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this used to be the the only heuristic available to the general population before the internet
The important thing that changed is we now have enormous choice of sources. If dishonest actors lose out on our attention to honest actors, there's at least a mechanism in the system that rewards honesty.
I don't think the conclusion I draw from the exercise of tracing this image is that "there's at least a mechanism in the system that rewards honesty."
The fellow who first traced the fake image posted his very thorough thread within an hour or two of the fake being posted, yet I was far more likely to encounter the fake image than I was to encounter his debunking of it.
To optimism's point of not seeing the fake image on MSM: score one point for the establishment.
There are also mechanisms to proliferate dishonesty.
I didn't say the mechanism incentivizing honesty was dominant, just that it exists. I don't think it existed before.
I think the long-term benefit was staying on the right side of the feds, whose permission was required to continue broadcasting.
score one point for the establishment.
The outrage they'd be on the receiving end of over not covering their asses on stuff like this is enough reason for them to be more careful than, say, the usual FUDsters on the bird app.
There is still some journalistic integrity in the world, but we also know that there's a narrative going on and they have no choice but to report those narratives. I found it interesting that for example Al Jazeera fell into the "legality" discussion trap yesterday, much like the BBC, until an analyst remarked that this is a dumb distraction move. It's far more interesting to find out who the insiders were, and what's in it for them.
The outrage they'd be on the receiving end of over not covering their asses on stuff like this is enough reason for them to be more careful than, say, the usual FUDsters on the bird app.
While this is true, it's also the case that the usual FUDsters on the bird app are not as likely to be the target of a serious pressure campaign.
Back when media was a few thousand journalists, people who wanted to control the story had a much easier time identifying which throats to choke. These days, control is some sort of aggregate business, as we were discussing the other day, it's become more of a sybil attack.
I'm also not convinced that outrage affects anyone in the media business (MSM or small time FUDster) very much. They make money from the outrage. Worst comes to worst, they give it a day or two and move on...because everyone else certainly has.
And of the many meanings of journalistic integrity that we might come up with, I hope that it is closer to "finding out who the insiders were" than "getting the details all exactly right."
it's also the case that the usual FUDsters on the bird app are not as likely to be the target of a serious pressure campaign.
Because you can just give em some cash and they'll sing your song; broken 60s jukeboxes have more integrity because at least they won't play what they don't have. So you're right, because you don't have to pressure if you can buy. At a bigger scale, this was also how I interpreted that whole "buying the NYT" recently.
control is some sort of aggregate business
It's the one where you make people believe that they want to be controlled by you. Because your censorship, lies and self enrichment are the best thing that ever happened to them, of course. Oh and let's not forget the new wing of that college that was built with your name on it because you earmarked 50M of creditor rektness for it in a 7000 page spending bill - that is the most awesome thing anyone has ever done.
They make money from the outrage.
Many do, but I think for some, rectification hurts. Yes, there are still some newspapers left in the world that actually do this. Total self-own of course, bad for profits. They could pump out 300 stories per day but these losers only do a 100. Sad! Maybe we should invade them, kidnap their CEOs and control them too. So much money lost! Think about the money!
And of the many meanings of journalistic integrity that we might come up with, I hope that it is closer to "finding out who the insiders were" than "getting the details all exactly right."
Why?
What I tell myself to retain sanity is that there is no truth and never has been: everything is subjective.
This is definitely true. Emphasis on never has been. Yet, it is a difficult way to live, because it is so easy to fall into the pattern of trusting a source or trusting what you see. It's also difficult to build with such a world view: we can't spend all our time second-guessing our priors. And of course the flat-earthers are just stupid.
This used to be the only heuristic
We are all probably used to the idea that words can lie, but even before the days of a camera in every pocket, I think we had a sense that it was harder to lie with a photograph (and even harder with video). In the 80s and 90s (when cameras really became widespread), an image could trump the source...I think -- not that it always did, but it could.
Then there was a brief shining moment, maybe 2010 - 2020? where digital cameras were suddenly in everyone's hands, while the means of believably faking images was not -- it felt like all of a sudden you could get as it was happening photos and videos of events around the world. There were still many ways to distort the truth or lie, but it felt like you could learn something from an image itself, regardless who posted it. This is what I think has broken.
In that decade, I think we all got somewhat used to seeing an image and believing it or being able to tell somewhat quickly that it was photoshopped. If we couldn't tell that it was faked, this was due to the changes being relatively subtle.
Trump's photo of Maduro easily could have been any slightly graying latin man -- the face is mostly covered. Using an actor was always a viable way to fake the image, yet the sheer prevalence of digital cameras made me at least think that fakes were harding to achieve...someone would leak a photo of the actor getting ready, chatting with a soldier or taking a smoke break (remember the fad of covid actor images where the morgues were full of bodies but then other images showed us the same bodies getting in a last puff before getting into character?).
These slight hopes at accessing truth are gone now. Perhaps you're right and we are only back in the same square as we were in the 90s, but it feels like we lost a little edge we had gained in the battle over control of information.
Hmm.. this used to be the the only heuristic available to the general population before the internet. And it was taken advantage of since forever. We've had some good years from the mid 90s to the mid 2010s or so when there was no answer to the loss of obscurity because CGI was expensive af, but the answer was being formed through massive false flag operations, which can now be done by anyone with a phone and an hour or so.
This is why many of us that were very active on the internet in the 90s are dismissing a lot as
false-flag, for everything. Because we've seen it happen; but this makes it hard to not be perceived like a complete loon. What I tell myself to retain sanity is that there is no truth and never has been: everything is subjective. That way, I can take a step back and not be upset all the time about things I cannot change, and focus on those that maybe I can. Even if you're working on a high risk, high reward moonshot, you can only do one of those at a time.Coming back to your image. I had 3 MSM live reporting streams on a separate laptop yesterday and the one posted on Truth Social was the only image I saw. I first thought it may be fake and I still think it may be edited. Looking at the picture quality, it also looks like a photo taken of a photo (or a deepfake). I found it interesting that someone else thought that too - an anon asked my question before I could, when bief57 said there was a fake circulating.