A Couple of Thoughts on the Biden MiniTrue

 

Thought the First:  Isn’t this just typical? This Ministry of Truth the Brandon Administration is setting up represents the ruling class’s belated recognition that people no longer trust the state or the state-aligned corporate media. In their minds, this is because people are making unfair criticisms of the Government on social media, and they have to set up an institution to counteract the Narrative. It never occurs to them that the actual problem is that the Government really is corrupt and incompetent, much less are they inclined to do anything to fix the real problem. Not even Republicans — who often campaign on “draining the swamp” — have any real inclination to do so. Even Republican Congresses under Republican presidents have never eliminated a single agency, never cut a budget, never even imposed any basic measures of accountability on Deep State bureaucracies.

Thought the Second. It isn’t going to work. The “Disinformation Governance Board” is essentially being set up as a taxpayer-funded Politifact.  Like Politifact, its mission is going to be to defend the administration and the preferred Narrative of the Democratic Party.  Ultimately, every attempt by the Ministry of Truth to reinforce the administration narrative is going to be either immediately fact-checked (“For four years I was a full professor at the University of Pennsylvania,”) or ultimately proven wrong (“Hunter Biden’s laptop is Russian disinformation.”) It is starting from a position of zero credibility, and can only go downhill from there.

Published in General
This post was promoted to the Main Feed by a Ricochet Editor at the recommendation of Ricochet members. Like this post? Want to comment? Join Ricochet’s community of conservatives and be part of the conversation. Join Ricochet for Free.

There are 67 comments.

Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.
  1. Judge Mental Member
    Judge Mental
    @JudgeMental

    kedavis (View Comment):

    The Reticulator (View Comment):

    DaveSchmidt (View Comment):

    The Reticulator (View Comment):

    Stina (View Comment):

    Larry3435 (View Comment):

    The left has been looking for a way to ban speech they don’t like for a long time. And each time they try, they have to pin a label on the speech they want to suppress. First they tried calling it “hate speech.” Then they moved on to calling it “violence.” Now, the new label is “disinformation.” They must be pretty confident about this label if they are willing to set up an official ministry to identify “disinformation.” I think they recognized that a “Ministry of Hate Speech” or a “Ministry of Violence” would have sounded creepy.

    Given how effectively government sources were used to shut down any dissenting voices on COVID, I’d say “disinformation” will be very effective.

    Somebody needs to ask if they are planning to discriminate between true disinformation and false disinformation.

    Fake disinformation, right?

    Yes, but is it true fake disinformation or false fake disinformation? The prefix “dis” says nothing that I can detect about the truth or falsity of information. Nor does the prefix “mis.” It perhaps does say something about the way that information (whether true or false) is used.

    I dis-agree. (See how that works?) The significant difference between misinformation and disinformation is going to be intent. Aside from hidden motives, someone who was “misinformed” and then perhaps passed it along, did not do so deliberately. (If the source of the information did so intentionally, they were giving disinformation; but an innocent recipient was still misinformed.) But disinformation is always intentional.

    That’s what I thought.  Jon Gabriel had it the other way around on the other thread.

    • #61
  2. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Judge Mental (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    The Reticulator (View Comment):

    DaveSchmidt (View Comment):

    The Reticulator (View Comment):

    Stina (View Comment):

    Larry3435 (View Comment):

    The left has been looking for a way to ban speech they don’t like for a long time. And each time they try, they have to pin a label on the speech they want to suppress. First they tried calling it “hate speech.” Then they moved on to calling it “violence.” Now, the new label is “disinformation.” They must be pretty confident about this label if they are willing to set up an official ministry to identify “disinformation.” I think they recognized that a “Ministry of Hate Speech” or a “Ministry of Violence” would have sounded creepy.

    Given how effectively government sources were used to shut down any dissenting voices on COVID, I’d say “disinformation” will be very effective.

    Somebody needs to ask if they are planning to discriminate between true disinformation and false disinformation.

    Fake disinformation, right?

    Yes, but is it true fake disinformation or false fake disinformation? The prefix “dis” says nothing that I can detect about the truth or falsity of information. Nor does the prefix “mis.” It perhaps does say something about the way that information (whether true or false) is used.

    I dis-agree. (See how that works?) The significant difference between misinformation and disinformation is going to be intent. Aside from hidden motives, someone who was “misinformed” and then perhaps passed it along, did not do so deliberately. (If the source of the information did so intentionally, they were giving disinformation; but an innocent recipient was still misinformed.) But disinformation is always intentional.

    That’s what I thought. Jon Gabriel had it the other way around on the other thread.

    I think there might have been a time before “disinformation” became a word, and then “misinformation” was probably used for both situations.  And that meant a new word was needed.

    • #62
  3. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    The Reticulator (View Comment):

    Yes, but is it true fake disinformation or false fake disinformation?   The prefix “dis” says nothing that I can detect about the truth or falsity of information. Nor does the prefix “mis.”   It perhaps does say something about the way that information (whether true or false) is used.

    Disinformation isn’t just propaganda, or lies, or even truth mixed with lies, or truth containing lies to make the truth meaningless, but includes also truth spoken to deceive, or that which was once true (or information that may or may not be true) that is now used as a tool to track security breaches.

    • #63
  4. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    kedavis (View Comment):

    The Reticulator (View Comment):

    DaveSchmidt (View Comment):

    The Reticulator (View Comment):

    Stina (View Comment):

    Larry3435 (View Comment):

    The left has been looking for a way to ban speech they don’t like for a long time. And each time they try, they have to pin a label on the speech they want to suppress. First they tried calling it “hate speech.” Then they moved on to calling it “violence.” Now, the new label is “disinformation.” They must be pretty confident about this label if they are willing to set up an official ministry to identify “disinformation.” I think they recognized that a “Ministry of Hate Speech” or a “Ministry of Violence” would have sounded creepy.

    Given how effectively government sources were used to shut down any dissenting voices on COVID, I’d say “disinformation” will be very effective.

    Somebody needs to ask if they are planning to discriminate between true disinformation and false disinformation.

    Fake disinformation, right?

    Yes, but is it true fake disinformation or false fake disinformation? The prefix “dis” says nothing that I can detect about the truth or falsity of information. Nor does the prefix “mis.” It perhaps does say something about the way that information (whether true or false) is used.

    I dis-agree. (See how that works?)

    That you disagree says nothing about whether I’m right or wrong. 

    The significant difference between misinformation and disinformation is going to be intent. Aside from hidden motives, someone who was “misinformed” and then perhaps passed it along, did not do so deliberately. (If the source of the information did so intentionally, they were giving disinformation; but an innocent recipient was still misinformed.) But disinformation is always intentional.

    I don’t like terminologies that require a secret codebook in order to interpret the words.   There is nothing inherent in those prefixes that would lead one to those distinctions about intent.  

    • #64
  5. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    Judge Mental (View Comment):
    That’s what I thought.  Jon Gabriel had it the other way around on the other thread.

    Flip a coin. Or consult your favorite secret codebook.  

    • #65
  6. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    The Reticulator (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    The Reticulator (View Comment):

    DaveSchmidt (View Comment):

    The Reticulator (View Comment):

    Stina (View Comment):

    Larry3435 (View Comment):

    The left has been looking for a way to ban speech they don’t like for a long time. And each time they try, they have to pin a label on the speech they want to suppress. First they tried calling it “hate speech.” Then they moved on to calling it “violence.” Now, the new label is “disinformation.” They must be pretty confident about this label if they are willing to set up an official ministry to identify “disinformation.” I think they recognized that a “Ministry of Hate Speech” or a “Ministry of Violence” would have sounded creepy.

    Given how effectively government sources were used to shut down any dissenting voices on COVID, I’d say “disinformation” will be very effective.

    Somebody needs to ask if they are planning to discriminate between true disinformation and false disinformation.

    Fake disinformation, right?

    Yes, but is it true fake disinformation or false fake disinformation? The prefix “dis” says nothing that I can detect about the truth or falsity of information. Nor does the prefix “mis.” It perhaps does say something about the way that information (whether true or false) is used.

    I dis-agree. (See how that works?)

    That you disagree says nothing about whether I’m right or wrong.

    The significant difference between misinformation and disinformation is going to be intent. Aside from hidden motives, someone who was “misinformed” and then perhaps passed it along, did not do so deliberately. (If the source of the information did so intentionally, they were giving disinformation; but an innocent recipient was still misinformed.) But disinformation is always intentional.

    I don’t like terminologies that require a secret codebook in order to interpret the words. There is nothing inherent in those prefixes that would lead one to those distinctions about intent.

    I think the “secret codebook” might be the dictionary.

    • #66
  7. Ammo.com Member
    Ammo.com
    @ammodotcom

    Jim McConnell (View Comment):

    While many of us see Orwell’s 1984 as a warning, it appears that the Biden administration sees is as a handbook.

    It’s worth remembering that, from the start, many on the left hated Orwell’s 1984.

    And yet they act like they have some of ownership over it because Orwell was a Democratic Socialist.

    • #67
Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.