feared they would harm the cause of white nationalism but had discovered a “strange new respect” for him during his trial; Breivik’s murder of 77 people has been cited as an inspiration by the suspected Christchurch killer, the man who murdered the British MP Jo Cox, and a US coast guard officer accused […]