Quote: "These political movements are exploiting declining confidence in official information by creating alternative information sources with the aim of undermining institutional legitimacy & destabilize mainstream parties, governments, elections. As misinformation is shaped by the political logic of radical right populism, so the politics of the radical right is shaped by the incentives of an attention-driven media environment, which offers agenda-setting and control over public attention." 2/

The response should not be to make tech the folk devil of this moral panic or shut down the openness of an enlightened society but to recognize the insidious efforts of these malign actors & publicly expose & target them. That would require media to recognize their vulnerability and culpability.

The patient is already gone. CPR is hopeless...
How Jeff Bezos can stop the bleeding at the Washington Post
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/17/jeff-bezos-washington-post

So far as I can see, the #BrokenTimes and #BrokenPost still have not reported that a Nazi was invited to and will attend the Inauguration of the president of the United States. If you find it covered, please let me know.

Elon Musk almost certainly fits the definition today."
"Almost certainly." Y'think?
What is an oligarchy? The warning Biden issued in his farewell, explained. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/01/16/oligarchy-us-definition-biden-farewell-speech/

The ski federation is embarrassed about Bavaria's Wank mountain.
Wank in Garmisch-Partenkirchen: Warum die FIS Werbung für den peinlichen Berg untersagt
via @sz https://sz.de/lux.VTRTzkMm6j3HXguoK1ZNsX

Extremist German AfD leader invited to and will attend Trump Inauguration.
Zeremonie in Washington: AfD-Chef Chrupalla reist zu Trumps Amtseinführung https://www.spiegel.de/politik/tino-chrupalla-afd-chef-reist-zur-amtseinfuehrung-von-donald-trump-nach-washington-a-b0aa7e90-5836-4ca0-924e-0cb009817eb9?sara_ref=re-so-tw-sh via @derspiegel

Important paper by Dutch scholars Petter Törnberg and Juliana Chueri brings data to show that the alleged epidemic of disinformation is not widespread across the political spectrum or manufactured by technology but is a specific tactic of far-right extremists exploiting the vulnerability of both an open society and mass media's attention economy. I've been shouting this into the void and I'm delighted by the research. 1/

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10.1177/19401612241311886

This makes me so damned angry.
TikTok Prepares for Immediate Shut-Off in the U.S. on Sunday
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/tiktok-prepares-for-immediate-shut-off-in-the-u-s-on-sunday?rc=jlskys

Well, because it is both the right thing to do and good business.
Why Costco Isn’t Joining the Backlash Against DEI
https://www.wsj.com/business/costco-dei-policies-0e7a3f11?st=GRbt5x

As usual, The Guardian shows how it's done.
Always a gift link.
Robert F Kennedy Jr claims seed oils are ‘poisoning’ us. Here’s why he’s wrong
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/jan/13/robert-f-kennedy-jr-claims-seed-oils-are-poisoning-us-heres-why-hes-wrong

Then The Times Magazine goes and blows it, asking whether to take RFK et seriously about raw milk, yes-butting its many dangers in an exercise in medical v. cult bothsidesing.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/13/magazine/raw-milk-danger-benefits.html

And here is the #GoodTimes bringing its reporting to the danger presented to our very lives by RFK Jr. et al with solid reporting.
Gift link:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/13/health/polio-vaccine-outbreaks.html?unlocked_article_code=1.o04.w4IA.do2lK5xEhQf2&smid=url-share

Yes, and a liar and dangerous fool.
Don’t Call Kennedy a Vaccine Skeptic. Call Him What He Is: A Cynic.
Gift link for a useful Times oped:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/13/opinion/rfk-jr-is-a-vaccine-cynic.html?unlocked_article_code=1.o04.cUi8.pVeeUMqFf4eM&smid=url-share

We're fucked.
Trump’s New Economist Makes the Case for 20% Tariffs
https://www.wsj.com/economy/trade/trump-tariffs-economost-stephen-miran-1d8f31f2?st=u8v21a

Oh, for fuck's sake. The #BrokenTimes is further sanewashing Trump's totalitarian imperialism and war-mongering against NATO allies by having Dealbook assess the market value of Greenland. This is not a newspaper. It is a sideshow.

Let me add that as I learned from a wise professor, "civility" is a word about power: who has the power to decide what is "civil" and disapprove of and disallow what they decree is not. Joe and Mika put themselves in the position of ruling what is "civil" and brook no dissent.

What the fuck, @ft? It publishes Thiel's paranoid, anti-institutional conspiracies theories against the "ancien regime" of "Distributed Idea Suppression...media organisations, bureaucracies, universities"...like the self-hating FT. We're so fucked.

Idiocy can be fatal.
Man who attacked D.C. pizza parlor in 2016 is killed by police in N.C. https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2025/01/09/edgar-maddison-welch-pizzagate-killed/

Brilliant from The Daily Show.
Then Mika says that it's important to be civil. OK, Mom. We'll be nice to the bigot, fascist, sexual assaulter, thief, and liar and go kiss his ass at Mar a Lago like you.
Then sure enough, she brings that up under the guise of civility.