The sources of misinformation that thrived in Parler
By now, every American should be on the same page about COVID-19. We should all be seeing the same images of overcrowded hospitals, dwindling supplies, and skyrocketing infection rates. Americans have suffered far more during the pandemic than any other country, yet 25% of Americans still believe that the pandemic was planned and executed by powerful people. How is it possible for the most modern society in the world, with all the evidence right at our fingertips, to be so misinformed?
This is part 3 of a multi-part series where I analyze data scraped from Parler before it was shut down by Amazon. In part 1, I analyzed the frequency of violent hashtags, and in part 2 I got distracted by the bizarre campaign finance records of Marjorie Taylor Greene and the quarter million in dark money that made its way into Parler over the course of a single month.
Misinformation is like a virus
It starts with a single creature lurking in a dark cave of the Internet. Patient zero takes a bite, and gets infected with the idea that Bill Gates orchestrated a global pandemic so he could insert microchips into babies. The patient will spread this disease in the form of a poorly-edited video hosted on Facebook, where other people with weak mental immunity might come into contact with it. After fifteen minutes inhaling the spurious argument that a multi-billionaire could somehow apply his knowledge of computer viruses toward creating human viruses, they will refuse the cure of simple reason from inoculated minds in the comment section, and rather go on to become another vector of transmission.
The video I linked to above was released in early April (the left-most red line above), and was barely noticed. Toward the end of June, a now-deleted Facebook video claimed Bill Gates was planning to use vaccines to depopulate the Earth (second red line). As the national discourse shifted toward vaccine development, a series of blatant lies (debunked here) were widely shared on Facebook and Parler, claiming the Gates Foundation paralyzed kids while distributing vaccines in third-world countries. By December, enough people had died of coronavirus in America that all but the most conspiratorial minds were forced to accept the fact that the disease is indeed out there. Just like the virus, the misinformation around the virus mutated into a rallying cry against public safety measures proposed by Bill Gates and a debate as to whether the benefits of opening the economy outweigh the deaths it would cause.
Misinformation is constantly adapting
In the case of Bill Gates, he came out as a vocal supporter of public safety measures that were especially loathed by Americans who felt it encroached on their civil liberties. His advocacy for masks and lockdowns led to the misinformation virus adapting a narrative that he, along with other influential billionaires, is a bioterrorist intent on consolidating power over humanity.
A popular Parley from September 26th, 2020
#OPENAMERICANOW !!
We have the Medicines !!
We have the logistics/hospitals !!
#KidsAreSafe
#NoVaccineForMe !!
We already are at #herdimmunity
#NoMask =Healthy
#Mask =Sick, vulnerable or terrorist.
#NoContactTracingForMe
#Science
#billgatesbioterrorist
Ask #DrJudyAMikovits and about #FauciTheFraud !
#USA USA USA!
#ChicanosForTrump
#MAGA #MAGA2020
Dr. Atlas Breaks Down the REAL COVID-19 Numbers on The Ingraham Angle — Rebukes CDC Director Dr. Redfield on Scare Tactics (VIDEO)
In America, we have a unique media ecosystem that financially thrives from airing controversy. While many of us got our information from Dr. Anthony Fauci, a well-respected level-headed scientist, the other half of America was listening to Scott Atlas voice baseless opinions on Fox News that masks and social distancing don’t work. These videos were viewed and reposted thousands of times on Parler, without a single person questioning Scott’s statements on Parler.
Reader’s note: I am not giving Scott Atlas the “Dr.” honorific he technically requires but does not deserve, for the same reason I just write “Donald Trump”.
Even after Scott Atlas resigned from the coronavirus task force on November 30th following a reckless Tweet encouraging Michigan residents to “rise up” against newly announced COVID restrictions, the damage had already been done. Scott continues to show up in conversation on Parler, and his videos are widely shared and quoted among anti-maskers.
I don’t want to say anything against Dr. Atlas as a person but I totally disagree with the stand he takes. I just do, period.
— Dr. Anthony Fauci, November 19th, 2020, NBC News
Misinformation videos that inspire violence
From my personal experience browsing Parler, it was clear that the most angry and hateful comments were associated with posts that had a video. I first filtered my dataset for posts linking to videos that contained violent hashtags, or were linked to violent concepts when passed into AWS Comprehend. I weighted each hashtag by the impressions and comments on its associated posts, then picked the top 100 hashtags and the web domains they led to.
Misinformation videos that evoke a violent response (“hang the traitors”, “kill all of them”, etc) is primarily hosted by two sites — BitChute and Youtube. Clearly there is some hypocrisy in Google banning Parler from the Google Play store for inciting violence after hosting a substantial number of the videos that incited that violence, many of which are still up today. I am obligated to point out that BitChute has a very lax content moderation policy, while Youtube seems to take content moderation much more seriously.
Only after doubling the threshold for hashtag frequency does another video site (Rumble) begin to appear.
I actually encourage any level-headed readers to gain some perspective by browsing these sites to observe what the other half of America is watching. If you dive deep enough, you might even get placed on the same FBI watch list that I’m probably on. I am absolutely certain that within five minutes of searching on Rumble or BitChute, you will find a video that is intended to provoke a violent response from its viewers. If you are simply looking to be entertained, I would recommend watching Alex Jones explain in great detail how inter-dimensional aliens have hijacked our reality.
I’m quite certain that a reader who made it this far in a story like this one has probably never heard of these sites. Facebook is not suggesting them to you, Twitter is not recommending you follow them, and Google is not showing them to you in the first page of results. They exist in a parallel Internet to our own, free from our scrutiny.
Why I think Internet censorship does not work
The popular file-sharing website ThePirateBay allows anyone on the Internet to download the plans for a 3D-printable single-shot handgun. Despite significant controversy and US government intervention, TPB defended their decision to host the information.
We don’t condone gun violence. We believe that the world needs less guns, not more of them. We believe however that these prints will stay on the internets regardless of blocks and censorship, since that’s how the internets works. If there’s a lunatic out there who wants to print guns to kill people, he or she will do it. With or without TPB. Better to have these prints out in the open internets (TPB) and up for peer review (the comment threads), than semi hidden in the darker parts of the internet.
As long as there is someone out there willing to blame Bill Gates for the pandemic or call George Soros a Nazi, there will be a place on the Internet that is willing to give a voice to their ideas. When a self-righteous mob forces these places to shut down, the people on these platforms scatter to even darker corners of the Internet.
The question we need to be asking is whether we should banish certain ideas to an echo chamber that the rest of us have no incentive to enter, or whether we should allow free expression of all ideas — no matter how repulsive — so rational minds may finally have an opportunity to prevail.
from Hacker News https://ift.tt/35Iy8cg
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