Disinformation has always been about getting elites to do things. That’s the point that so many who have looked at what percentage of ppl saw what on Facebook have missed. The public isn’t a target — it’s a vector (and it’s not the only vector).
Hopefully, as we watch what’s going on today, people can see that now? We track spread, but the real measure is penetration into groups that either make decisions or exert broad public influence. Or exert influence over those with influence.
Whether it’s our President who is talking about “shredded votes” in Fulton County, the politicians frightened of a small but heavily deluded set of future primary voters, or health care workers starting to plug into antivax networks due to COVID, that’s what to watch.
And by that measure, I’m sorry to say, we’re looking increasingly fucked.
Hapgood 
4 responses to “When it comes to disinformation, the public is a vector, not a target.”
[…] Author: mikecaulfield Go to Source […]
[…] si rien ne puait vraiment? Le but de la diffusion de cette propagande est de convaincre le public, et quand vous gagnez le public, vous gagnez aussi les élites dont la fortune électorale dépend de leur allégeance. Certaines […]
[…] לא באמת מסריח? המטרה להפצת תעמולה זו היא לזכות בציבור, וכשאתה מנצח את הציבור, אתה מנצח גם את האליטות שהון הבחירות שלהם תלוי […]
[…] Publishing executives have been watching political challenges to science in recent years with apprehension. Elsevier’s Olivier Dumon has said that, “the Enlightenment is fragile.” Taylor and Francis’s Annie Callanan gave a powerful speech emphasizing that, “more information is generated now than at any time in the past and yet shared truths have never felt more elusive.” Annette Thomas, then at Clarivate, emphasized that, “for me, publishing has always been about responsibility.” And yet, we face so many kinds of scholarly malfeasance and outright disinformation that take advantage of the process of scientific dialogue which publishers facilitate. To be sure, there is great value in the authority/expertise signals conveyed through scholarly communications processes and a need for stronger gatekeeping to enforce the quality, and defend the integrity, of the scholarly record. Nonetheless, there is no existing gatekeeping model that adequately protects the scholarly record from the attack vectors it faces. And, gatekeeping alone, even if well-executed, doesn’t prevent lying and it definitely does not prevent lies from spreading when “the public is a vector, not a target.” […]