How much do you trust the information you’re getting? Do you feel compelled to fact-check their sources? What about the “Big Lie” touted by the former President Donald Trump? How deep would you dig to verify the accuracy?
Misinformation is a concern, according to the report by the Brookings Institute. So much so, “democracy in the United States is in serious trouble” is the report’s opening statement, followed by citations of surveys from various major news-organizations and universities.
Sounds ominous? Yes, and it’s going to get worse as information technology multiplies and social media become weaponized by nefarious players with intent to manipulate the unsuspected target audience.
Moreover, the political action committee co-chaired by former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang and former Republican New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman is seeking to form a 3rd party (to the Democrat and Republican) called the Forward Party (FWD).
Here is the thing. We certainly don’t need more liars in our system. But more “truth tellers” only add to the distrust and chaos of misinformation. What need to be addressed are: How does this third party differ? What is their platform? And how feasible?
Simply put, there is no short cut — only way to counter misinformation is to think objectively and come to the answer for oneself. That will require time and effort but will be time and effort well spent.
Are you troubled by the misinformation in our democracy?
Running with Buddha 
oh yes…we had/have the of something called the freedom convoy here in Canada, that had nothing to do with freedom….and there are way too many Canadians that follow the gospel of Infowars and Marjorie Taylor Greene…..you wonder about the intellect of those two people, those like them, and those that follow them……someone said a while back is that you can’t have civilization without that word civil …even though this is just a small rock that we all live on flying through space, we all live on the same place, how could we create such a mess……make the u.s. great again, how about just the planet?
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I like that “cam’t have civilization without that word civil,” Warren. Make sense.
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We do not have a parliamentary system in the US, so a 3rd party ruins the election for one party or the other. We don’t have coalitions in the US. Hell our parties barely look like coalitions sometimes.
Have you seen the news stories on Deep Fakes? Basically they can take a persons image and voice and create a video of them saying anything the propagandist wants. 60 Minutes ran a story on this last week. As the technology gets better and cheaper it will be like Photoshop.
I try to trust ABC,CBS,NBC, CNN and PBS. But they have been caught making mistakes or worse.
The one thing that these broadcasters and mainstream newspapers have is that they do have professional writers and editors.
And while The Boston Globe does have a point of view, they can back that up with research and facts. Unlike any “news” found on FB or what ever Donnie’s site is called.
I think that the main stream media needs to tighten their ships, cut the hyperbole and focus on delivery the truth as evidenced by the facts. And when new facts are discovered or old ones disproven they need to be upfront about that.
The fact that Canada has become infected with US craziness and that Victor Orbon addressed cpac is just scary. It’s not enough for these idiots to destroy the US, but they have to export their rot.
As an ashiest let me add, god helps us all!
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Cyberwarfare is the in thing, Andy. Rouge countries employ it brazenly while we are under the freedom of speech framework. Not complaining, just buyers beware.
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