WATCH: Who Will Fact Check the Fact Checkers?
James Corbett’s latest documentary unmasks the internet’s “independent” fact checking websites
We’ve all come across online fact checkers that purport to warn us away from independent media sites under the guise of protecting us from fake news. But who is behind these fact check sites? How do they operate? And if these ham-fisted attempts at soft censorship aren’t the solution to online misinformation, what is? Join James for this week’s important edition of The Corbett Report podcast, where we explore the murky world of information gatekeeping and ask “Who will fact check the fact checkers?”
For links, sources and an audio-only version click here.
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I’m sightly amused by the interesting search engine returns when searching for OffGuardian, that apear before and after the link to the OffG website.
I’m even more amused that this ‘state familia skulddugery’ actually exists, given that my search engine is DuckDuckGo.
In keeping with the Big Brother discussion.I read somewhere today that- surprise surprise- Fakebook and Google, the government bullshit tools, have been manipulating their ‘facts’ again. How ironic.Or is it hypocritical.
Let’s put it all into perspective as best we can.
Anyone who questioned the covid narrative online and who had influence was swiftly removed from the internet.Youtube swept it’s floor daily and still is (Youtube is Google’s video room).Fakebook and Twitter issued a statement that they too would be doing it.Basically removing people who asked questions.Then, if they exposed the flaws in the official narrative they were named as enemies of the state.
In their place we had hyped up melodrama, insincere speeches, fake statistics and more people exposing more flaws and lies. In an attempt to misdirect everyone’s eyes from themselves, they talked about being oh so responsible and caring by having ‘independent’ fact checkers.Bullshit.How do we assess how genuine and how ‘independent’they are ?Well, if they’re genuine, they’ll share the flaws in all the ‘facts’ that we’ve had thrown at us by the very people who have paid them to come in and check facts.They’ll tell us the projections and statistics were lies; that they were invented ahead of the game to use via media outlets to fill the public with unnecessary fear.That doctors had lied about deaths and diagnoses at the request of the government who want ‘fact checkers’ on board.
Here’s one.Type in any 3 digits on google and add ‘cases’.See what it throws up.I saw that online today- and that’s a fact.Then look at this 4 minute video from a couple of years ago with the other CIA arm and weirdo asset Zuckerberg and the social network he pretended to pioneer for them.
Associated Press now has, alongside the venerable News ticker, a NotRealNews ticker.
https://apnews.com/NotRealNews
To be a well-informed world citizen one must be equally informed on What’s Not Happening. Sadly AP publishes its summary only once a week. Thus I must scour the web on my lonesome to find What’s Not.
Noosecar, aka how long the rope was in the NASCAR garage, demands my attention. AP did have a story on June 19: CLAIM: NASCAR, which recently banned the Confederate flag at its events, is now forcing its drivers to engage in Muslim prayer.
That doesn’t help but it begs the question, is someone gunning for NASCAR?
Politico has a page called, Fake news but it’s subtitled News, Analysis and Opinion from POLITICO which has me wondering is this just news that Politico disagrees with.
I am striving to appraise myself of What’s Not, not What’s Not Your Opinion.
“Who Will Fact Check the Fact Checkers?”
Isn’t this very obvious? It’s the Ministry Of Truth of course.
Fact checkers or fat chequers. The question is, who pays them?
John Rappoport has a good article on Reuters fat chequing the GMO Frankenstein man aspect of a DNA altering vaccine. Concise and understated,no more fake news June 23, 2020.
Big Tech is having its own problems during this era of “defund the police”
1,600 idiot Google employees called on their company to stop selling products to the police – they make no mention that Google itself is a huge state spying operation, absolutely integral to the police state. Thus they deserve the description, idiot Googlers.
Twitter permanently banned the account of Distributed Denial of Secrets, a journalist organization that earlier this week made accessible to the public one of the largest repositories of leaked U.S. law enforcement documents to date.
https://gizmodo.com/1-600-googlers-call-for-an-end-to-all-contracts-with-c-1844124793
Our task is to learn disambiguation.Not only for words but phrases too. Then whole paragraphs.We need to learn this skill in order to ignite natures own app , the ‘inner subtitle provider’. Once we ignite this little beauty we’re all OK.We will have developed the innate talent for critical thinking that had fallen asleep due to lack of use.
It isn’t difficult.It just sounds it.What you need to remember is that those in powerful positions are inherently corrupt now.They need to take you by the mind and hold on tightly.And squeeze if you try to get loose.When a tiny percentage want to hold that kind of grip on a huge percentage, they have to be slick.They have to win you with a smile or quip while selling you poison for your cocoa.And since the end of WW2 they have done.
It was during that 6 year exercise in genocide and banking that the German’s re-directed their seeming genius for engineering away from their cars and planes and focused it on people and society.Generations of mind manipulators like Freud and Bernays had provided the blueprint for control.With the correct application it could sell ice to the eskimos and bullshit to everyone.Propaganda was the best weapon a state could possess.And it could adapt to all outlets available; radio; movies;newspapers; newsreels. The age of deception was the new way.Magician after magician paraded their skills one after the other.; masters of close up magic and misdirection.But what would we know ? They were powerful, rich, educated people that had been entrusted with governing us.So they must be clever and upstanding-right ?
Aldous Huxley reflected on the first world war and A Brave New World was born.A Dystopian masterpiece that painted a landscape of sheer terror under global governance where the new religion was technology and the new holy ones where those who controlled it-and us.In this world your will is not your own because your mind isn’t. And the drones are controlled by doses of ‘soma’ and kept stupefied and compliant as the kakistocracy organised the 5 castes from birth( two of the elite- 3f or us).It was considered science fiction in 1930.It’s considered a prophecy now.
George Orwell was influenced by Huxley and the war too.And once we had been through another one, he added a kind of addendum of sorts with the classic 1984.Another Dystopian masterpiece that picked up from a Brave New World.Here we had Big Brother- the one world government.The state owned you.The state lived your life for you.It’s an ingenious looking glass world.In it you watch a screen( ‘Telescreens’). But really, there’s an eye in it watching, recording and listening to you.Should you voice a thought that doesn’t fit the state ‘facts’ or official narratives the ‘thought police’ will knock on your door.And you will pay.
Part of this dark world holds the great ministries.Ministries of Love,Peace,Plenty, and Truth.The ministry of Peace is concerned with only war.The ministry of plenty concerns itself with the control of the food supply( starvation).The ministry of Love concerns itself with torture ( to ‘teach’ you how to think) and the ministry of Truth concerns itself with lies( their truth is true- if you disagree you’re ;lying and will pay).This is referred to as ‘doublethink’.You can hold two opposing views about something at one time.It’s a useful trick for politicians who get caught lying.They can say they were using an ‘alternative fact’; try to make the whole thing subjective and imply the mistake is yours.Sound familiar ?
In the context of the subject in discussion, the Ministry of Truth is the relevant one.
The Ministry of Truth is involved with news media, entertainment, the fine arts and educational books. Its purpose is to rewrite history to change the facts to fit Party doctrine for propaganda effect. For example, if Big Brother makes a prediction that turns out to be wrong, the employees of the Ministry of Truth correct the record to make it accurate. Sound familiar ?In the novel, we learn that this is how they maintain the illusion of being absolute.They never have a reason to change a thing they had already said.This illustrates the power of three things; propaganda, gullibility., and totalitarianism.
One of the more insidious mechanisms of it all is the obsessive ‘losing’ of original texts( files) that may cast doubt over the state’s version of honesty, integrity, and fact. Books and records are destroyed.While the present generation may have the information in their mind, the next generations will have no way of knowing about it or finding it even by accident.it’s the most reliable way of controlling any narrative and re-inventing history to suit. Sound familiar ?
One of our great gifts is language.And language and thinking expand and grow together.This is transmitted through words.In the novel, words too are destroyed and dictionaries re-written.Dictionaries are made to shrink over time.And, by extension, the mind ceases to grow and the people’s ability to think goes too. Another way of gaining control and maintaining it.Less words, less sentences. Less richness of thought, less richness of thinking.The ability to think grinds to a halt. With that, the ability to concentrate for any length of time.Attention spans shrink.’Hash tag’ anyone ?
The ministry is a pyramidal structure.300 metres in the air and 3,000 rooms above the ground and the same below.It houses many huge incinerators for the burning of the proof and knowledge down the ‘memory holes’.Outside are the 3 slogans.’War is peace; freedom is slavery;ignorance is strength’.Those slogans are the law.The size of the ministry of truth reflects the importance of propaganda and the need to control the population through misinformation and the destruction of truth as we know it.
But, as i said when i walked in…
When you know you’re looking at and listening to someone who wants to sell you snake oil and stab you in the back, they use ‘doublethink’ and ‘doublespeak’. Take note of their key words, key points and key phrases. Then write them down. Then take each key and replace it with an antonym.Like the leader who says over and over and over and over that he loves and values ‘freedom’.You can bet your bottom dollar he’s batting for the Dystopians who will take your freedom away one brick at a time as you wave your flag.Or maybe something like ”i did not have sexual relations with that woman”. See- you got it. Congratulations, you just ignited your inner subtitles app.
( yw)
No its much simpler we just need a reasoning mind.
We already have the skills needed wisdom, clarity and understanding only we don’t access those inner qualities too caught up we are in the conditioned mind.
This inner revolution is needed before we are going to see changes in the outer world.
Otherwise this regression in human consciousness will continue for a short time but it comes down to a change needed for our very survival .
All the collective human insanity is out on display and boy does it make a lot of noise.
More people are now aware of the govt not as the media spins it a benovolent nanny but as a parasite a matrix web designed to control their minds and protecting the bankers status quo and subsidizing all their multinational corporations.
”No its much simpler we just need a reasoning mind.”
I agree.But you then go on to summarise, accurately, all the reasons why it’s far from simple.And i agree with those.
The only time you can get any kind of ‘rebellion’ is by persuading a herd( very easily unfortunately) that there’s a cause to identify with and defend on the streets that will make you appear to be switched on, politically correct, ‘woke’ or ‘evolved’.They won’t question the rationale or read the small print. Their egos were already bought by the initial statement.
I thought for a minute that I’d landed on someone’s blog site by mistake.
Valuable mind here with James Corbett. Many thanks, James.
His last words if I’m understanding them, “The way things are going, you may not be able to hear my voice anymore,” refer to the latest Goebbels-like thinking on how to control the Official Narrative, which he explores here via “fact-checkers” that are financed by Big Corporate interests, with sinister skills in twisting and word-weaseling and evading.
Windows 10, I believe, shows a lot of advances for the Corporate State. So much more intrusive, annoying, plastering and obliterative, un-user friendly than Windows 7 with Google in the alliance of course and watching over us–Sir! Did you browse there! oh my god! careful now!–so that browsers become increasingly officially aligned with “truth checkers” etc (as Corbett explains) and websites like Corbett’s and O-G could become increasingly difficult to access–not censorship outright, but the massaging of perception management toward the happy face honey-tongued corporate messaging . . .
So I worry about this. That at some point forums like this one will disappear. I had been thinking they would just shut it down. That it would be a “We must not allow terrorist stimulation of unrest, violence, etc. coming from our enemies” sort of message and linked up to the “paid retards” inhabiting it (that is us in the community here) paid by “enemies of the nation” or whatever. Corbett indicates it is much much subtler than this, and that makes sense. It won’t be ham-fisted. It will be served up with soft tones and shining eyes, and we’re just doing this to protect our nation type stuff.
I worry you here will be gone. Then what. What if there are no sites like this . . . I mean for me the sites have been disappearing steadily, sinking into the Corporate Maw, what a list we could make now. I’ve been so frankly amazed that MOA has now gone but perhaps that’s just on the Covid thing? I used to think MOA was the best. I was one of the barflies; B was a savior. And now what the hell happened? I pleaded with Sputnik’s Loud and Clear people to get skeptical on the virus instead of promoting it (John Kiriakou, for example, whom I like) and they ignored me. (This was back several weeks; I gave up on them; so maybe they’ve come around). Kept on with the bullshit.
The what to do if everybody is gone problem, like the minds here on this site with their great knowledge and energy to inform (I thank you!) gone? What if I can’t hear Corbett et al at some point, as he says. What then. How much longer do we have to be free to do what’s going on here at O-G? Because it seems to me critique of the Official Narrative is an increasing problem for the PTB set, as their pretexts become less and less skillfully devised, more transparent, more ridiculous, more destructive. The current fiasco is amazing and in danger of slipping away from them. More control coming right up?
In case you’re interested . . .
I checked on Derrick Broze, interviewed by Corbett here, and then I specifically linked in to a Derrick presentation on George Soros. This commentary is interesting although Derrick is not as polished and effective as Corbett, who is exceptional.
Derrick Broze
http://theconsciousresistance.com/
D Broze on claims re Geo Soros on what he finances plus list of sources.
https://theconsciousresistance.com/is-george-soros-more-than-a-boogeyman/
I’m no fan of Soros but have been hearing a lot about his supporting Antifa and BLM. Derrick here gets into this topic in quite a bit of depth. He’s cautious and aware there is a lot of negative feeling about Soros, and attempts to figure out how accurate this is, plus supplies a number of links. Good work.
Soros seems to have a let-me-play-at-revolutionizing-the-globe-the-way-I-see-it sort of complex, involved here and there and is usually tagged “progressive.” Broze has some amusing stories at the end of his program, where he talks of hoodlums with arms in various tiny hamlets waiting for a Soros bus with “Soros Riot Dance Squad” in big letters on their sides to show up and transport them to the action (such as a CHAZ zone), plus pay them. This is apparently a fantasy for these types, but Derrick is not convinced this is a legitimate expectation for Soros.
More convincing to Derrick is Soros’ connections to and support of Hillary Clinton. So now we can get this “progressive” more into perspective. Ah, yes, Hillary, like Pelosi and Schumer are “left” and “progressive,” in MSM terms I suppose–apparently neoliberals think they’re “progressive.” For example, Derrick claims Soros instructed Hillary to intervene in Albania, and stated he was sorry he had supported Obama and not Hillary in 2008. As to Soros being behind BLM and Antifa, Derrick is not sure this is right.
It would appear that scammer/pump and dumper/hedge fund vulture Soros is one of those CIA “useful associates” that “THE AGENCY” uses to further its criminal “agenda.” His commitment to a better world extends only to how much ill gotten moolah/loot he can shove in his pockets. Red Flags should go up immediately for any group that takes money from him.
Additionally, the link from O-G’s June 26 piece on co-opting the activism supports more depth on Soros than indicated by Derrick above. Here is the link again (from August 2016):
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/aug/16/black-lives-matter-cashes-100-million-liberal-foun/
I would expect more of a death by attrition than outright banning of sites like this and Corbett’s. By that I mean, as things degenerate under the guise of the corona family, it would be more expedient to take out those who frequent these sites one by one and confine them as being infected. That way, the sites remain; but gradually lose their base and perhaps fold for that reason. Corona=The Gift That Keeps On Giving.
I worry that you, here, will be gone also Aldous.
And everyone else that visits this site.
I also wonder how far they will go. A couple months back I joked that we would have to revert back to Samizdat – as in the old Soviet Union. Maybe not so far fetched?
They; the 0.01% want total control of the narrative, and if that means flicking the switch on sites like this, then that’s what they’ll do.
They have no problem destroying entire countries, destroying millions of lives and raping and pillaging the Planet.
I’ve only seen a couple of Derrick Broze videos, but will check out his latest.
Regards Moon Of Alabama, that was one of the first sites I walked away from along with the abominably grotesque WSWS after the panicdemic hysterics began. Caitlin Johnstone followed shortly after those two as did The Grayzone.
Down here in Australia, there’s zero independent media that have seriously challenged the narrative on Covid19.
Thanks, Geddah, and everyone. Geddah, are you required to wear masks on transport and in retail stores in Australia?
Hi Aldous, no, wearing face masks in Australia is voluntary…. for now.
Try installing OOSU10.exe (SU = Shut Up). It’s free & works for me (with the recommended settings) and gives you an idea how much ‘snooping’ is going on in the background.
Thanks for this. I didn’t know about it.
I can understand your concerns.But you can relax- at least a little bit.
The government( the one that’s run the planet for around 100 years in the background) have moved with the progress of technology.They sponsored most of it.
Once it was the newspapers, then the radio, then TV and then movies.Excellent outlets for their lies and deceit.As media outlets grew so too did the power of propaganda.And, so to did the variety of tricks to intrude upon their subjects.
The internet has put all of the above in the dark.It has far too many bells and whistles for it’s faithful to ever leave and go back to the old ways.
The ultimate wet dream of these creatures has been along the lines of ”imagine if we could actually look and listen to people’s thoughts without microphones and surveillance”.That’s one of the reasons the superpowers played with the notion of employing psychics or other parlour tricksters.But once that was realised to be just silly they became more practical and scientific.
The CIA who was partially invented by the Nazi party at America’s invitation through Paperclip in ’47.So the OSS were put to bed.Now the masters of propaganda could carry on their quest from the shadows like disturbed ventriloquists with their hands up the back of every American president that gets placed at the podium.
In recent years they have given the world Facebook and Windows. Windows revolutionised the modern world in the same way Television had 50 years before.The slick, well heeled middle aged brains of the outfit sold the concept by pushing the stereotypical ‘geek’ to the fore with his back story and we bought in.Bill Gates was the ultimate superhero.Windows had eaten TV.Soon the internet that the military had been using covertly for around 25 years could be refined and commercialised and we’d be all in hook, line and sinker.And boy was that a biggie.
Once we were hooked in, our weak points were there to be exploited.Our egos. Welcome to social networking and another front man geek to sell us the snake oil.Mister Zuckerberg. Did you know Zuckerberg is an anagram of Zionist if you replace some of the letters.
Zuckerberg was given the back story of being an unkempt college drop out with a gift that had made him a multi millionaire.And the 20 somethings everywhere had another superhero. We were introduced to the amazing concept of having hundreds or thousands or even millions of strangers wanting to be our ‘friend’ or ‘follow’ us( follow was an in joke for them).All we had to do is agree to leave the real world and stop having real friends in real situations and agree to sit alone as often as possible looking like slaves at a screen.
As the world seemed to be going to shit outside and economies crumbled and politicians became mega rich, the unemployment lines grew longer by the month along with that of the homeless. Nobody rioted.Nobody despaired.Nobody was bothered. Candycrush and Farmville were more important.And what about all those new invitations from complete strangers that saw your profile and wanted to ‘be your friend’ on the computer.Let the world fall to shit- I’m popular at last.
The rumbles arrived and a few woke up to the reality.Soon the voices of dissent were speaking.And they became louder and found other voices.Now the internet could be used for something of use for us.And this is why it was all put together by them in the first place.Orwell’s ‘telescreens’ as predicted in the 1940s.Yes you could tune in and log on.But you could never drop out.You were being watched.That was the trick.The wet dream was finally realised.You can do it yourself to a degree,Want to know what someone’s thinking ?Look at their facebook /instagram /twitter.Because the new world of ego desperation has turned it into a showcase.People seem to think that every single tiny detail of their life shouldn’t be recorded in a diary- it should be broadcast to anyone in the world who owns a computer.They’ll post a photograph of their new shoes or goldfish.Another 12 selfies because the 10 yesterday were old now and you have a new hair style today.They’ll share their deepest philosophical insights about Kim Kardashian’s back end or Lady Gaga’s latest ‘outrageous’ publicity stunt.People have a dozen or more outlets now to not shut the f**k up on.
When there’s unrest, upheaval, or dramatic headlines in the world the online public get busy.If you can’t find a herd you need to move faster.Then once everyone is in one the Big Brothers sit and read.If they want to know what you think they read it.It goes on your file, which will later be transferred, along with your political affiliations, shopping habits, and the type of friends you like, to the RFID chip our first super hero has waiting.Until we are finally dumbed down enough to ask no more questions, the brothers need the internet and the platforms as much as any of us for these reasons.
Hey, Jura, you started off with I can relax a little bit? That’s satire, I think. Anyway, very amusing comment. I was laughing a lot here, as with the “post a photograph of their new shoes or goldfish”–but sad too in a way. Anyway, I keep thinking of Winston and how he found one particular corner in his abode where he could escape the surveillance cameras and would love to go into that corner and hunker down, free for a moment. Would also like to recommend Eugene Zamyatin’s WE (written 1920-1921), influential to Orwell I believe and quite a bit more amusing. Orwell was a brilliant prophet but less talented as a novel writer in my view.
Evening Aldous..
I’ll take note of said book.Thanks.
I believe Orwell had the talent o be far more creative or even comic than he was in his books.But he had a fire burning in him.He took the old route that the great spiritual teachers took.Assume everyone is of a different intellectual level, from very high to below average.The importance of his message, like teachers before him, had to reach everyone.So he took the didactic route.He dressed his message in science fiction but left it thinly veiled enough to be viewed and understood by all.Sacrificing poetic language and imagery was worth it to him.Life isn’t amusing or poetic when you look through an honest lens.
Huxley was born into a family of intellectual giants.he was hindered by his sight disability in his studies and physical scope.But he inherited the intellectual prowess and his natural creative flair and bohemian leisure activities gave him the skills to craft a novel of note and add the creativity of those who had reached a certain level via his indulgences shall we say.He saw the world Orwell saw.Both met with blanket bans. They are probably the most banned authors in literature.In keeping with the thread’s theme really.
I have always favored BNW over 1984 myself, not that Huxley was that great of a novelist either. Again this is my personal view and another topic really. Both men, as you indicate, chose the novel form to deliver their insights into what was happening at that time. Zamiatin was doing the same sort of thing In Russia (Stalinists in charge), where he was heavily censored. But Zamiatin had the influence of Gogol and Dostoevsky as novel writers, as unique satirical voices, and which flavors his work. Voice wasn’t important to Huxley and Orwell: message was.
So BNW is much subtler than 1984 and more prescient to what actually unfolded. Aldous, by the way, died on November 22, 1963, the same day Kennedy was assassinated, but for Aldous later in the afternoon, a much quieter demise. It does seem that what has happened in terms of “layerings” of the populace in the American society there is some correlation to Aldous’s ideas for the various castes. His society is happy and of course there is soma, the happiness drug.
“Literary chimeras are a special form of reality,” Zamiatin said. “We do not write for the sake of propaganda. . . Our one demand is that the writer’s voice must never be false.”
Thanks Aldous..appreciated
I don’t think outright censorship is on the horizon. For one thing, it would put Fact Checkers out of business. What I expect to continue is how it more or less is now – at least in social media platforms like YouTube: videos and articles will be allowed to be posted, but just long enough for the Fact Checkers to debunk them; then they’ll be taken down. That way they can say “We’re not censoring; we’re just removing proven disinformation.”
Removing proven disinformation is another way of saying: censoring. The notion that one changes the thing by changing the words is way too fashionable (for me anyhow).
Everything is a made up nonsense outside of your everything x
In this crazy Orwellian time censorship has been redefined and is called fact checking.
To allow only one narrative it means cesorship is now justified, the wrong has been made right in weak minds by calling censorship “fact checking”.
What the monopoly in media( left and right) are doing is censoring by proclaiming they have the right to. “Fact checking”(exposes no internet freedom) censorship allowing only the shadow global govt narrative.
Which is fact is fact denying.
Doublethink / doublespeak then.
Note that in many cases Google and Facebook PAY the fact-checkers. But the problem is much bigger than just fact checkers.
While Google and Facebook siphon advertising away from news outlets, they are taking over journalism. The following is from Google Transparency Project.
Google has spent more than $500 Million on media initiatives… but the total amount of grants is likely far higher according to GPT making it hard to know how the money is spent and what strings may be attached. In January 2019 Facebook announced it was setting up its own $300 million fund to make payments to journalism projects.
Google has embedded student reporters in some of the world’s most influential news organizations, including the BBC, Financial Times, and ProPublica. Google expanded its News Lab Fellowship program last year, saying it would provide more than 50 fellowships in 12 countries.
The publisher of a Canadian news site walked out of a meeting with Google when he was told the meeting was off the record. “The unspoken idea here is that having (accidentally?) destroyed the news business, Google will now help rebuild it with products and partnerships,” tweeted Jesse Brown, publisher of CanadaLand. “News publishers need to think a bit harder about getting in bed with these interests.” Brown disclosed a private meeting about the Google News Initiative at Google’s Canadian headquarters that included top editors from the Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail, and the head of news at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Fellowships pay U.S. participants up to $10,000, beginning with a trip to Google’s Mountain View, California, headquarters. There, new fellows receive “a behind-the-scenes look at what the Google News Lab is doing to support the work of journalists around the world.” There were 144 news fellowships in the five years to 2018.
Most recently, Google announced a Journalism Emergency Relief Fund for local newsrooms. Google is offering financial support to local newsrooms hit by the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In September 2018, Netzpolitik, a German news site that advocates for digital rights, analyzed 447 European projects funded through one Google initiative, the €150 million ($165 million) Digital News Innovation (DNI) Fund, which the company launched in 2015 to counter years of complaints from European publishers.
The new analysis identified nearly three times as many projects, and 859 unique recipients of Google’s giving. Google’s 1,327 grants go to legacy institutions, professional organizations and other pillars of the media establishment, to start-ups, hyper-local projects and students just starting their journalism careers.
The company claims its funding of media projects is altruistic. “We believe in spreading knowledge to make life better for everyone,” Google’s chief executive, Sundar Pichai, says in a quote featured prominently on the website of the company’s News Initiative.
https://www.techtransparencyproject.org/articles/googles-media-takeover
are the fact checker any different than the redistributor regurgitators on the alt right or left selling the politicians dreams
nope they exactly the same
factchecker for me are todays version of TV YouTube conspiracy turned endorses of politicians
There sure are left to control the debate and narrative dialog. For gods sake the left can’t say there is no ” COVID” disease
COVID is a NWO status quo maintaining psyop.
https://blog.nomorefakenews.com/2020/06/23/fact-check-reuters-dna-vaccines-dont-change-your-genes/
thanks, copied and saved.
Makes about as much sense to me as relying on Wikipedia – or wearing a face mask on public transport. I’m getting too old to cope with the illogical ‘sheepleness’ of the 21st Century: ‘We impose our view of the facts on you, so you don’t have to formulate your own opinions. We are all wise and all-knowing’. And as soon as they take a glance, any person with two free-thinking brain cells to rub together can see what a load of odious bunk that is.
The interweb has dumbed people down…. the TV wasn’t doing it fast enough.
I’m amazed if some people can exist without the web to tell them how to do stuff.
To use a boxing metaphor..the TV was jab after jab after jab..the set up..the internet was that left hook and right cross.The referee’s counting but they’re out cold.
I like James Corbett angry! He handles it with charm; just a little more animated. Fact Check: Polio Vaccines, Tetanus Vaccines, and the Gates Foundationis a great video, even better than the original, Who Will Fact Check The Fact Checkers.
Retaliating with our own independent fact checkers is not the answer. It would only train people to rely uncritically upon fact checkers – that’s exactly the point I made below. Instead we must expose who funds the fact checkers and train people to think for themselves.
Doesn’t anyone find it odd that there has been no pandemic outbreak in the Police Force , Army and Public Sector
So the govt has announced that “from Saturday 1 August, the guidance will be relaxed so clinically extremely vulnerable people will no longer be advised to shield …” and that the “government shielding support package will remain in place until the end of July
………..
in the meantime and out of know where they managed to create make drum roll….
As of June 2020 the availability of Video Relay Service (VRS) is being further extended to customers claiming Jobseekers Allowance and Income Support, and to those wishing to contact Debt Management or the National Benefit Fraud Hotline. Each service will be fully tested before it is made available for customers.(bullshit) remember the government is all about looking after the poor disabled and old sick DNR apples to all.
Over the coming months we will continue to extend VRS into all DWP services. VRS is already available for British Sign Language (BSL) users who claim DWP disability benefits, Universal Credit as well as Access to Work.( now there several million more of you)
VRS enables BSL users to contact DWP via a BSL interpreter. The customer uses a video link accessed through their own computer, smartphone or tablet. The interpreter will then speak to a DWP agent relaying the conversation by phone. There is no need for anyone to be in the same location and the customer does not have to book the service in advance.
This means that the customer and DWP agent can have a telephone conversation in real time. all thoses people newly unemployed awesome start with them and they need id to go out wow freeedumb
question.? And who gets all the data from the calls facial recognition ow dear eye scan and what next DNA all about keeping you safe! yer the gps of your room house all that data data data
again for the narrow minded lot this was all been set up ready to go
Come Independence day your be allowed out to go for a drink
the virologist stefan lanka has videos explaining how pathogenic viruses do not exist. he said germany was the only country that even had laws to validate such allegations and won the case showing measles was not a viral infection.
thanks
what i wrote had nothing to virologists nor measles or whatever medical name it is they give there still looking for a cure for cancer 100 years and counting LOL so CV or BS19 is here to stay !
entry level real health shows inner terrain is everything so is detoxification.
my slapdash above was about the Video Relay Service (VRS) amoung other things
So what does he say pathogens are and what was the case he won ?
Rappoport does a fact-check. And he’s vastly more credible than the mainstream propaganda drones.
https://blog.nomorefakenews.com/2020/06/23/fact-check-reuters-dna-vaccines-dont-change-your-genes/
Here is an interesting sequel to James Corbett’s documentary on “Fact Checkers” James published today, June 23: “A listener writes in to lament that The Corbett Report is spreading false facts about Bill Gates in the Who Is Bill Gates? documentary . . . at least, according to the fact checkers. But are they right?”
https://www.corbettreport.com/fact-check-polio-vaccines-tetanus-vaccines-and-the-gates-foundation/
“The Corbett Report is spreading false facts about Bill Gates” says ‘Doc’ Billy Eugenics (“the World’s first trillionaire”) PR Dept. Did one expect them to say anything different?
“EUTHANASIA DEATH SHOTS FOR UNTERMENSCHEN & USELESS EATERS EVERYWHERE.”
JUST SAY NO to ‘Doc’ Billy!
Hilariously, the BBC had a dedicated “fact-check” unit during the general election campaign last year – yes, that’s right, the one where they smeared Corbyn all day and every day like he was Hitler. That kind of hypocrisy tells you all you need to know about these self-proclaimed fact-checkers.
conservative party changed it twitter handle to fact checker during the election debate
true
They made it perfectly clear throughout their election campaign that we were dealing with a bunch of barefaced, brassnecked liars.
Poor Dears! Depending on BRITISH BULLSHIT CORP for information.
https://twitter.com/TankzU/status/685574474872287233/photo/1
THEY ARE SO SCREWED.
No free thinking person should be paying the BBC “licence fee” for their non stop propaganda. They are a corrupt organisation and are a threat to us all.
Factoid : Bill Gates has shares in the BBC
And as the Orwellian darkness descends on us all, censorship will exponentially increase, with alternative, independent media increasingly attacked, and debunked as ‘false information’ or labelled ‘fake news’ by the protectors of the Establishment.
A recent, and brilliant article here at OffGuardian ‘It’s All Bullshit’ also fell victim for the flimiest of reasons. The strawman reason as James points out.
The increasing levels of ‘fact checkers’ is designed for two things: to maintain control of the narrative, and to deter those questioning what is happening to investigate further.
This is very insidious and dangerous. It so smacks of 1984. The bastards running the world want the truth squashed. And yep, as always follow the money trail. Who is actually funding these so called ‘fact checkers’?
The follow-up to this Corbett Report was released today:
“Fact Check: Polio Vaccines, Tetanus Vaccines, and the Gates Foundation”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaHuTNh8fAo
This new report is excellent. James Corbett gets a viewer e-mail saying that his Bill Gates series had false information in it. James goes step-by-step analyzing the allegations in the e-mail, and at the same time details the way in which a person should be their own fact-checker, not deferring that part of thinking to faith in others. Awareness of conflicts of interest, the straw-man diversion, the need for close-reading/listening instead of just skimming, and following the links, feature throughout. It’s just a fantastic Corbett Report.
Really, the disconnect I feel on political issues with people I know is because of our ideas on what is or isn’t factual information;)
Surreal: the “reputable” news sites now feel obliged to run pages like this one:
Not real news roundup: Here’s a look at what didn’t happen this week
On George Floyd being linked to the Obama Foundation — On Hitler defunding the police — On NPR calling for book burning — On Lee’s stance on slavery — Aunt Jemima was born into slavery. She was a magnificent cook — Nigel Farage making disparaging remarks about the British people
And when you search for a story that irks TPTB, you will find Google is bloated with search results like this… schoolchildren competing to be first to answer teacher:
The Obama Foundation did not publish George Floyd photo
Claim: The Obama Foundation posted a tweet on May 17, 2020 with a photo of George Floyd, eight days before his death in police custody… Claimed by: multiple sources… Fact check by AFP: False
The Obama Foundation didn’t tweet an image of George Floyd… apnews Jun 8, 2020
The Obama Foundation did not tweet a photo of … reuters.com Jun 11, 2020
It’s a great time for conspiracy theories to thrive | FT Alphaville 2020/06/08
Did Obama Foundation Share Pic of George Floyd 9 Days …snopes
Fact Check:
It’s 4 years today since the UK voted to leave the eu – that’s gone well hasn’t it? I don’t suppose anything that’s happening in britain today has anything to do with overthrowing the democratic will of the people does it – blimey, democracy – what was that?
Anyone fancy a pint?
You’ve obviously missed the fact that the UK left the EU on January 31st. And since then the economy has tanked, just as wiser heads said it would.
No, I don’t know what democracy is either. The UK is a vassal state of the US and if they want Brexit that’s what we get.
I wouldn’t mind a pint but your Johnson/Cummings Brexit regime won’t let us go to the pub for another ten days.
hello Thom
‘Transmission stage’… is it contagious?
The true ‘fact” checking is a bad idea by definition not only in a prostituted form employed by sociopolitical operatives to discredit opponents but in a genuine form as well.
It is because it shifts burden and responsibility for providing fact based convincing evidences and limitations of conclusions based on those evidences from those who present their “truths” toward the public itself.
The acceptance of this reversal of burden of proof by alternative media that are trying to prove MSM propaganda wrong is in fact detrimental to the establishment of the truth and is the base for charge of spreading conspiracy theories while official theories are not nearly close enough to provide conclusive explanation of observed reality as hard data required to make any definite judgement is concealed or only partly disclosed to public in a manipulative ways.
And hence such questionable, devoid of convincing evidences stories from any sources must simply be dismissed pending provision of more data from authors if it is coming, and re-evaluation . That does not mean that we loose interests in the subject but only that authors or proliferators of the story failed to pass burden of proof threshold required by answering all our questions.
We should not propose any explanations, or theory for the phenomena some are putting forward as it is makes up biased toward one or another outcome. We should understand that not knowing something is not bad at all as Socrates posited as we are all students of life while “knowing” something that is wrong and using it to guide us, is very wrong and dangerous.
Default position of any person regarding any news from any source is deep skepticism, until all the data facts and logically irrefutable conclusion is made by those who create and proliferate news.
Otherwise, unwittingly even alternative news outlets play into CIA opinion manipulation game allowing fake alternative sites clandestinely run by establishment to feed some selected stories with CIA insights to steer conversations and debates into dead end of fantastic speculations.
With such attitude 9/11 or COVID culpability and criminality regardless of details would be the default positions of any person as no complete fact based evidences and consistent rational conclusions were ever provided by government and/or corporations involved .
Critical, autonomous thinking and basic fundamental knowledge about society and material environment will guarantee healthy skepticism and independent thinking among people in most part immune to imposed propaganda narratives. But that requires systemic changes starting from nonexistent today unbiased by state and money interests, education.
To put it blindly and may be shockingly for some, young should be told not to believe their Mothers and Fathers without solid evidences corroborating their words as it is they who are first tell us lies they were conditioned to believe like respect to remote arbitrary authority they do not understand themselves.
Socrates was an ideologue of tyranny and despotism.
please give examples
I would invite you to read any of the contemporary sources, especially Plato. Socrates thought that one person should rule absolutely, with no constraints whatsoever. His students all supported Sparta and twice, with the assistance of this foreign state, overthrew Athenian democracy. Socrates and his followers had nothing but contempt for the people and considered it the height of absurdity that the people should participate in the rule of their society.
Qiute right about parents.
I had a father that didn’t give a sh@t and didn’t teach me even as little as how to take care of my manly bits and a mother that was deferent to any and all in power from whatever profession or standing.
Telling you to shush if you were near a doctor or some such.
You couldn’t make a noise in hospitals either, you getting the dissaproving glances off mother.
Apparently she was a communist party member also? Weird no?
Shouldn’t she have been anti authority? Well u.k. authority anyway?
I don’t know, I have no idea how your supposed to behave, I don’t think I’ve got it right yet.
It definitely ruffled some feathers anyway my two sons time in the British army being puncuated by interviews and note taking at intervals…
But not mine, not so much s a backwards glance.
My sons interviews generally went something like ” does your dad belong to any groups you know of?” Etc..
They found it hillarious, clearly barking up the wrong tree.
Quite funny really seeing how they security cleared me at a young age when I was working closely with an O.C. and the usual Army secret stuff during my career.
Horse and stable springs to mind if I really was a ninja, about 30 years too late.
And no I never have belonged to any nefarious groups.
Though I will admit I look at RT, Sputnik and David Icke and my family, they can be quite rowdy at parties.
And once when my boys were young they did nearly give the kids club reps a nervous breakdown on holiday.
Anyway waffling on, it took me a suitable amount of time to see what was going on in the world and certain peoples machinations due to my parental programming of sorts.
I’d definitely say treat anything most people say with a pinch of salt unless it comes with a dossier of backup information, especially a parent, santa this, easter bunnny that.
And nobody especially nobody in authority or what they say is authority deserves automatic respect unless its earned and they can be shown to be trusted by their track record.
First rule of fact check,THERE ARE NO FACTS
second rule of fact check,THERE ARE NO FACTS
third rule of fact check,Corbett is a muppet,and useful idiot of the Kremlin who basically want to destroy all truth,all knowledge,all everything,including OFF GUARDIAN readers,by infestation of your mind cells by memetic engineering
the moral of this,don’t buy into BS from idiot muppet types like Corbett,he’s basically a double triple,super deep state,propaganda,truth sneaker and best friend of the Kremlin,actually working for the CIA, but really a green lizard man who single handed destroyed the Twin Towers with lizard breath
…..They Live,wink,wink 😜😜😜😜
Oh,if anyone is interested i can sell them my patented ‘ truth goggles ‘ which will allow you to see the lizard tongue on Corbett,who’s actual lizard name is, Actal- zul 233- dasrthrub- a dil- doooo
…..its all true,i consulted my tea leaves this morning and they told me not to trust lizard men from the east!
so there! 😷😷😷😷
Psychiatrists office still closed? You could try calling them.
I’m only here for the beer!
But come on, chill a little,you need a bit of crispy fun
Stop tacking everything so seriously
When the nukes are hitting a town or city close to you,that’s when you know you’re fucked!
Otherwise,take advice from the airline industry,
Sit back,relax,and enjoy the flight 😘
I’d like to order a pair of truth sneakers and a pair of truth goggles please.
On there way!
The BBC ‘fact checking’ is like the police doing an internal investigation.
The BBC sometimes has a ‘reality check’ to add to the behavioural psychology aspect of its propaganda machine. Presumably they have to fact and reality check with The Ministry of Truth.
Fact Check:
1.George Floyd murdered on twitter – BLM comes to the fore and the riots begin across the world
2.Three (white) men murdered in Reading – nothing to see here – no rioting – no looting – nothing
3. Plane flies over football match with banner saying ‘White Lives Matter’ – absolute shitstorm in the british media with politicians saying it’s unacceptable
what the fuck is going on in this country?
Talking about this to a black friend the other night, I said that white guys are killed all the time, by police, criminals etc, but the white community does not riot.
His reply was “Why not?”. He then started telling me how maybe we should be rioting. This guy works in a senior position in a big US bank here in HK. He probably gets paid about 300k USD a year and he is complaining.
My conclusion is the same: people don’t suffer enough these days to appreciate what they’ve got.
even more amazing ti was done on solstice and a plane was able to fly over area which according to the reports have a no fly zone due to CV19
sound more like a ritual
Dear friend,
It’s not just this country, it is most countries.
I have often thought about this and have concluded that it must be a coordinated wide-reaching plot to cause civil unrest and division.
Ever since Bliar was in power, there was a massive push towards extreme political correctness. It has only gotten worse since, especially with the current woke agenda.
This coupled with coordinated mass “illegal” immigration of people whose values are largely incompatible with those of the host countries is, by design, done to create a deep feeling of unease amongst the population.
In other words, white people are at every opportunity labelled as racist, prejudiced, evil, rapists (males), far right etc; even for just daring to state a reasonable opinion. Whereas people who demonstrate all of the previous traits are free to carry on because of their ‘ethnicity’ or religion.
The latest episode is of course this BLM bullshit, again designed to cause more division. It is effectively a green-card for all the black anti-white racists to come out in force and spit out their hatred in public.
As the recent ‘plane over football ground’ event shows, the system is still in full swing.
Similar things are happening in a lot of European countries. It makes absolutely no sense.
It must be a deliberate ploy to cause the destruction of society for some nefarious end.
Once you stop criticising or disagreeing with Gays, Trans( times about 20), blacks, Jews, Muslims, climate deniers, holocaust deniers, woke, justice warriors, immigrants, the disabled, animal rights activists, any or all political parties and their supporters,lesbians, paedophiles against Disney, and fox hunting, you’ll be fine.You’ll be all out of ideas and opinions and have nothing to say.No thought police needed, just their halfwits to start a dozen ‘movements’ to make you feel good about yourself and the human race.We can censor ourselves to avoid the politically correct bores and our free speech wont be an argument we can have with the government.We censored ourselves to avoid the clowns boring us to death.Ironically, once we’re all too shit scared to speak or express an opinion we’ll have a hundred separate groups patting each other on their backs celebrating our ‘oneness’.
Ask yourself, who wants as many factions of this or that as possible so trouble, riots and confrontation can be a permanent fixture out there that needs stamping on by the state..
“Check” is just more word magick. Who has check as their logo?
The last part of Corbett’s video from 40:00 minutes is excellent: Should we retaliate with our own independent fact checkers?
My answer is, ‘no’! We are in the business of IDEAS. And ideas cannot be reduced to a blue check mark. Instead we must show who funds the fact checkers.
The three biggest global industries are energy, weapons and narcotics (legal and illegal). Go and see who runs and pays for the fact checkers. Most of the fact checkers push arguments that benefit these vested interests. By setting up our own independent fact checkers we give them credibility. We must not.
It would give people the false hope that some other body is the fount of wisdom. That if only they can find that person or organization, everything they say will be true. That is the mindset of a cult member looking for a leader. We must not encourage it. Think for yourself!
It also plays into the lie that Information ≠ knowledge ≠ wisdom.
As Theodore Roszack, author of the Cult of Information, said: The ideal that all humans are created equal does not contain any information. It exists on a higher level than information.
Thanks for the video. He expressed better than I can do myself notions and ideas that have been on my mind for quite a while. It’s good to know I’m not “mad, bad and dangerous…to know”.
As for ‘follow the funding’ strategy, ditto. I’ve doing that for sometime now. Not always easy to trace bit most illuminating when you can get it.
Roszak’s interview is wonderful, especially when he says the essence of education is to teach students how to deal with ideas, especially big ideas. Because not all ideas are good. Some are toxic. Ideas of a master race, for example… https://youtu.be/Y4mzEvqsiuY?t=589
This is very important when if you look at the ideas that are being presented during this Covid Event – many are bad ideas driven by information.
Roszak: Ideas generate information, not the other way around. Information is the lowest level at which the mind functions: looking up a telephone number, buying a plane ticket. That is why these functions have been computerized.
The computer is overestimated, however, as a model of the human mind. DNA was discovered at the same time as the computer became popular. DNA was presented as an information processing system, the body as a bio computer.
The idea that we are information processing machines has become an unchallenged matter of fact. Yet information processing is a very small part of what the brain does. This is just like scientists in the 17th century who adopted the clock as a model for the universe and God as the great watchmaker in the sky.
This is just a model and not a very good one. If you start asking where is the program in this computer called DNA, that is very difficult to answer.
But in the 1950s that was a fortuitous association between a field called cybernetics and the new biology – and at that point the word information took on a lustre, a prestige that it had never had before.
And of course, the computer industry was very happy to go along with information as the secret of life. It has led people to accept a global conception of information as being the mind, genetic material as an information processing machine. The mind, however, functions at very different levels and is vastly larger than its information processing level.
Fact check this:
Folgers releases Pro-BLM statement over black coffee
Popular Mechanics, that brought you the official 9/11 fantasy, has published a guide on How to Remove Racist Statue | Physics of Taking Down Statues.
Johnson & Johnson has decided to stop selling skin-whitening creams.
Ford Motor Co is delaying the launch of its new Bronco, because OJ.
German city erects statue to Lenin who owned no slaves but enslaved a nation
AP has changed its style guide to capitalize Black.
The CEO of Chick-fil-A shined a Black man’s shoes on stage — at which the man, Christian rapper Lecrae Moore, quipped: forget my shoes. Why don’t you give me some stock.
Eskimo Pie will drop its name.
Sambo’s restaurant chain in Santa Barbara is no more. It was founded by SAM Battistone and Newell BOhnett in 1957.
The family of Lillian Richard, a black actress who was a product ambassador for Aunt Jemima, and who has her own statue in Hawkins, Texas, pleads with Quaker Oats not to cancel, banish and scrub their ancestor from history.
But this one takes the biscuit….
Land O’Lakes Drops the Indigenous Woman From Its Branding. Leading to jibes that, just as Americans have always done, they got rid of the lndian but kept the land.
Hint: All 100%, lean fact
That reminds me of Nigella’s eggnog restaurant.
Inspector Savage sends his apologies to the offended.
Hallelujah! The Great Re-Awakening has arrived at last!
Our favourite “fact” checkers, Snopes . . .
https://www.fort-russ.com/2020/05/snopes-lied-about-melinda-gates-wearing-a-satanic-cross-on-t-v-she-did-and-heres-the-proof/
Here’s something they fact check: Trump used the word ‘thug’.
Here’s something they do NOT fact check: Obama used the word ‘thug’.
Maybe the problem is that ‘thug’ is overplayed, just like ‘systemic racism’.
Corporatist media has a problem going after Trump for using word ‘thug’ because in 2015 President Obama “said he doesn’t regret using the term “thug” in describing the violent rioters in Baltimore this week, spokesman Josh Earnest said.”
Use of the word goes way back before Tupac Shakur’s record, Thug Life.
But why, if thuggery is a problem, why do we keep hearing about institutional, even systemic, racism. This is because if you have Democrats, even ethnic minorities, in charge of institutions for 20 years, then you have to explain why they have failed to improve life for ethnic minorities.
On the other side is something that happened in 1994. 11-year-old Robert‘Yummy’ Sandifer was on the run for killing a teenage girl. Then he was killed by his own gang in a Chicago story that shocked the nation 25 years ago.
That kicked off a firestorm – and a lot of myths.
Political scientist John Delio found that from 1984-94, teenage homicide rates had more than doubled. And the violent were getting more violent. He found 6% of each cohort was responsible for 50% of crime committed by that cohort.
Politicians seized on this finding to create the myth of the superpredator that Joe Biden used to push through increasingly arbitrary laws that took a handful of cases and built national laws around them. The prisons had already been privatized. All they needed was the inmates.
This led to the outsize imprisonment of black men: Joe Biden’s laws did this, not the mythical systemic racism.
This is consistent with the corona message of shelter, hide, cower in place. The virus is a thug. Again, it’s a myth. But myths are driving policy.
Like defund the police.
Where will this lead? Probably to corporatized, private police – on the same model as the corporatized, private prisons that disproportionately imprisoned black men. Buy shares in Erik Prince police.
As for John Delio, he lost faith in social science prediction at the same time he gained faith of a traditional kind.
No Agenda Episode 1253 http://www.noagendashow.com/
In 1644, when John Milton protested, “Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties,” his ‘tyranny’ was Catholic orthodoxy and his ‘liberty’ was the right to acknowledge Oliver Cromwell as the reincarnation of Moses. His protests made him a ‘protestant’ just when private printers birthed our mass media and lit the fires of public contention that still blaze brightly.
Private presses churned out religious screeds that advocated belief over evidence and scandal sheets that exacerbated factional power struggles and the results were frequently as disastrous then as they are now. Said German Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow1 in 1909, “Most of the conflicts the world has seen in the past century have not been called forth by princely ambition or ministerial conspiracy, but by the passionate agitation of public opinion which, through press and parliament, has swept the executive along.”
Milton’s passion for public speculation morphed into irresponsible public speech and only those who advocated the violent overthrow of rulers or peace were censored. In 1916 Eugene Debs, US Socialist Party candidate for the presidency, characterized America’s entry into World War I as ‘a dispute between capitalist ruling classes in which working people have no stake.’ President Wilson labeled Debs a traitor and charged him with sedition, the courts sentenced him and thousands of others to ten years in prison and the Supreme Court upheld their sentences. Ten years later the father of modern public relations, Edward Bernays2 said, “The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society..Those who manipulate its unseen mechanisms constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.”
Bernays demonstrated that, in the absence of evidence repetition, especially from multiple sources, creates belief and Noam Chomsky later added that, “Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state,” and Lee Kwan Yew3 explained why a ‘free press’ destroys democracy:
The Philippines press enjoys all the freedoms of the US system but fails the people: a wildly partisan press helped Philippines politicians flood the marketplace of ideas with junk and confuse and befuddle the people so that they could not see what their vital interests were in a developing country. And, because vital issues like economic growth and equitable distribution were seldom discussed, they were never tackled and the democratic system malfunctioned. Look at Taiwan and South Korea: their free press runs rampant and corruption runs riot. The critic itself is corrupt yet the theory is, if you have a free press, corruption disappears. Now I’m telling you, that’s not true. Freedom of the press, freedom of news critics, must be subordinated to the overriding needs of the integrity of Singapore and to the primacy of purpose of an elected government.
1 The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914, by Christopher Clark.
2 Propaganda. By Edward Bernays, Freud’s nephew, the father of America’s public relations industry.
3 A Third World Perspective on the Press. RH Lee Kwan Yew, Prime Minister of Singapore. C-SPAN, APRIL 14, 1988
Freedom of expression is a fundamental human right.
“Journalists” presenting “news” and “facts” are not expressing themselves, and have routinely betrayed human rights!
The matter of checking the checkers has, naturally, always been an issue with any media which claim anything at all. Ultimately, one needs to hone one’s own instincts by constant practice, until one eventually reaches a point where one can say, with reasonable confidence, that one actually knows something, with the best proof of this consisting in living your knowledge to the hilt.
It would be amusing that all Australian media refer to the secrecy of the Witness K case as related to the oil and gas negotiations.
No, if the then new nation Timor Leste did NOT have the Australian installed bugging devices they could have been truly independent. Australia made sure they’d be roped into the US camp – by hook or by crook. No media is checking facts here.
I don’t think any country is free of it, unfortunately.
Will wonders never cease. The Goebbelsites have come up with an information and news credibility/veracity service.
“I am a Woke Furloughed Asymptomatic Anti-Racist Contact-Tracer Fact-Checking BLM Antifa Face-Mask PCR Corona-Positive CHOP/CHAZ/MAGA Quarantined Social-Distanced PPE’d Essential Worker Protest Rioter.”
…all you had to do was say “No” to MSM 4 months ago.