M.D.M – Misinformation, Disinformation, Malinformation … what’s going on?
Like a bolt of lightning out of nowhere new words and concepts are raining down upon us to modify our behaviour and our willingness and freedom to share information with one another.
New ideas, new science, new discoveries have been amongst the most amazing experiences that have aligned with the forward motion of mankind’s evolution as a species. How many forward thinking philosophers, scientists, medical researchers, musicians, writers have been maligned as heretics over the past several hundred years when they have somehow come across new ideas and concepts which contradict existing beliefs? I would predict that there have been many. Some we know about, some who have never had a light shone on them. There will always be a resistance to new ideas and concepts as it appears that most people are relatively conservative, want to play it safe and don’t like their stable datums and security to be challenged.
Until Donald Trump grabbed Hilary Clinton’s comment about fake news when she refused to take a question from a CNN reporter during a press conference in 2017 I had never heard of fake news. Interestingly enough the link to the Washington Post article about “Fake News” originating from Hilary Clinton goes nowhere, it’s been taken down. Until recently I had always associated Donald Trumps parroting about fake news with the idiosyncrasies of a man who appeared to become President of the USA by default. He seemed to call everything fake news.
You don’t hear this catch cry too much today but the word misinformation has seemingly taken its place. So now I’ve discovered that this has been broken down even further and carefully defined to suit the social and political climate of 2022.
MDM – Misinformation, Disinformation and Malformation.
No shit. These are all “things” and have very specific definitions.
Misinformation – Misinformation is information that is false, but the person who is disseminating it believes that it is true.
Disinformation – Disinformation is information that is false, and the person who is disseminating it knows it is false. “It is a deliberate, intentional lie, and points to people being actively disinformed by malicious actors”.
Malinformation – Mal-information is information that is based on reality but it is used to inflict harm on a person, organisation or country.
English is a living language so new words will enter into it as they are needed and if you look at these definitions closely they all have a place if used honestly and ethically. But in this day and age I question that this is the case.
Going back to earlier periods of my life I have always been curious about certain events that looked a bit weird but at the same time had powerful narratives attached to them by mainstream media and political connections. For me it started with the genesis of the American War against Vietnam. It seemed wrong to me and the more I dug, the more it looked like a false narrative had been created by the powers that be in the USA. I decided that the war was contrived, corrupt and unnecessary, I opposed it on humanitarian grounds.
Back then I had the moral support of hundreds of thousands of other like minded people who also opposed this corrupt war. We weren’t called conspiracy theorists back then but there were some nasty names like “draft dodger” “communist” associated with the movement against the war. Unfortunately most people initially fell for the mainstream narrative. The truth didn’t come out until many years later.
Other events that I have scratched my head about include the assassination of JFK, 9/11, The invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq to name but a few incidents that have happened during my lifetime. There were cracks in the narratives, something appeared to be hidden behind what the mainstream media were reporting.
I suppose that I became sceptical of governments and big media corporations. I also had a feeling that somebody was covering up the truth behind these incidents. I assumed that somebody was creating conspiracies.
The definition of the word conspiracy is simply “A secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful”. I felt that I didn’t want to be duped so I dug as much as I could, although this didn’t consume a great deal of my time. I just didn’t want to fall for bald faced lies.
As the years went by something happened. Being a conspiracy theorist had once seemed to imply that you were interested in getting to the bottom of anything that seemed fishy. All of a sudden the connotations changed to implying that you were some sort of nutter who believed in fairy tales. Which is where we have landed now in 2022. To be called a conspiracy theorist is to be heaped with a label that you are part of a crazy minority that would believe any false information presented to them. In other words the definition of the label actually changed.
I asked myself the question “isn’t this a perfect way to control people, to stop them looking, to stop them sharing their viewpoints with others, to take away their curiosity and to force them to toe the line?” It now appears to me that over the past 2 decades that somebody behind the scenes has been manipulating information to heap together people who are genuinely interested in the truth with people who are unfortunately susceptible to fantastic falsehoods that would make any sane person doubt the validity of this mad stuff that was being thrown around.
What a perfect way to silence truth seekers by lumping them together with the concept of nutters who believe that the Queen is a lizard person who drinks the blood of children. I’ve got to give it to whoever thought this up. It is a brilliant strategy. To be called a conspiracy theorist in 2022 is akin to being called a communist in 1950s U.S.A.
Over the past 2 years I have watched with a great deal of dismay as our society has become more and more polarized. Our freedom to share viewpoints, to debate, to look at different possibilities, to question the mainstream has been alloyed more and more to the point where the only acceptable option is to simply agree with the governments, the big tech companies, the big pharmaceutical companies. There is so much money at stake and the aforementioned groups seem to have the lion’s share which makes them even more powerful.
We are now in a golden age of information. I was born in 1952 when only ridiculously wealthy families had books and encyclopaedias in their homes. Our only access to information when I grew up was from our teachers at school, from libraries, newspapers and magazines, radio and television. The media were always slightly tainted by their need to make money which they did through advertising and they sure as hell weren’t going to kill the golden goose.
My first introduction to alternative information was through university newspapers like Farrago and Lot’s Wife and a bit later through the pages of the American version of Rolling Stone where I discovered Hunter S Thompson’s riveting “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail” series, which covered the 1972 US Presidential election race between Richard Nixon and George McGovern. As the years went by more and more alternative information came to light but the mainstream media still packed a punch.
Now here we are in 2022. Drowning in information. Some true, some false, some warped, some malicious, some inspirational. The information menu is immense. It appears to me that this is freaking out the mainstream media, the big tech guys and quite a lot of powerful politicians and the new billionaire elite.
So finally I get to my point. From where I stand the current pandemic offers the perfect opportunity for a powerful minority to shape the thinking of the people’s of earth to they own vision of what life should be like. In this vision there is no room for individual thinkers who question, who have different viewpoints, who have a desire to pursue the truth.
What better way to silence these dissenters than by labelling them with these new terms : misinformation, disinformation and malformation. One simple word from the above trio can destroy a person’s credibility and get them cancelled in a day.
The world of podcasts is a perfect example. I was diagnosed with cancer in late 2022. I am now cancer free. I did most of my research online. It took a lot of looking, a lot of sifting and a lot of logic but I eventually found a group of doctors, researchers and protocols that helped me beat my cancer and come out the other end far healthier than I have been in decades. If looked at superficially mainstream oncologists might say that I did the wrong thing, maybe they would say this without truly looking at the information I looked at. They could even go as far as calling it misinformation, disinformation and malformation. How could they say this without even looking for themselves, without attempting to apply any of this data. I have anecdotal evidence that what I did worked. I beat my cancer and have no side effects. The same goes for the current controversy about the Joe Rogan Experience podcast. I have listened to quite a few of his discussions. Most of them go for up to 3 hours. I find them fascinating, informative and generally highly intelligent. Are they all based on 100% fact checkable truths? Maybe not. But most of the people listening will know when somebody is talking shit. I have a haunting suspicion that the majority of the people who are attacking Joe Rogan have never listened to one complete podcast.
If the stats are accurate, Joe Rogan has an audience of 11,000,000 for each podcast while a big network like CNN has a daily audience of around 500,000. Rogan appears to have one staff member while CNN potentially employs thousands. No wonder they are pissed off. He is a huge threat to big media as are other podcasters like Lex Fridman, Andrew Huberman, The Dark Horse, Dr Eric Berg, Dr Berry, Dr Boz, Tim Ferris … the list goes on. All intelligent and inquisitive individuals who are genuinely curious or who offer lifestyle alternatives to forward advice to help individuals live a longer, healthier life. They have millions of listeners and based on comments are influencing and/or helping many people access more concise information about the world, science, health and much more.
I for one want to live in a world where information is shared, discussed, debated, disagreed with, questioned, applied, tested or simply used as entertainment or in some cases just to keep somebody company throughout their lonely days.
