
The Race to Weaponize Empathy - mpweiher
http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2017/01/the-race-to-weaponize-empathy.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+typepad%2FrzYD+%28Global+Guerrillas%29
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tptacek
The story with "fake news" is pretty straightforward, if you want to take a
second to understand it.

It began with an actual, technical phenomenon: a brand of webspam designed to
solicit clicks by running lurid, Weekly World News grade political stories on
auto-generated news sites filled with (if you checked their backcatalog) crazy
stories like the Pope consorting with demons. There were dozens of these
sites, built with scripts, and they were literally what the label we stuck on
their tin said: "fake news".

Then, deploying the rhetorical jujitsu Frank Luntz was so successful at
popularizing on the right, Trump co-opted the term. "Fake news" wasn't webspam
sites filled with literal manufactured news having no connection to reality or
for that matter physics, but instead any news a partisan disagreed with.

So effective were Trump supporters that the term "fake news" has lost all
meaning, and sucks all the oxygen out of conversations in which it's used.

This article captures none of that story, because it's a partisan political
piece written by a (literal) partisan Trump supporter unaware of the irony of
the deceptive point they're trying to make.

~~~
garanduss
>Then, deploying the rhetorical jujitsu Frank Luntz was so successful at
popularizing on the right, Trump co-opted the term. "Fake news" wasn't webspam
sites filled with literal manufactured news having no connection to reality or
for that matter physics, but instead any news a partisan disagreed with.

No, the foodfight started when two things happened. Liberal pundits began
blowing fake news' impact out of proportion and suggesting that it swung the
election. They also began casting it as a characteristically conservative
problem and put legitimate right-wing news outlets like Breitbart on lists of
fake news sites. We right-wingers then began using the term tongue-in-cheek
and people got all worked up thinking it was some kind of propaganda
technique. It's just lighthearted needling/trolling.

Remember that right before "election hacking" became the only election topic
discussed among Clinton supporters, it was "fake news".

~~~
tptacek
It is, in fact, empirically a conservative problem: fakenews sites are
something like 9-1 conservative.

If you care to check (you can just take my word for it), I've been pushing
back on the idea that Breitbart is fakenews, from the jump.

I find Breitbart abhorrent, though. My conservative friends are sheepish about
it. Do you get much value out of it? Could you explain it to me? I'm not a
conservative, but I respect a lot of conservative ideology (Hayekian bottom-up
economical thought, strong emphasis on the private sector, maintenance of the
Pax Americana, &c). Am I crazy to think that Breitbart is a parody of serious
conservative thinking?

~~~
garanduss
I'll focus on the second paragraph in this response.

I find it depressing how partisan and tabloidy Breitbart is, and I'm therefore
unsurprised that people like Ben Shapiro have denounced it.

However, Breitbart presents an alternative to the mainstream media, which has
developed such a pervasive bias that it no longer understands what fair
reporting is.

The conservative community realized the depth of this problem in cases like
the Kermit Gosnell trial, where the entire media ignores the topic and Fox,
basically the only A-list conservative media outlet at this point, miss it too
because it's simply under the radar. The mainstream media outlets rely so much
on the AP and one another that you need a source that is fundamentally
independent in determining what they find notable. So if I want news on
immigration, abortion, or guns that isn't pandering garbage, Breitbart offers
a better alternative.

Here's an example that stuck with me. A couple months ago, the NYT had an
article called "The Week In Hate" prominently listed on the front page of its
website. It was a short list of hate incidents, including a high schooler
sending a Snapchat with a racial epithet in it, and someone writing "black
bitch" in the snow on a black woman's car. The front page of the NYT. The same
people who didn't write a word on a man who murdered an estimated hundreds of
infants by snipping their spinal cords because it was "local news". The world
has gone insane, and although Breitbart is insane too, it might be the kind of
insanity we need.

In response to your last sentence: "serious" or "sensible" conservative
thinking usually just means neutered conservative thinking. The current
conservative revival is partially a backlash to the left's perceived
entitlement to define acceptable right-wing thought.

~~~
grzm
_a man who murdered an estimated hundreds of infants by snipping their spinal
cords_

Would you mind providing a reference for this?

~~~
tptacek
He's referring to Kermit Gosnell, a Philadelphia abortion doctor who ran an
incredibly gruesome, dangerous, and unethical medical practice that apparently
included "abortions" for viable infants; he basically built a practice that
victimized poor residents of Philadelphia.

I agree that Gosnell got less coverage than it merited, although the
motivation for that goes both ways: since a powerful majority of the country
supports legal access to abortion, you could argue that Fox News avoided the
story because it underscored the lack of availability of safe, ethical
reproductive health services to the poor of this country, which is something
the state-level Republican parties are campaigning against.

~~~
grzm
Ah. Thanks. I see the name mentioned upthread. I didn't make the connection to
look him up.

~~~
garanduss
Ah right, I didn't realize that you didn't know who I was referring to.

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rrggrr
Reversion from hegemony to multi-polar competitor was historically inevitable
for the United States. Just as inevitable is the slow pace with which
American's identity politics catches up to America's reduced role. The amount
of empathy America has as individuals may no longer be able to match its
capacity for political and policy empathy - in domestic and foreign spheres.

So, while I agree with the Author's contention that this mismatch in identity
is being exploited, I would also argue the acrimony and social discord is as
normal as it is unpleasant.

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Arun2009
> "I am righteously indignant; you are annoyed; he is making a fuss over
> nothing."

> Notice how the factual content remains unchanged.

I know that I am nitpicking and I am not a logician at all, but the factual
content in these usages seems to me to be different when they are interpreted
not just as formal propositions, but sentences made in a human context. To be
"righteously indignant" has connotations that one is indignant about an
important matter, whereas "making a fuss over nothing" implies that the matter
is not very important. There is a significant difference in how important the
matter is between these usages.

For e.g., one can differ on the matter of drawing cartoons of a religious
figure. You can either be "righteously indignant" or "make a fuss over
nothing" about it. These two have different factual content because they
convey different claims about the severity of the matter.

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arto
In case the link doesn't open (as it doesn't for me), here's the post on
Robb's blog on Medium:

[https://medium.com/@johnrobb/the-race-to-weaponize-
empathy-5...](https://medium.com/@johnrobb/the-race-to-weaponize-
empathy-5ecfc07563d0)

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heydenberk
I'm disappointed to see this on the front page. I followed John Robb years ago
when he had an unusual perspective about the rise of non-state actors and
asymmetric disruption in global politics. He had subject matter expertise and
an unmotivated point of view. He has since relegated himself to partisan
punditry in support of Donald Trump. It's baffling and disheartening.

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andrewclunn
Everyone was so worried about Bill O'Reilly or John Oliver, that they didn't
realize that Alex Jones is just as powerful in the internet age.

