We say "information war", I'd argue, because it's about information theory at its core, and it's not about raw data nor the manufacture of facts.
It's unbelievably contentious to provide a complete account of how people read, but at least for disinfo, you could think of it like this:
A fact is an objectively existent thing/event.
A reading is what we make out of that.
The narrative is the story we tell around it.
People just, like, making stuff up is pretty easy to handle, we know what to call that.
So, like, George Santos.
As in, literally anything George Santos says about himself.
That's pretty clearly intentionally making stuff up, or disinformation.
When we deal with a true fact, though, and assign a misleading reading, or use it to advance or make more real ("reify") a false or hateful narrative, then it stops being so cut-and-dry.
This sounds hand-wavey without examples (a lot of disinfo theory does, actually).
This is a really good example I just came across today courtesy of fellow... uh... #nafo#fella (#nafellow?)
That video isn't forged or a deepfake. No one is saying that.
And if you want to enact a demand-side solution, you aren't doing it with an app, or for that matter anything else that's all "stagey" and cringe and artificial like that.
It requires something that looks a lot like NAFO actually.
A recurrent concept in early-2024 British military thinking appears to have been the idea of a "pre-war generation", the idea that events in the first quarter of the 21st century observe more of a pattern of military escalation towards war, rather than de-escalation after it.
🧵
This raised initial concerns about the return of some form of the draft, which is somewhat of a red herring; I think that's not what 'whole-of-society' participation in a society on pre-war footing really means.
Given the most significant strategic and geopolitical reversal. really a defeat, in nearly a century occurring within our lifetimes, namely the United States' startling 180-degree abdication of its global role and debasement of basic principles of international law...
This is a key piece of what’s going on that I think more people should put together into summaries and pictures of the world
What you're looking at here is so big as to be indistinguishable from a concerted information war effort by something/someone efficacious and powerful
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To the extent that a meme can comprise a threat signal, this is a big one.
Consider what happened to Clinton in '16 or Fauci in '20: you cannot mention their names today with some people, without hearing (successful) disinformation campaigns that have taken root in their beliefs
Mention Clinton, and chances are, the person you're talking to will think Clinton is corrupt without knowing how, or too personally unpopular to get elected without saying why they know (neither are true - Clinton was never charged with a crime and she won the popular vote).
Zelensky is actually the highest-profile world leader who has ever stood up to Trump.
Drop the frame of evaluating the damage to our country, or analyzing how bad Trump's actions are, for just a moment, and sort of step back and see it from Zelensky's position.
Zelensky is the leader of a country at war which is highly dependent upon foreign aid for its survival.
His popularity indexes with how much aid Ukraine gets, which controls Ukraine's military viability.
That is the biggest risk to Ukraine that he can control personally.
The amount of U.S. military aid he gets, I think we've all seen, he doesn't control, not with this President in office willing to impound Congressionally authorized funds.
"Trump-Russia", by which people mean a variety of different ideas and explanatory theories ranging from "omg Agent Krasnov!" to "senior citizen being steamrolled by Putin", has never been about any kind of secret or non-public information.
It's because of what he's done. (🧵)
In 2016, the only substantive change that the Trump campaign wanted made to the Republican Party platform was support for lethal aid to Ukraine.
In 2017, once elected, Trump met Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak alone in the Oval Office a day after firing James Comey because he wouldn't offer Trump public assurances that he wasn't involved with Russia. npr.org/sections/thetw…
First, we know that there’s something wrong with Trump’s relationship with Russia. Some of us may not admit it, but almost all of us know it.
I believe there’s a high risk that Russia has been controlling Trump to some extent since 2016. Many Americans also believe this. Some of us even believe that Russia has “kompromat” on Trump. Since we may never know for sure, we consider it a risk.
Слухайте, якщо ми зараз будемо абсолютно чесними з українцями, тому що Трамп їх накручує, я хочу сказати дві речі.
(🧵)
По-перше, ми знаємо, що у відносинах Трампа з Росією щось не так. Деякі з нас, можливо, не визнають цього, але ми майже всі це знаємо.
Я вважаю, що існує високий ризик того, що Росія певною мірою контролює Трампа з 2016 року. Багато американців також вірять у це. Деякі з нас навіть вважають, що Росія має «компромат» на Трампа. Оскільки ми можемо ніколи не знати напевно, ми вважаємо це ризиком.