RE: Researchers Call for Large-Scale Efforts to Tackle Fake News
This is such a hard topic. I completely resonate with what you're saying about mainstream media reporting being FOS. And previously it was very hard to catch them in their lies, and how could you get the word out to people if you did find out yourself? The internet has democratized the ability for differing views to be heard.
With that comes the problems that always come with our 1st amendment rights. (No one ever said it would be easy.) Yes, sometimes people will use that newfound freedom of reach to spread a blatant lie with the intent of manipulating public opinion to bring about results that benefit them. Basically, it isn't just the "powers that be" who serve corporate and military interests who can play the game now. It's important to keep in mind that the new players may be just as corrupt as the old ones, and just as sinister in what they are doing with this power.
Ultimately my hope is for that critical reasoning thing. I know, it can be perverted too, but what can't be? Somehow we have to protect both freedom of speech (including the freedom of reach the internet provides) AND also diminish the power that organized money outside corporate/military hands can still do to manipulate massive numbers of people with propaganda campaigns. I honestly see no way of doing it other than teaching people to spot propaganda. Now effectively teaching anything is the next issue. We've already seen how well our public education system has been doing. LOL
We need to teach and raise our children better, and that means we need to raise ourselves higher as well in order to do that. Critical thinking is not something well done by most people, certainly not most of the time ;)
Very true. Ultimately it starts within each of us. I'm grateful for the education I had as a child, primarily from my mother. My mother never did well in school. She tried hard, but it never quite came easily to her. But she valued the academic success that had eluded her so much that she super emphasized it among her children. Some of my earliest memories are of her reading me stories, then asking me questions about the stories afterward. Why did I think the main character did that? Why did his friend say that? What might have happened if this or that had been done differently? In some ways it probably made me too serious a kid to fit in among other children, to my detriment. But I am so grateful for the way she taught me so early on to question the world I see and ask myself what is causing it to be as it is and what might cause it to be different. This ability to question reality and decide for ourselves what is really going on, this we have to keep maintaining in ourselves as we age and also do our best to teach to the young.