C to a brief Cmaj7, resolving to an F followed by a gentle three-note chromatic run before resolving back to a C and repeating. It’s music speak, yes. But when you hear the first few measures of John Lennon’s “Imagine” on a piano, you instantly recognize it. The song was far and away Lennon’s biggest solo hit, selling an estimated 8.3 million records. Hundreds of major recording artists have covered the song from Ray Charles to Lady Gaga. This year, the Library of Congress selected the now 52-year-old song to be preserved forever in the National Recording Registry.
So how did such a controversial song become one of the most well-known, and universally beloved songs of all time?
The Story Behind “Imagine”
In 1971, John Lennon sat down at his Steinway piano and finished a bit he’d been playing with since the Beatles’ Let It Be sessions in 1969. With inspiration drawn from Yoko’s poetry and art, as well as from a prayer book that had been gifted to the two of them by a friend, comedian Dick Gregory. What would follow is arguably the greatest anthem for humanism the world has ever heard. It paints a picture of no religion, no materialism, no wars, only unity.
Later Lennon would identify this vision as Nutopia, a theoretical place where mankind doesn’t get bogged down by what he saw as the evils of the modern world- things like possessions, money, and judgment. This was essentially the humanist ideal. Incidentally, he was on the verge of deportation at the time, so crafting a theoretical country of which he was an ambassador was at least a little strategic.
The song would go on to top charts globally, hitting #3 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart (behind Cher’s “Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves” and Isaac Hayes’ “Theme from Shaft”) and securing a top spot in Australia, Canada, and other nations. But the commercial success is really not the story of the song.
Though some through the years have criticized it mostly for its perceived atheist message, the ask is simple: Imagine.
Lennon never explicitly says there is not a heaven or hell, or that there is no god, or even that there should or shouldn’t be. Similarly, no explicit claims are made about materialism, another strong theme in the song. He only asks to “Imagine there’s no heaven.”
In an interview with Playboy Magazine in 1980, he said “‘Imagine’, which says: ‘Imagine that there was no more religion, no more country, no more politics,’ is virtually the Communist Manifesto, even though I’m not particularly a Communist and I do not belong to any movement.”
It’s hard to “imagine” a song releasing today that could challenge the status quo in such a meaningful way and still enjoy any comparable amount of success as “Imagine” has.
Lennon Wall in Prague, Czech Republic. Photo by Dim 7 on Unsplash
Is It Enough To Just… Imagine?
Yes. And no.
Taking a critical look at the lyrics to “Imagine” as a possible world in which we could live is, for the most part, for the birds. We’re not giving up our possessions, the church certainly isn’t going anywhere, and wars will continue as long as there are enough humans who disagree. But that was never the goal, was it? The whole idea of Nutopia was little more than a joke in reality. No organization was ever really going to respect Lennon’s ambassadorship to his made up country and he and Yoko knew it.
But the ideas behind it were always real. The idea that we can unite together and try and see a better future, no matter how bleak things are now- that matters. The idea that we should all take a step back from time to time and ask if we’re all moving in the right direction or if we’re all just stuck in our ways- that matters. And encouraging all of us to really examine our lives and, by extension, ourselves is perhaps the most meaningful impact a song can have on humanity.
On the surface, the lyrics seem to hearken of a place that never really was, a place you could seek all your life and you’ll never find. It all seems so wide-eyed and naive. And that’s fine, because the whole point of the song is not to build that world, only to imagine it. And that’s a start.
In September 2007, CBS debuted a new primetime comedy about four nerds navigating their way through a world that just didn’t understand them. You had a couple of genius young physicists, jokes about Star Trek, painful wardrobe choices, and a group of friends that all had their own special way of being bad with the ladies.
On paper, it looked like the kind of show I might like. “Hey, I’m those things!” I guess I’m not a genius per se, but I like a bit of Trek and I’ve been known to be pretty awkward around the opposite sex. Episode after episode, more nerd culture was introduced- comic books, Dungeons & Dragons, cosplay and more. This had all the ingredients to catch a guy like me hook, line, and sinker. Except… it wasn’t funny.
Yes all those things I love are now on TV in primetime and that seems great, but they’re not the story- they’re the punchline. Most of the “funniest” moments of the show are jokes built around just how weird these types of people are. So really just a bit more nerd-bashing. Cool.
What It Could Have Been
I understand that TV shows have to have a premise. Someone had the idea to make a “show about nerds,” which isn’t a problem in and of itself. Plenty of shows have pulled this off brilliantly. Freaks and Geeks had some characters that were unapologetically weirdos and we (the nerds) ate it up. The IT crowd tapped into geek comedy and made the characters seem lovable and socially inept. Later on, Stranger Things would give the most realistic on-screen depiction of Dungeons & Dragons I’ve ever seen.
The IT Crowd poking fun at the nerd AND the normie
So it can be done. They just didn’t.
The show was by all accounts a huge success, running for 12 seasons and clocking in at an astonishing 279 episodes. Critics seemed ok with it, as it pulled in 55 (!) awards during its twelve-year run. At its peak, it was pulling over 20 million viewers, which is absolutely astonishing.
But I never got it.
I had plenty of friends that enjoyed it, and I’m glad it brought them joy, but these were overwhelmingly the friends of mine who had never played Dungeons & Dragons. These were overwhelmingly the friends who hadn’t read a comic book since they were a kid. I don’t mean to paint any group with too broad a stroke, but these were not nerds.
Admittedly not much. After all, it’s a TV show and it’s just having fun. It’s not responsible for the great evils that plague the world today. But we the nerds had a chance to put ourselves out in the spotlight and share our passions and hobbies with the world- and we blew it. By and large, viewers laughed along with a laughtrack for 30 minutes every Thursday and went back to their regular lives immediately thereafter. They weren’t rushing out to buy a Dungeon Master’s Guide or an omnibus of old X-Men comics, they laughed at us and they were done.
How To Lift Nerds Up
Years later, Netflix would release Stranger Things, a show about five kids who play Dungeons & Dragons in a basement. It’s different kind of show, with larger-than-life action, supernatural phenomena, and all the trappings of the best government coverup fiction. The kids get wrapped up in all of this and, much like their heroes on the D&D grid at the beginning, they have to work together to survive. Later on, their knowledge of Dungeons & Dragons is one of the key tools to their survival.
This is how nerd culture is appreciated. The show has done various promotions with Dungeons & Dragons and gotten a lot of new players into the game, as well as driven fans to comic shops to try out other Stranger Things branded games and comics. The most recent season even inspired a 600% increase in Google searches for Dungeons & Dragons.
From the start, we like these kids. We get them. And they’re never the punchlines.
In 2011, Donald Trump went on Fox News and made a claim that started an absolute wildfire in the conspiracy theory community. A theory that had been floating around the internet for years finally got the exposure it needed, and Birtherism erupted, engulfing half of the Republican party and creating a path to the White House for Mr. Trump and a path to the mainstream for conspiracy theories.
While Trump is often credited with the origins of the birtherism theory (that Barack Obama was in fact not born in the US and therefor ineligible for the presidency), its genesis lies within the Democratic party. In 2008, some supporters of then candidate Hilary Clinton circulated a 2004 email embellishing an old claim about her Democratic primary opponent Barack Obama’s “secret Muslim faith” by adding that he was in-fact born in Kenya, not in Hawaii as he had claimed. The power of anti-Muslim fear in the early 2000’s was weaponized against Barack Hussein Obama for having a Muslim-sounding name.
Barack Obama’s mother was living in Kenya with his Arab-African father late in her pregnancy. She was not allowed to travel by plane then, so Barack Obama was born there and his mother then took him to Hawaii to register his birth
chain email from 2008
Though Clinton and her campaign never promoted the lie, it gained enough traction to circulate for a few years before it really took off when it started coming out of a big enough celebrity mouthpiece.
By the time Trump embraced birtherism as a theory in 2011, It had already been shot down by both parties and the majority of Americans considered the matter settled. But Trump’s statements acted as a celebrity endorsement, turning the once-settled matter into a new raging fire. With the powers of fear, celebrity, and the repetition Fox News was able to provide, birtherism finally had what it needed to flourish.
By the time Obama released his long-form birth certificate in 2011, it was too late. At that time, only 55% of Americans were confident he was born in the US. Its release had some effect on squashing the doubt, but not as much as you’d think. If people were arguing based on facts, perhaps its release would have had a more meaningful impact on those numbers, but since this campaign was driven more by fear, the facts just… didn’t matter.
Which brings us to the present.
How Birtherism Led to The Big Lie
While Trump eventually caved to pressure from both sides to disavow the birther theory and announced that Obama was, in fact, born here, the stage had been set. He had proven to himself and to the world that we were moving into a post-truth era where falsehoods, even once debunked, could not only be used to inspire, but could become emblems of entire movements. When Trump lost the 2020 election to Joseph R. Biden, he used many of the same tactics he had success with in birtherism. He wore denial like a badge of honor, making claims to appeal to his supporters’ emotions and repeated the message at every opportunity. The formula was simple: a theory in search of evidence.
While he continued to push this misinformation, many of his most loyal constituents, hoping to gain the favor of Trump, and thereby increase their own celebrity, repeated the claims and did his work for him. Mike Lindell (the MyPillow guy) even held a “cybersymposium” wherein he claimed he’d prove the election was stolen, only to fail to provide anything tangible. But again, we’re not dealing with scientific evidence here. Trump, Lindell and others know that. They motivate people and push their “theories” through fear and repetition.
Trump came clean on birtherism by blaming Hillary Clinton
As he now faces 91 federal and state felonies, the most severe of which are related to The Big Lie, some of this could be unraveling. Still, with nearly 70% of Republicans still believing President Joe Biden’s win was illegitimate, it may be years before this conspiracy leaves the mainstream. Until then, it might be wise to brace for another conspiracy the next time a Democratic is elected President.
The fact that my spell checker doesn’t recognize “chemtrails” as a word should tell you something about their existence, but here we are…
On September 7th, a Facebook user in the UK posted a video of him removing a reddish-colored layer of sand off his car with a magnet. His claim? This dust is evidence of a large government conspiracy known as “chemtrails.” The video appears to have been removed, but a similar video by another user was posted to Twitter (now X™). I’m not linking them because that’s only going to drive traffic and if there’s one thing conspiracy theorists love, it’s an audience.
@BGatesIsAPyscho giving a no doubt rational take
This event first appeared on my radar via Reuters Fact Check blog, a misinformation-busting website run by the one of the world’s biggest and most venerable news agencies. I’ll go ahead and spoil the ending for you, the story is fake- chemtrails are not responsible for an overnight coating of sand on a neighborhood in the UK. But the validity of this claim isn’t what I mean to address. Rather, I want to shine a light on how Reuters determined it was false.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with the chemtrails conspiracy theory, it’s a claim that the governments are secretly releasing harmful chemicals into the atmosphere via jet exhaust. What exactly this chemical is and what its purpose might be is always left open for discussion but common claims involve sterilization, reduced life expectancy, and even mind-control.
Reuters’ Process
Here’s the original Reuters post if you’d like to follow along.
One of the most crucial techniques when studying outrageous claims like this is to consider the source. Who is telling you that the government is releasing harmful chemicals into your air via jet exhaust? Is it a trusted source such as a Harvard Research Group (who debunked the whole idea of contrails) or is it some guy on Facebook or Twitter (still now X™)?
Reuters engaged in something we call lateral reading, the process of checking multiple sources for the same story to see if everyone agrees on the facts or if you’re only seeing one viewpoint. It’s called lateral because one typically reads a website top-to-bottom, but this encourages readers to hop sideways into a new browser tab and check the validity of claims before continuing down the original page.
The other thing Reuters did was check with experts. This sand must have come from somewhere, right? So by consulting with an expert on sand- say someone like Professor Barbara Maher, director of the Centre for Environmental Magnetism & Palaeomagnetism, Lancaster University or Professor Richard Harrison, head of the University of Cambridge’s Department of Earth Sciences, both of whom corresponded with Reuters to offer explanations into the phenomenon they were witnessing.
The sand came from the Sahara and was blown a very long distance to the UK in a well-documented northerly wind pattern. Saharan sand contains multiple minerals that are magnetic, such as magnetite and maghemite and would appear reddish in color due to the relatively high amount of iron oxide present in most samples. Makes sense right? These are all well-understood and documented occurrences in our world and they don’t need a government cover-up to make sense of the situation.
Cutting Through the Noise
This dips into one of my personal favorite philosophical tools: Occam’s Razor. In short, Occam’s Razor suggests we not make things overly complicated.
Next time you read a story or see an image online that seems completely outlandish, remember to stop reading, open a new tab, and poke around a bit and see what other sources are saying about the story. Then consider the source is it a reputable source like a Harvard Research Group or the head of a university earth sciences department, or is it a stranger on social media? Then finally, as William of Ockham (and to a lesser extent, Avril Lavigne) reminds us, don’t go and make things so complicated.
While I see how it’s useful, this Madonna quote isn’t 100% true in the digital age. We’re all pretty familiar with our likes and dislikes, quirks, and ambitions, but today’s digital marketers have built an entire industry around knowing you better than you know yourself. This week, we’re looking at yet another 24 hours of my interaction with media, but through a completely different lens. The question: just how much data did I give up?
Before we begin, it’s important to remember that this isn’t just the information I purposefully shared throughout the day, like my Social Security number (more on that later), but rather what data was collected with or without my intent, through my internet use, smartphone data, and any other devices that siphon data off users. So with that in mind, day breaks…
5:30 am: Much to my dismay, my alarm goes off. I walk around my son, who is curled up next to our bed (he’s been having trouble sleeping) and get ready for work. I scroll a bit on Facebook and check out some headlines. I play a mobile game for a few minutes, but don’t really engage too much with my phone before heading in. I’m sure Facebook, my news apps, and my little Star Wars game know that I sometimes get up super early for work.
On the way into work, I listened to NPR for a few seconds, but ultimately turned it off to enjoy a bit of quiet since I really don’t get too much of that.
9:00 am: Lunch break. It’s been a heck of a morning and I’m ready to space out for 30. I host a weekly podcast about that little Star Wars game I mentioned earlier and my cohost and I are looking into branching out into streaming video as well. I do a bit of market research by studying some of the other streamers on Twitch and YouTube who cover the game, as well as just some of the biggest streamers to see what sets them apart. I play my game a bit and get back to work. Twitch is definitely still learning about me. I followed a couple new accounts and watched some videos from creators I hadn’t seen before. At this point, that’s probably not so bad since it’s going to train the app on what kinds of games and videos I like, which is useful for my purposes.
Throughout the day, I’m checking my email a lot. I’ve been applying to jobs and I’m excited to see if I have any responses. I’m also checking up on some letters of recommendation that a couple professors are writing for me. Nothing yet.
2:00 pm: On my way home, I listen to a story on NPR about China and India’s disputes over a bit of territory that China just started claiming as their own on maps. This has been going on for quite some time, but it’s heating up. It’s a footnote on a bigger piece about India’s representation at the G20 summit.
When I get home, I have precious little time to relax before the rest of the day kicks into gear. Thursdays are really something at my house. I play a couple games that I routinely play on my XBox and head out shortly thereafter.
3:30 pm: I pick the kids up from school and listen to Yo La Tengo – Essentials for the 400th time on Apple Music. The information I’m giving Apple by doing it again is pretty meaningless I’m guessing. They usually ride the bus, but today I’m taking them to a dentist appointment at 4:00, so we scoot across town, all listening to dad’s favorite indie band from the ’90’s.
4:30 pm: After the kids get done with their cleanings (no cavities!!!), I book an appointment for next week as a new patient, as our old dentist recently retired. The new patient process is a lot. I give them a bit of my personal info, my SSN, and contact info. From there, I receive a text message to complete my registration. Here goes nothing. I fill out the online form and it collects all of my information. Like, all of it. This is a professional service and I understand why it’s needed, but as I’m working on this assignment, I can’t help but think “I wonder how many of my classmates also dished out their SSN during this project?”
6:00pm: I take my son to his piano lesson. He goes in with his teacher for a half hour and plays while I enjoy a coffee in the lobby. I do some Google searches for streaming gear and startup tricks, thus supplying Google with some relatively fresh data about me and what my short term interests are. I save several items to an Amazon list and now the whole dark web knows what I want for Christmas. I also poke around a bit on Indeed, looking for journalism jobs near me. This is a search I’ve done plenty before, so Indeed knows it’s an interest of mine, but now they know I’m looking a bit more actively.
7:45 pm: When we get home, we grab a quick bite and he goes off to play while I do a homework assignment wherein I write copy for a Google Ads campaign. “Just flip the script,” I think to myself. “What kinds of stuff do I search for?” I finish the assignment just in time for my Thursday night podcast.
8:30 pm: While my cohost and I work on our show prep through a Google doc, we host a weekly Discord video chat with our supporters from Patreon. This week, only JJ shows up, which is nice because we haven’t heard from him in a while. We chat for a while as we fill out the notes and check the game’s official forums for update notes. My cohost is also nervously watching the NFL opening game with our Detroit Lions.
10:00 pm: After running a bit over on our patron chat, we record episode 358 of Galactic War Report. There aren’t a whole lot of updates this week, so we focus more on analyzing our gameplay progress and goals for the last week. I stay up for a couple more hours, editing and mixing the show, writing the description, and posting the episode.
12:00 am: I kind of skipped dinner, so I whip up some Ramen with an egg (because I’m a foodie) and play a few rounds of Rocket League on my XBox. A new season has just started, so there are a lot of new challenges and things to check out. I don’t know exactly what information they’re getting from me, but I play pretty late at night usually, so this is probably just more of the same I’m betting.
1:00 am: As I’m shutting things down to go to bed, my son gets up again. We go back and forth a bit as we always do and finally he curls up next to my bed again. Good night, bud.
As the spring of 2020 turned from “two weeks off school” to a global health emergency, people around the world had to learn and adapt to new methods for almost every aspect of life. Schools went remote, people wore masks, work form home became ubiquitous, and services like InstaCart and DoorDash became staples in many people’s day-to-day lives.
Around this time, lawmakers were making a new push for net neutrality, the concept that internet service porviders (ISPs) should provide free-flowing traffic to their customers, not throttling or speeding up any one service or website differently than others for business purposes. The idea of net neutrality has been controversial since the term was coined by Columbia University law professor Tim Wu in 2003. Though it was established as law in 2015, the Trump administration repealed it in 2017 and we needed it back in a very real way.
Essentially, the argument is one of fairness vs profitability. The guiding principle of net neutrality is that increased access to the internet is crucial for users and online businesses alike, and that prioritizing one type of content over another creates an unfair scenario where smaller companies or sites can never compete with those who have sweetheart deals with ISPs. On the other hand, ISPs want the ability to control certain speeds to offer some customers better experiences and to create partnerships with media companies to increase profits. The argument is often that this profit leads to better scaling of services or more funding for innovation.
Net Neutrality in Public Life
While getting faster streaming videos on YouTube for paying a premium sounds relatively harmless in practice, consider other media scenarios and how they might affect public life, or even democracy. If a service like YouTube can strike a deal to prioritize their content over others, what’s stopping a social network from doing something similar? Imagine if Instagram made a deal with Verizon to make their new “X” competitor, Threads, work faster on Verizon’s network. This would create an unfair situation for X to try and compete with Threads. X owner Elon Musk no doubt would take issue with such a transgression.
Now imagine if, in response, AT&T struck a deal with X to prioritize their content on their services. Now we have two titans competing for a top spot that other networks simply can’t reach. Consider finally if Comcast, having missed out on the allure of a deal with X or with Instagram and set up an agreement with Truth Social, Donald Trump’s right-wing social network. (I know it’s highly unlikely, but go with me here.) Comcast users are getting lightning fast service to and from Truth Social and may end up preferring that over using X or Instagram, which feel clunky in comparison. They are spending a much higher amount of time on Truth Social, a notorious fountain of far-right propaganda than are customers of Verizon or AT&T.
Now ask yourself what effect net neutrality has in preserving democracy?
Net Neutrality as Law
As we spend more time ordering food, looking for rides, applying for jobs, and going to school online, a free and fair internet is more important than ever. We can’t allow special interests to serve us democracy-lite just to boost their “scalability” or “innovation.” Net neutrality is a the idea that we all get a chance, whether we’re websites, online services, or consumers.
Net neutrality as an enforceable principle has had legal battles for decades now, finally becoming law in 2015, getting repealed in 2017, and reinstated in 2022. With such a turbulent decade behind it, its future is uncertain. Will a more conservative future administration repeal the regulations again? If so, will it even be possible to put them back in place again?
Earlier this year I took a college class about misinformation. I learned techniques to spot it, ways we can avoid it, and even how to pre-bunk it, or stop it in its tracks. The very first assignment was to analyze 24 hours of my own personal media consumption. In that particular class, I was really looking deep for misinformation, and so in the last few hours I started looking in places I wouldn’t normally venture into.
This semester, I’m taking a course on digital literacy and, while the focus isn’t so finely tuned to misinformation, there is a lot of crossover on the two topics. When I read that I would be documenting another 24 hours of my media consumption, I thought why not just study an organic 24 hours, without me “looking for trouble” like I did last time? Below are the results.
My 24-Hour Media Diet (Fall ’23)
Last time I did this, I started mid-day, which honestly, was very on-brand for me. After all, I often work late and mid-day is sometimes where my day starts. This time, however, I was determined to track one day from dawn til dusk.
August 24th, 2023 at 12:30am: I realize that it’s past midnight and start tracking my media consumption. My sister is visiting from New York and we’re up rather late playing Wingspan, a fantastic bird-collecting board game. It’s her first time playing and she predictably ends up in last place, but the game is altogether close, with my wife taking first by one point. We listen to a few records, including Yo La Tengo’s This Stupid World.
A New Start
Wordle, newyorktimes.com/games
9:30am: I awaken. I start my day with the devastating discovery that while I was playing Wingspan with my wife and my sister last night, my Wordle streak ended. 41 days down the drain. No time like the present to start a new streak. I get the answer in four guesses.
I then read about the previous night’s GOP debate. I follow politics pretty closely, but with my sister in town, it seems that both politics and Wordle have fallen by the wayside. I scroll around on X mostly and I don’t end up opening any articles. It looks like Vivek Ramaswamy had a pretty solid showing and Ron DeSantis pretty much got clowned on.
10:00am: After heading downstairs, I watch my son (9), his best friend, and his cousin play some MarioKart. I have trained him well, and he is quite handily beating the competition. I’m tempted to play, but I get wrapped up in a conversation with my sister about Yevgeny Prigozhin’s apparent demise. She’s pretty sure it was a set up. I get on my phone and open the BBC News app first to see what information they have. I end up looking at NPR and New York Times articles as well before I move on from the matter. There’s no proof of wrongdoing, nor is there any evidence mentioned, but Putin’s reputation certainly looms over the conversation.
Game Time
2:00pm: After wrapping up some housekeeping, I sit down to play some games. I’ve got the day off work today and it’s the last day of Fortnite’s battle pass, so I’ve got a little catching up to do if I want to unlock Optimus Prime (which, of course, I do). I play for about 2 hours and hit all my goals. Mission accomplished.
4:00pm: I play Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes, a mobile game that requires specific actions every day at specific times. 5:00pm marks the end of a Grand Arena Championship, which is a two-day battle against a different opponent each time. I’m in the 48th hour here and I’ve done squat. I sign in and do my fights, winning enough battles against this opponent to secure a win. I screenshot the scoreboard and send it to a friend who also plays. I also post the screenshot in Discord for my in-game pals to see. Today I am royalty.
Family Time
5:15pm: My daughter (7) is trying out for a community theater production of Roald Dahl’s Matilda: The Musical. We spend a good 15 minutes rehearsing her audition piece, titled Naughty. It’s the song that introduces the audience to the character of Matilda, and she is hamming it up with a thick British accent singing “sometimes you have to be a little bit nough-ty (hyphen added for emphasis)”.
5:40pm: I watch one episode of the Amazing World of Gumball with my kids. It’s a silly, mindless show that they’ve discovered and they’ve probably watched every episode 4 or 5 times. I enjoy it a bit, but it’s just nice to be sharing something with the kids. You’ll note everything we do today is inside because there’s a heat warning in Michigan because it’s so disgustingly hot and humid. Like glasses instantly fog up humid. Ew.
6:45pm: I take my son to his piano lesson and listen in the next room as he learns “Cantina Band” from his Star Wars beginner piano book. He struggles sometimes learning new songs, but he sounds great tonight.
The Great Refresh
CNN.com
At this point, I kind of have to drop a disclaimer. I don’t mean to be preachy in my posts, but I aim to be as honest as I can, and sometimes that means I have to mention politics. Now, for those as plugged into politics as I am, Thursday, August 24th has a bit of an expectation looming over it. Donald Trump announced earlier in the week that he had planned to turn himself in to the Fulton County Courthouse on Thursday. This is his fourth indictment, but one of the key differences for politicos like me is that the Georgia case is taking a mug shot. A mug shot. Of a former president.
Here’s where I can’t not let my politics show: I’m no fan of Trump. I’m like, really not a fan. And so, I spend a good amount of time refreshing my X feed to see this mug shot drop. I’m not proud of it, but I really do get caught up in the moment wanting to see it posted online. It’s one of those moments where it truly feels like you’re living history. Those are always weird moments and Trump has given me a lot of them.
Showtime
radiofreetatooine.com
8:30pm: Each week, my podcast cohost and I host what we call a “Dathchat”- a live video chat open to anyone who supports our show on Patreon. Most weeks, we have a couple people stop by and chat, but this week no one showed up, which is great because I had to work very early the next morning. This meant we were able to record our weekly episode promptly, so after prepping the show notes for about an hour, we recorded episode 356 of Galactic War Report from about 10:00pm to 11:00pm.
The topics vary from week to week as we have to address game updates that drop rather frequently. There weren’t really athat many updates this week, so we have to piece the show together by reporting on our own activity during the week and doing some features on strategy. Sometimes a slow news week gives us a little breathing room to play with the format and that’s what happened this week. Solid episode.
I know a lot of people who podcast, and one thing I appreciate about our show is our quick turnaround time. From the moment we stop recording, I can usually have a show edited and uploaded within an hour pretty easily. I cruise through editing this episode (my Garageband game is strong) and play just a bit more of Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes before I crash, preparing to get up for work about 4 hours later. What can I say? I am dedicated (have a problem).
The Wrap
So what have we learned?
Admittedly, this was one of my lower-intensity days. I spent a lot more time gaming than I normally do and I only left the house for a brief piano lesson since the air conditioning was so crucial in this heat wave. (I recognize it’s been worse in Arizona this year, but this was Michigan’s hottest couple days.) I think maybe there’s some knowledge to be gleaned by how dedicated to gamin I was with the end of Fortnite’s season and the very late night session of Galaxy of Heroes. I have always been aware of my demons, I just let them have a little fun on this day.
I think the two other interesting notes with regards to my media consumption are:
When my sister said Putin shot Prigozhin’s plane down, my instinct was to check multiple sources. As much sense as it makes for Putin to exact revenge on someone who so directly insulted his authority so recently, I have seen too many assumptions prove false to take anything like that at face value. My official stance is: I have no proof but it would track.
The feeling I had when refreshing X for Trump’s mugshot. As I mentioned, I’m no fan of his, and I’m sure there was some degree of schadenfreude involved, but I really felt like I was living through a distinct moment in history. To be blunt, after the last few years, I could really do with less of that feeling as I am (and I think we all are, to a degree) just over it.
Misinformation is a particularly messy problem. And problems this messy often require a wide array of tools to solve. It’s hard enough protecting yourself from fake news, but it’s quite a different process teaching your kids to spot it.
If you have young children, teaching them to avoid misinformation is a responsibility that may seem daunting. And that’s fair, because it kind of is. You see, as messed up as the world we live in is, this is nothing compared to the fake news world they’re going to inherit. The Council on Foreign Relations estimates that between 2016-2020, misinformation on Facebook grew by 242%. So let’s make sure these kids have a chance.
Here are some tips on how to talk to your kids about misinformation:
While recent research has suggested there are a multitude of learning styles, the most basic understanding of learning styles for kids often revolves around VARK, a concept that breaks learning into
Visual – best with images
Auditory (or hearing) – learning by listening
Reading & Writing – reading and note taking
Kinesthetic – learning by doing
You may find that tailoring this approach to your child’s learning style is needed so try to be as flexible as they require.
I find it’s easiest to tackle a grown-up conversation by asking kids what they already know. I have a 9-year-old and a 6-year-old and when asking them about fake news, I found my 9-year-old already had a basic understanding of what it was, so it was easier to guide the conversation knowing this.
Once it’s clear what they already bring to the conversation, start poking around. Make up a claim and ask them how they feel about it. It could be anything from flat earth theory to chemtrails to the moon landing hoax. Or you could even make up your own wild claim, whatever you want to run with. Ask them what questions they have after you present your claim.
Questions to foster in them:
1. Who Said It?
You know how there’s that one kid at school that’s always making stuff up? When he tells you something that seems fishy, how do you feel? Did he tell you where he heard it?
Some websites and news organizations are like that, too. It’s important to know where your information is coming from to know if it’s reliable. And you should expect any good website to show legitimate sources to any claims they make. Parents: if your kids ask about a claim they saw online, sit down with them and look at the source. You may have seen the media bias chart from Allsides floating around your own online sphere. It’s a great start, and they offer details on their own site about the methods they use to determine news outlets’ placement on their chart. This doesn’t tell you how legitimate a story is, but it may shed light on any biases. Additionally, investigate the URL. If it’s a long string of characters, or it looks like it’s impersonating another site, beware. Additionally, google the site. Scroll a bit and see what others are saying about it.
Media Bias Chart 2023, allsides.com
2. Why Would They Say It?
Explain to your kids the reasons people misinform. If a turnip salesperson tells you that eating two turnips a day makes you live to 150, you’d probably think they’re lying. And it’s pretty easy to see the reason they’re lying to you. If you believe their misinformation, you’re going to buy a lot of turnips, and that makes them money. This is the “root” of understanding of misinformation online. If spreading fake news makes people money or gives them power or influence, they’re going to keep doing it. Identifying the motivations behind articles takes some of that power away.
Can they back up what they say? Just like that kid at school whose uncle worked for Nintendo back in the day or that kid who had a girlfriend in Canada you’ve never met, bad news sites use bad sources too. Sometimes they’ll quote an “expert,” but they’re really an expert in a totally different field. Like if a world-renowned nutritionist gives advice on foreign policy, or an electrician recommends a certain medicine. Yes, they’re experts, but not on every topic. I know they sound like grown-up concepts, but I like to talk to my kids about my two favorite razors: Occam’s and Hitchens’. I find they really resonate with kids if you break them down right.
William of Ockham and his hairstyle, Encyclopaedia Brittanica
Occam’s Razor is often oversimplified as “The simplest explanation is usually the correct one.” While that’s not the whole concept, it’s enough to get the point across to kids. Try something like this scenario: A window is broken and there is a baseball on the living room floor. Now which of these do you think happened – someone was playing outside and threw or hit that baseball through the window, breaking it, and then the ball landed in the living room OR A professional baseball player broke into our house and left his baseball here on the carpet, meanwhile a ninja punched a hole in our window? It’s an absurd example, but it demonstrates the principal brilliantly that a simpler explanation is usually correct.
Hitchens’ Razor simply states that “What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.” If no sources are given, you just get to move on. So when someone tells you their uncle works for Nintendo, ask them what he does there? Make them do the work supporting their claim. It’s not your job.
4. Is It Sensational?
Explain to your kids that emotions are tricky things and people do irresponsible things when their emotions take control. Just like temper tantrums, or things you regret saying after getting in an argument.
If a website makes money off you clicking a link, you better believe they’re going to find the easiest way to get you to click it. A 2022 study by Christy Galletta Horner and her father, Dennis Galletta of University of Pittsburgh determined that “fake news headlines are created to evoke emotional responses in readers that will cause them to interact with the article in a way that allows the creator to make a profit (through clicking on the link to the full article, by sharing the article, etc.)” So consider emotional headlines and articles a big red flag.
As part of this sensationalism, identifying a claim as secret information that “they” don’t want you to know about is an old tactic. No one can resist a good secret. When someone says that “they” don’t want you to know about it, it’s both because secrets are exciting and because it gives them an excuse when you search other sites and don’t find that claim anywhere else. Skeptoid Media calls claims of suppression “the territory of conspiracy mongering.” Double whammy.
A door no doubt guarding secrets “they” don’t want you to know about. Photo by Dima Pechurin on Unsplash
Ask A Grown-up
Finally, let them know that they can ask you. Always make yourself available to coach. It takes time. It takes work. But it can be fun, and it’s definitely worth it.
I hope this helps guide a conversation with your young ones about misinformation and how to spot it. Kids should be allowed to be kids, so they don’t have to be experts, but they are going to need to be ready to deal with misinformation, because it’s not going away.
How do you know if a news site (or any site for that matter) is giving you good information or if they’re pulling your leg? Like most questions about misinformation, the answer is a bit tricky. Fortunately, the good folks at The Trust Project have devised an easy-to-use tool for ferreting out misinformation called the 8 Trust Indicators.
I’m going to be using these indicators to get a feel for just how legitimate two news sources from Arizona are. I’ve never been to Arizona and am completely unfamiliar with their local news, so this is a great test of the indicators as I’ll bring minimal bias to this test. Before we begin, let’s take a look at the indicators:
The 8 Trust Indicators
The 8 Trust Indicators are a set of things to consider when determining if a news source is trustworthy. They peel pack each article to reveal who’s bringing you this story and why. I strongly recommend you spend some time familiarizing yourself with them if they’re new to you. A full analysis of the indicators is beyond the scope of this post, but here’s a quick glimpse. They are:
The first 4 Trust Indicators, thetrustproject.org 4/23/23The last 4 Trust Indicators, thetrustproject.org 4/23/23
Best Practices – Do you know who’s behind the news?
Journalist Expertise – Who made this?
Labels – News? Opinion? Or what?
References – What’s their source?
Methods – How was it built?
Locally Sourced – Do they know you? Your community?
Diverse Voices – Who’s in the news? Who’s missing?
Actionable Feedback – Does this news site listen to me?
Now let’s put these indicators to use in two case studies involving Arizona news outlets.
The Arizona Silver Belt
First up is the Arizona Silver Belt. I’ll note again that I’ve never in my life read the Silver Belt, so I’m wide-eyed and ready to spot anything that looks amiss. The first thing I notice is an abundance of ads. I know news organizations have to pay the bills somehow, but there really are a lot to deal with here. My computer literally stopped in its tracks while all the ads loaded. It’s an old computer, so that happens from time to time, but it’s worth noting. Now, let’s go down the list:
Best Practices
Trying to find information regarding the policies in place for reporting here is a bit tough. I scrolled down to the footer and found a Terms & Conditions link, which takes you to a pretty general website T&C, but with an ad. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an ad on a T&C page before.
The Wikipedia entry for the Silver Belt says it’s been around since 1878, and the Google search results don’t show a history of scandals involving the paper.
Journalist Expertise
The top story on the day I am accessing the site (April 23, 2023) is Globe Council addresses infrastructure issues. That’s possibly the most local-news headline I’ve ever read, certainly not sensationalist. It’s written by David Sowders of the Arizona Silver Belt and the accompanying photo is credited to him as well.
Let’s snoop a bit. google.com 4/23/23
Based on his LinkedIn profile, it looks like Mr. Sowders has been a reporter in Arizona for at least 9 years, almost 3 of which are with The Silver Belt. This lends credibility since it establishes him as local. He also seems to write a lot of the stories about city council goings-on, so he seems pretty established.
Labels
You’d be hard pressed to find an errant opinion on the Sun Belt’s website. Trending stories are as follows:
April 4-10 Arrest Reports
Gas leak leads to evacuation at Globe PD
Carmen Slough Celebrates 109th birthday
As you can see, there’s little room for doubt that this is a news site that focuses on news. There is a section called “Viewpoints” in the dropdown menu, where I though I might find something spicy, but there is only one article there and it’s about a sorority that would like to thank a fellow named Ian for helping commemorate one of their sisters who passed away.
References
Mike’s got cred. globeaz.gov 4/23/23
For the article about the infrastructure issues, it is implied that Mr. Sowders gathered this information from a city council meeting, but but I suppose it wasn’t explicitly stated that he did. There was a quote from council member Mike Pastor included, and his name checks out as a member.
Methods
As stated above, this seems like a cut-and-dry report from a city council meeting. Perhaps he recorded it, but he was most likely in attendance as well. All the facts contained in the piece seem to be derived from that one meeting with no additional conjecture.
Locally Sourced
David Sowders regularly contributes to the Silver Belt. As mentioned in his bio, he’s been in the Arizona journalism scene for at least 9 years, so he’s a definite local.
Diverse Voices
The Whitest Town U’Know. worldpopulationreview.com 4/23/23
It does seem that there is a lack of diverse voices here. There are only a couple reporters who regularly contribute and there’s not a lot of input from the community. Demographically speaking, Globe is a strikingly white city, but that doesn’t mean there are no stories to be told here. I rate this one a 6/10 for at least including that birthday party.
Actionable Feedback
Remember when I mentioned the Viewpoints section where the sorority was giving a big thanks to Ian? That one lonely post was from 2017. It seems like the Silver Belt really doesn’t go out of its way to engage with readers, which could be problematic for establishing trust as a news source. There is a sense of a news bubble where maybe they’re just not digging enough for community engagement.
East Arizona News
Up next is East Arizona News, which I’m approaching just a tad differently. Before I even engage with the site, I’m looking them up. The problem here, of course, is “East Arizona News” is a very vague search term that nets a lot of different news outlets in East Arizona. It’s worth noting, however, that the outlets website, eastarizonanews.com does not appear anywhere near the top of Google search results.
Best Practices
East Arizona News claims to be the product of Metric Media, a network of local news sites whose stated aim is to “fill the void of community news after years of decline in local reporting by legacy media.” Let’s get lateral. Search results turn up that Metric Media is in fact a series of local news sites but it doesn’t take long to find a bit of dirt on their incentives.
Oops. Google search results for “Metric Media” 4/23/23
Oops I did it again. Google search results for “Metric Media” 4/23/23
When the New York Times clearly defines you as “Mimicking local news” in a headline, that’s usually a really bad sign for your trustworthiness. I feel like this is a big enough red flag that we could just dismiss anything this site has to offer, but for the sake of the blog (#content), let’s continue.
Journalist Expertise
This should be good. The lead story at time of writing is titled “Schweikert, Smith: Americans Will Struggle to Afford Accounting and Paperwork Prep Needed to Comply with Democrats’ New IRS Reporting Scheme” and is only credited to East Arizona News, no reporter.
Let’s look at this for a minute before we even address the contents. Not crediting a reporter is something a news outlet may do when they release a statement that is meant to represent the whole editorial board or something like that. This article is presented as a story about two representatives who criticize “Democrats” and their “scheme.” This language tells you a lot about incentives. They’re clearly defining who they oppose and calling their plan a scheme.
This is a highlight of the type of language used here (note, this is not a quote from one of the representatives in the headline, it is from the article’s main text):
Democrats’ $600 threshold for reporting Venmo payments will make next tax season even worse by involving the IRS every time an American sells a couch, concert ticket, or pays the neighbor to mow the lawn.
East Arizona News, Schweikert, Smith: Americans Will Struggle to Afford Accounting and Paperwork Prep Needed to Comply with Democrats’ New IRS Reporting Scheme
More on this later in the References section…
Labels
How is this labeled? As opinionated as it feels, this is actually labeled Local Government. Criticizing the Biden administration and the IRS doesn’t feel like “Local Government,” nor does it feel like news. There is clearly a degree of manipulation happening here.
References
This is my favorite part. The aisle seat on a long flight. The nacho that’s cheese-glued to three others but still only counts as one. You know, the good stuff.
At the bottom of the article, there is a link that reads: Original source can be found here. Did you click that? You probably don’t have to to know it takes you somewhere great. Specifically, to Congressman David Schweikert’s website, where this whole article exists as a message from the Congressman. Well I guess there’s your journalist.
How do you do, fellow journalists? schweikert.house.gov 4/23/23
Methods
The methods for our first example are pretty clear. It’s campaign propaganda for Congressman David Schweikert and its origins and reason for existing on a “news” site are murky.
For a second look at methods, let’s turn to an article titled “Ducey signs voter fraud measure: ‘Arizona is a leader in election integrity’.” It is credited to an Andy Ngheim. Using lateral reading (and our Holmesian powers of inductive reasoning), let’s try to ascertain how it came to be. A search on his name on muckrack.com returns a lot of hits for the Madison/St. Clair Record, a local news outlet near St. Louis, MO. He writes for them extensively, but also news outlets in Austin, Houston, and Kern Valley, CA. Plenty of journalists do freelance work, so this feels pretty normal.
The only source given is a press release from former Governor Ducey’s office. Of note: this story is about election security, which The New York Times says is a very common topic in these Metric Media fews sites. I even discovered that Mr. Ngheim writes about one article per month in one of these Metric papers near me way over in Michigan, which is a great segue to the next indicator.
Locally Sourced
Is any of this locally sourced? Well, Congressman Schweikert is certainly “representative” of Arizona (the 1st congressional district, to be precise), but what about Andy Ngheim? Muckrack.com shows that he mainly writes in the St. Louis area and he writes monthly in Southwest Michigan. I think it’s safe to assume that Mr. Ngheim is not someone I would consider “local.”
Diverse Voices
To say that East Arizona News has a diversity issue is perhaps true, but only as a technicality. There’s really just… very little news. Most of the site’s articles are either press releases or just data points about business registrations, migration, and PSA’s seemingly scraped off local social media accounts for libraries and the like. I though maybe I’d see something more in the “Ethics” section, but it’s literally a long line of articles about when Catholic masses are scheduled. That’s it.
Hard-hitting reporting on ethics. eastarizonanews.com 4/23/23
Actionable Feedback
Can you reach East Arizona News? Sure. But why? The site lists news@eastarizonanews.com as a contact method if you have a scoop or opinion, but I don’t see a single thing on their site that leads me to believe that they engage with any readers. There are no published opinions, no corrections, really just nothing that looks like a local citizen of East Arizona had any role in creating.
The Verdict
The Arizona Silver Belt seems like a perfectly legitimate (if unimaginably unexciting) local news site. It features local reporters, useful local information, and very little pizzazz. In stark contrast, East Arizona News offers very little of substance to any reader thirsty for local news.
These tools certainly do work, but only if you’re willing to apply them. I suppose the biggest takeaway here is that, if you’re not familiar with a news source, don’t just assume they’re legitimate because the website looks good. Check the site with some lateral reading and dig just a bit to see why that article showed up in front of you.
With misinformation spreading faster than a virus in a ball pit, online communities are having to devote more and more time to finding that misinformation and figuring out what to do with it. Some sites, like Facebook, have become breeding grounds for misinformation and no amount of mitigation measures have seemed to stop that. Other sites like Parler promise that absolutely no content will be removed unless it’s from a terrorist, child porn, or a copyright violation. So what is a sensible misinformation policy in 2023? To answer that, I’m looking at two online communities that vividly illustrate the need for effective misinformation policies: Twitter and, that’s right, Pinterest.
Pinterest
Pinterest’s general misinformation policy, pinterest.com 4/16/23
When I think of Pinterest, I think of three things: ideas for kids’ birthday parties, farmhouse chic decor, and an almost superhuman dedication to fighting misinformation. Pinterest seriously does no play around with misinformation. The first sentence in their policy makes that incredibly clear:
Pinterest isn’t a place for misinformation, disinformation, mal-information or the individuals or groups spreading or creating it.
Pinterest misinformation policy, 4/16/23
This doesn’t leave as much room for interpretation as say Facebook, who may suppress certain controversial topics or posts, but doesn’t outright remove content unless its back is against the wall.
Additionally, Pinterest has specific policies for voting, health, and (most recently) climate misinformation. This all suggests that not only is Pinterest serious about fighting misinformation on its platform, but it has a plan and it’s still evolving it.
Pinning Down The Hammer
Let’s look at one case of Pinterest taking action against an offender: LiveAction, a pro-life non-profit that aims to outlaw abortion, found their site was blacklisted by Pinterest in June of 2019. More specifically, LiveAction.org had been added to a list of pornographic websites. This meant that Pinners (Pinterest’s term for users) could no longer Pin (Pinterest’s term for bookmark) anything from LiveAction to their Boards (Pinterest’s term for homepage). When LiveAction discovered this, they reached out to Pinterest to ask what had prompted the blacklisting. Pinterest’s response was to let them know they messed up.
— Alison H.Centofante (@AlisonHowardC) June 11, 2019
Before one jumps to conclusions about Pinterest’s idealogical interests and agenda, it’s worth noting that LiveAction has been found time and again to use misinformation as a means of moving people to act on their behalf. That said, Pinterest has policies against denying climate science and misrepresenting vaccine info, and even banned weight loss ads in 2021 to promote body positivity, all classically liberal moves. Still, Pinterest’s user base remains evenly split liberal/conservative.
Twitter Then
Hoo boy, Twitter. To understand the misinformation picture on Twitter, one must look at the defining moment on the bird app’s TL, Elon Musk’s acquisition for $43 billion in October 2022. While a new CEO always means new rules, the degree to which Musk mangled Twitter into something different is really unlike any that came before.
In analyzing Twitter’s misinformation policies, let’s start in the pre-Musk era, when things were simpler. Perhaps one of the most layered approaches to fighting misinformation, Twitter’s process involved labeling content and offering context when a tweet (Twitter’s term for — oh, you get it) contained misleading info, incorrect info, or something that just needed additional context. This approach grew exponentially during Donald Trump’s presidency, when he would repeatedly tweet things that were either outright false, harmful, or just misleading. The Capitol riot of January 6th, 2021 eventually led to his permanent (-ish) ban.
Twitter Now
One of the reasons Elon Musk cited for buying Twitter in 2022 was to “help humanity.” He saw it as a great opportunity to open up free speech, an objective he believed the current ownership didn’t share. He wanted to greatly reduce the moderation and fight back against “woke.”
The woke mind virus is either defeated or nothing else matters
One of the first things he did was end Twitter’s policing of COVID-19 information. Twitter had previously taken steps to fight the spread of COVID vaccine misinformation, a move that Musk saw as anti-free speech. In removing this policy, he has opened the floodgates for dubious claims about COVID vaccines, death rates, and the origins of the virus, sometimes even making those claims himself.
Twitter’s “policy” 4/16/23
The Takeaway
Ultimately, every platform needs a misinformation policy that aligns with what they’re trying to accomplish. If you’re trying to keep your Pinners safe, stomp out any sign of misinformation and never look back. If you’re a bit more loosey-goosey with facts maybe just forgo a policy altogether like Truth Social did (not a joke, there is literally no policy). Perhaps the toughest scenario to navigate (as a platform) is one where you had sensible policies in place but the self-described Chief Twit just tossed them out.
