Winning the War on “Misinformation”

Margaret Anna Alice

“Free inquiry on a free platform is the only practice that distinguishes a free from a slave society.”
Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933–45

When I was little, I had a poster of a raccoon with his paw over a kitten’s mouth saying, “If there’s anything I can’t stand, it’s someone talking while I’m interrupting.”

I was notorious for interrupting, asking questions, and getting so lost in thought, my mom had an ear doctor test my hearing because I was constantly saying, “What?”

That poster came to mind as I watched the Ministry of Truth campaign against “misinformation” first roll out. Today’s version of that poster would say, “If there’s anything I can’t stand, it’s someone’s information contradicting my disinformation.”

As we all understand by now, when Minitrue defines the “truth” as 2 + 2 = 5, then 2 + 2 = 4 becomes “misinformation.”

If you’re like me, you’ve probably had more than a few brushes with memoryholing and maybe even unpersoning as a result of Big Tech’s mass censorship rollout.

Not that they’d answer, but I’m tempted to ask the censors: What is the danger, if the sources are patently noncredible? Why treat us like infants incapable of assessing the validity of facts for ourselves? If the misinformation is so evidently false, let us see that on our own and the question will be put to rest.

Sunlight is the best disinfectant and so on—but yeah, that’s precisely the problem, isn’t it. Darkness must prevail for their narrative to survive the illuminating exposure of sunlight—even if the gatekeepers have to blot out the sun Bill Gates–style.

A few months ago, I started experimenting with real-world attempts to deprogram New Normalers on a private platform. I’d say it’s about a 70:30 Covidian:free-thinker ratio, not counting those remaining on the sidelines, quietly nodding in agreement but too cautious to speak out.

What I’ve discovered, based on the failures and successes of others as well as myself, is it is nearly impossible to gain traction on the “science” front. Their allegiance to the “experts” and the mainstream narrative is imbued with a religious fervor, and anyone who voices even the most hesitant of concerns is a heretical tin-foil hoax plandemic conspiracy nut.

Plus, any attempt to share compelling evidence from non-mainstream sources results in immediate deletion of the comment with veiled threats of silencing altogether.

The mere mention of Dr. Reiner Fuellmich, for example, garners instantaneous eradication. Or Dr. David Martin. Or Dr. Mike Yeadon. Or Dr. Robert Malone. Or any one of the thousands of reputable, Nobel Prize–winning and otherwise exceptionally credible scientists and medical experts sounding the alarm.

Entering into dialogue about the fraudulent PCR tests, the perils of the spike, the futility and health risks of mask-wearing, the devastation caused by lockdowns, or anything else that requires you to share what they deem “misinformation” is a losing battle from the start.

Subsequently, I jettisoned that approach and focused on the threat of totalitarianism.

I introduced historical primary sources such as the interviews with ten Nazis conducted shortly after WWII found in Milton Mayer’s enthralling They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933–45. Of course, any comparison to the Third Reich immediately draws outcries of false equivalencies, so that approach can backfire, too, but the extensive evidence of parallels I provided generated no further pushback.

I repeatedly reminded the pitchfork wielders of the humanity of their dissident neighbors, cited escalating repressions around the world, elucidated the psychological mechanisms by which they are being manipulated, and advised them not to credulously assume we are immune to tyranny.

I directly accused anyone who remains silent during the vilification, persecution, exclusion, incarceration, and worse of their unvaccinated neighbors of being no different from the ordinary Germans who did not speak out about the treatment of the Jews.

This upset many of them, of course, but neither could they deny the nearly verbatim propaganda about the unvaccinated being spreaders of disease when I cited historical examples.

I gained a meager amount of traction with one virulent spike-pusher (I’ll call him Ampleforth). We engaged in several exchanges about stampeding authoritarianism, and he agreed it was a concern but fears the virus is a more imminent threat and thus worth risking totalitarianism over.

I called out his naïveté and presented more evidence of the correlation between our present climate and the rise of tyranny throughout history, which appeared to give him pause, for a half-second, anyway.

I always kept the conversation cordial and respectful, even while I was eviscerating their arguments. Elevating the dialogue to substantive debate and calling out ad hominem attacks, threats, and false accusations prevented the conversation from devolving into a shouting match.

My foray into these debates started with a post in which Ampleforth reminded everyone of the site’s “misinformation” policy given the “uptick in cases in the area.”

To which I responded:

Thank you for outlining the misinformation policy. It is exhausting having to apply our critical thinking skills to multiple sources of information in our efforts to distinguish propaganda from facts. How much easier it is to outsource our thinking to politicians, megacorporations, and allied media. Obviously, they have our best interests at heart and would never misinform us. They certainly have never done so in the past. For further details on how to enforce such a policy, see the Ministry of Truth reference manual titled Nineteen Eighty-Four. There is also a video tutorial available for quick reference.

Followed up by:

Perhaps Biden should follow in Emmanuel Macron’s footsteps and start penalizing anyone without a “sanitary pass” with a $53,000 fine and a year in jail, where they are sure to be deloused. I hear Room 101 is available, as are several facilities in neighboring Germanic countries. CNN thinks so.

I’ll spare you the additional back-and-forthing I had with the author—which we actually managed to keep surprisingly civil, even achieving consensus on topics such as the PATRIOT Act, government surveillance, and corporate data-gathering. He proposed I start a separate topic about this, but I reminded him that posts like that tend to vanish in a matter of hours.

As if to illustrate my point, one of my subsequent comments was tidily dispatched in the dead of night by a censorship fairy.

I was responding to a previous question about coronavirus patents and shared a couple of thought-provoking links related to that:

Coincidentally, Ampleforth closed the discussion within moments of my posting that, claiming the post was now being used to propagate the very “misinformation” he had been warning about.

When someone did actually start a separate post about the definition of misinformation, I attempted to share the dematerialized comment with this preface:

Strange—that comment, too, evaporated overnight.

My closing comment managed to survive and even garnered a surprisingly high number of positive reactions. I shared many of the resources mentioned in my Primer for the Propagandized post, so I won’t repeat it here, but details will be available in my Behind the Scenes series for paid subscribers featuring extended exchanges.

The next morning, I awoke to a private message from a woman who had already started listening to the The Politics of Obedience audiobook based on the recommendations in my last comment.

She was so excited, she asked if she could share it with her email groups and encouraged me to send her more resources, which I gladly obliged.

This heartening note made me feel like my efforts were not entirely for naught. I realize I’m mainly just reaching the choir, especially for those of you who self-selected onto this mailing list, but as I told this kind woman, “My hope, however futile, is to awaken the sleeping to reason and to equip the awake with the knowledge and tools needed to understand and defend anti-authoritarian positions.”

Even if the sleeping prefer to remain comatose, this note reminded me there is still value in engaging in such dialogues. I will continue to spread the seeds of information needed to combat the Ministry of Truth’s disinformation campaigns—for however long they survive the Winston Smiths of the world.

“Is the Mainstream Media a Threat to Freedom and Sanity?”

The following Academy of Ideas video seems an apt complement to this article as it explores both the empowering nature of mass communication enabled by the Internet and the subsequent totalitarian attempts to control the informational flow.

(If you’re not already subscribed to the Academy of Ideas YouTube channel, that is my TOP recommended must-subscribe channel as every video is an intellectual feast illustrated by sumptuous works of art and historical imagery.)

Margaret Anna examines propaganda, neuropsychology, culture, linguistic programming, and mass control in her aim to awaken the sleeping before tyranny triumphs. Visit her blog to read more of her work or buy her a coffee.