A pair of articles by the Financial Times offers quite the take on disinformation hypocrisy.
I suggest the Financial Times look into the mirror if it wants to understand where the problem is.
Worse yet, to stop the spread of fake news, the FT editorial board wants restrictions on freedom of speech.
Yesterday, in The Threat Posed by Putin’s Cyber Warriors the FT was so worried about “disinformation” that it proposed restrictions on freedom of speech.
“The Russian state is far from alone in using hacking as a form of espionage. What distinguishes Moscow’s activity is the malicious way it appears to be using the information garnered and disseminating fake news to further pollute the political atmosphere. The timing of leaks during the US election looked calculated to weaken Hillary Clinton, the Democratic candidate,” claims the FT editorial view.
After railing against “fake news” the editorial view went on to propose restrictions on free speech.
“Berlin is considering imposing hefty fines on media outlets that spread false and malicious information. This may seem an undue restriction to freedom of speech but in the context of a propaganda war designed to undermine western democracy, it may be necessary to do more than enforce existing laws on libel and incitement.”
FT Purveyors of Fake News
That was yesterday. Today, the Financial Times spread fake news. Please consider Trump blasts US intelligence on Russia dossier.
Actually it’s the subtitle I want you to consider.
The subtitle “President-elect acknowledges Moscow hacked election” is a blatant lie.
Trump did not admit Moscow hacked the “election”.
Let’s consult the press conference transcript.
As far as hacking, I think it was Russia. But I think we also get hacked by other countries and other people. And I — I can say that you know when — when we lost 22 million names and everything else that was hacked recently, they didn’t make a big deal out of that. That was something that was extraordinary. That was probably China.
But remember this: We talk about the hacking and hacking’s bad and it shouldn’t be done. But look at the things that were hacked, look at what was learned from that hacking.
That Hillary Clinton got the questions to the debate and didn’t report it?
Key Differences
Trump never said Russia hacked the “election”. He did not even say Russia hacked anything. He said he “thinks” Russia hacked [the DNC].
- Hacking the “DNC” is not quite the same as hacking the “election”.
- “Think they did” is not the same as “did”.
The Financial Times should know the difference, especially in this heated environment.
By the way, the DNC was not “hacked” by anyone. Someone at the DNC exposed their password in a phishing expedition.
And now we have Democrat Senators all wanting an investigation into a proven bogus dossier given to the FBI by Senator McCain.
To top it off, the FT wants to restrict freedom of speech to prevent the spread of fake news.
Who is to be the judge of fake news?
If the FT editorial board has an ounce of sense, it will immediately take back its preposterous stance.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Be careful what you wish for, FT. If fake news is to be banned, then FT is to be forevermore tossed in the dustbin. Too bad, it used to be a pretty reliable source of information. Oh well, things change.
they want a subsidy via ‘truth’ control only ‘accredited’ retards I mean diplomized journalists will be able to ‘truth tell’ via fake news
This is all getting scarily serious. Here’s the Saker on the Neocon’s war against Trump;
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/46202.htm
Their only strategy has to be quantity of material, not quantity. I wouldn’t even raise that document to amateur level material.
greg you meant “not quality”. You to be very careful posting here since you cannot edit.
crap I made a mistake also: “You HAVE to be very careful….”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4112972/Who-commissioned-former-British-spy-Christopher-Steele-draw-discredited-dirty-dossier-Trump.html
“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revoutionary act.” — George Orwell
“Truth is treason in the empire of lies.”
~ Ron Paul
FT is part of the media where globalism has become a religion so anti-globalists are always attacked even when some of the anti-globalists ideas are sensible.
Some parts of globalization are stupid and only benefit the 1%.
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The demand to restrict Freedom of Speech comes from the fact that now the position of FT and Economist etc. as gatekeepers has been greatly weakened by economics blogs so their ad revenue and subscription revenue is dropping and the mind share and time share and ad share of economics news is more and more with Mishtalk, Zerohedge, ContraCorner etc. instead of with FT and Economist.
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Zerohedge was wikileaks central during the election and has crossed somewhat from economics blog/news into a general news service with Drudge giving many juicy fact based news from Zerohedge links regularly.
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Media in general is unbelievably sloppy and this is partly the result of bad quality reporters getting positions so the change would have to begin from the top with editors telling off and firing reporters who report fake news instead of giving them promotions if they bring clicks.
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Hi Mike,
You may enjoy this short video describing what the Mexican Presiden should answer Donald Trump. I think you will agree with it. If only Trump and the Mexican President would watch it, that would would fix the looming foreign trade war.
I can’t thank you enough for your blog.
Thank you,
Carlos Maurer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25x9ipMpm_k
The true definition of “false and malicious information” is:
Anything those in power do not want heard.
“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” — George Orwell
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/ukraine-sabotage-trump-backfire-233446
Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire…
…Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump…The Ukrainian efforts had an impact in the race, helping to force Manafort’s resignation and advancing the narrative that Trump’s campaign was deeply connected to Ukraine’s foe to the east, Russia…there’s some irony in Ukraine and Russia taking opposite sides in the 2016 presidential race, given that past Ukrainian elections were widely viewed in Washington’s foreign policy community as proxy wars between the U.S. and Russia…the (Ukrainian) embassy also worked directly with reporters researching Trump, Manafort and Russia to point them in the right directions…“They were coordinating an investigation with the Hillary team on Paul Manafort with Alexandra Chalupa,”…“If we can get enough information on Paul [Manafort] or Trump’s involvement with Russia, she can get a hearing in Congress by September.”….Clinton’s campaign seized on the story to advance Democrats’ argument that Trump’s campaign was closely linked to Russia…the majority of Ukraine’s politicians are “on Hillary Clinton’s side.”…“It was something that Poroshenko was probably aware of and could have stopped if he wanted to,”…Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk warned on Facebook that Trump had “challenged the very values of the free world.” Ukraine’s minister of internal affairs, Arsen Avakov, piled on, trashing Trump on Twitter in July as a “clown” and asserting that Trump is “an even bigger danger to the US than terrorism.”…
One should not be so naive to think that the USA does not intervene on a daily basis to affect the outcome of international political situations on a massive basis….
I find it interesting that the Ukraine gov set up by the USA.gov Neo-cons became a conduit to undermine Trump in the election, supplying Hillary with the Putin’s puppet ammunition. Very circular. And of course, the USA Congress will only investigate Russia and not election interference by Ukraine. The Politico story was notably ignored by Google News and the MSM. War with Russia has taken on a life of its own.
Who is to be the judge of fake news?
Ministry of truth;)
Fun Question: What would be in YOUR Room 101?
Having to listen to an endless loop of Obama speeches.
Wow. Chills. I can’t take even three seconds before that damn whistling “denture” sound starts.
I knew that sooner or later the establishment would turn this into a First Amendment crisis and attempt to steamroll protected speech.
The camel just stuck his nose under the tent.
Merkel and Obama are somewhere in this mix. They gave a joint press conf mentioning it a couple of months back when Obama was in Germany.
The call to do this has legs and is backed by the powerful.
Blogs next?
Public broadcast of information of any kind. Look at Spain’s gag law to get an idea of the direction it can take. Guess what, the public first complain about its unfairness and joke about absurdity of its first rulings… but then it all goes quiet, very quiet, no scribbling notes to each other in class, strict teacher watching.
I think the main problem with the media these days is that some years ago, someone suggested they eat s**t and die and they apparently thought it was a good idea and so decided to do it.
When is there going to be a public rebellion?
The Trump election was the public rebellion.
All this is doing is taking up time that would otherwise be available for our scrutiny of the content of the Podesta e-mails.
More clever mis-direction from the Democrats.
The recent revelations that some or even much of the news we see may be “fake” should not shock us. Confirming that someone else has been less than forthright does not elevate institutions such as the Washington Post, the New York Times, or PBS to a higher level. The article below calls for us to question all we are told or see.
http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2016/12/fake-news-revelations-should-not-shock.html
About a year ago, it became apparent to me that my main sources of news information, CBS and NPR had become corrupted. Even Charlie Rose and Scott Pelley are now in the highly suspect class of reporters. I have quit listening to “news” when the political angle broaches itself in all new media. I will wait to see the results…not the prognostications of the parent companies.
The news suggesting a curtail of freedom of speech is the same as offering their head on a platter to our gluttonous government. For goodness sakes! Did none of them even stop to think that putting a stop to fake news would put most of the media out of business? There would be a witch hunt like we’ve never seen. And just whom would make the decision for what’s true or not? And what’s to stop them from eroding other freedoms after that in a bid to keep us all honest?
Very, very bad editorial piece. They need to retract that, no revise.
this is all part of what the Pentagon calls “full-spectrum dominance”
and media outlets such as the FT are a major part of this axis.
(air,sea,land,media etc)
i’m glad i stopped reading the FT in 2005
i suppose the time may very well come when Trump
makes use of some of the laws passed by Obama,
and espoused by media outlets such as the FT, and the BBC, Economist (etc,etc)
to do just what the FT are currently advocating,
ie throwing journalists into prison for whatever reason as he sees fit
(#1 reason being not following the party line, (as seen by His HIghness)
you’ve just got to be amused at all this
The comment attributed to Mark Twain: “If you don’t read the paper, you are not informed. If you do read the paper, you are misinformed.”
So this Fake News is nothing new.
“Early in life I had noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper.” — George Orwell
Since he was born in 1903, we can estimate that he came to this conclusion around the 1920s or so.
Fake = “I disagree with”.
This ‘law’ wouldn’t be used against the MSM, that is just wishful thinking on our part………………..It would be used against the likes of Wikileaks/blogs, etc, etc. THAT is what this law is all about. Strange isn’t it? The west is becoming communist China, and the USSR
I got banned from FT a long time ago for disagreeing with an article. I rebutted the article about the USA from a Brit that did not know a darn thing about what he was talking about. I even posted the link to government charts and I have not been back since.
Always thought the pink paper was sophisticated and dull, it caught my interest briefly, mainly the financial blog, but then they paywalled and to read the likes of Martin Wolf so figured better to leave them in their cage.
This silly dossier story is doing Trump a huge favor. Almost no one is talking about his (basic)admission in the press conference that he will continue to run his business while President. Anyone really believe he is going to let his two goofball sons do it without him getting involved?
From the Director of the Office of Government Ethics:
““The plan the [President-elect] has announced doesn’t meet the standards that the best of his nominees are meeting and that every president in the last four decades have met,” Shaub said. “We can’t risk the perception that government leaders would use their official positions for professional profit.”
Perception?? The only two things Trump cares about are fame and fortune. Perception is being way too charitable.
1. Trump loosens libel laws as promised.
2. Changes to libel laws allow corporations and governments to sue other corporations or people of libel.
3. Trump directs attorney general Jeff sessions to sue news organizations of libel when they issue fake news.
4. Trump pays off national debt with monetary awards from libel lawsuits.
” A newspaper is a device designed to make the ignorant more ignorant and the crazy crazier.”
– H.L. Mencken
“If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you’re mis-informed.” ~ Mark Twain
I read recently that Gloria Steinem was CIA before she started her opinion-making career. Of course William Buckley likely was as well. Funny no one asked them when exactly they _stopped_ working with the CIA. With Ms Magazine, National Review and Ramparts in the fold, with, essentially, editorial control of the Washington Post, (and close working relationships with Punch Sulzberger of the NYT and Paley of CBS) the CIA certainly had full-spectrum dominance of the ‘news media’ for the last 70 years.
It’s amazing that when we throw ‘fake news’ back in their faces, they get their feelings hurt. Or pretend to.
It’s called Operation Mockinbird. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird
Bill O’Reilly and countless others.
Bottom line, the MainStreamMedia is not trust worthy.
It’s not lies, it’s fiction.
_aleph_
“We were virtual reality before virtual reality was cool.”
MSM
time to be afraid. those in power, politicians and the media, have lost control of the “news” due to the internet.
You quote Trump as saying ” “As far as hacking, I think it was Russia.” Then, right away you write “He did not even say Russia hacked anything.”
It this just me or are you not making any sense at all?
He said he thought they did which is not the same thing as saying they did.
I clarified in my points below
What a joke! Trump saying “he thought they did is not the same as saying they did”? How much more definitive could he have been than saying “As far as hacking, I think it was Russia”? In your view he should have said “I firmly believe with no doubt whatever that it was Russia hacking”, or similar? He made no reference or any indication that he was speaking of the DNC ( or “the election” or anything else in particular) regarding his statement. I guess if I say “I think Trump is a buffoon”, I am only saying in your terminology that Trump maybe, possibly, could be a buffoon. You clarified nothing. You obfuscated.
Do you think Russia hacked the DNC, even though the only proof disclosed so far is that the Wikilinks emails came from a whistleblower.
Just for grins, let’s say Russia did hack the DNC, or even used mind control to over Democratic voters to make them vote for Trump. As hard as it is to believe that the mind control technology was not deployed in CA or NY, let’s ignore it and ask, why would the Russians want Trump over Hillary? Could it be they did not want another world war?
Other than exposing the establishment propagandist, the debate is a waste of time.
I don’t know and nor does anyone else including Trump – except who did it and close associates
Inconsistent sentence:
“By the way, the DNC was “hacked” by anyone. ”
probably should be:
By the way, the DNC was not “hacked” by anyone.
yes – thank you
That likely added to the confusion!
MSM media has been dropping consistently over the years and are in a state of crisis, left wondering why they can’t get their business model going. They are just sawing the seeds of their own doom.
MIsh — you can help end the fake news bull sheet by quoting the FT less frequently. Its a terrible media outlet that is nothing like the newspaper it once was.
Readers (viewers) of media get the quality of crap they demand. The FT’s primary job is to get eyeballs, so they can get advertising dollars.
If the FT didn’t think most of their declining readership liked being lied to — they wouldn’t keep doing it.
If Bezos wasn’t such a clueless absentee owner, he would be putting the screws to the WaPo editors already. Sure, Bezos is a west coast lib-tard, but Amazon needs customers from all over the country. Same with WaPo.
Please stop giving these FT morons attention they don’t deserve.
I get a lot of good content (to comment on) from the FT
My top post now was inspired by the FT
Like anyone else it has good writers and bad writers
But its editorial board has its head up its ass